gaff topsail sheet

[George G]

Dalia just got her first suit of topsails, and we love them! Amazing how so little canvas, hung up there on the topmasts where the wind blows, can add speed.

The only irritant is the gaff topsail sheet. When we drop the main it drops slack over the deck and cockpit, merrily swinging with the main boom, trying its best to snag the wheel and bimini top and to lasso the heads of helmsperson and any unwary guests. The hauling part is fine since it leads inside the lazylifts, but the part that ties to the topsail clew has to be led outside everything, free to drop on deck... Has anyone ever seen a solution to this (other than having someone bring it in by hand as the gaff drops - we commonly go out short-handed)

[Ian McColgin]

Try leading it down along the gaff and then to deck from the throat. This will allow you to trim for neatness on the way up before fulling breaking out the topsail, especially if you put it up in rotten stops or brailes.

G'luck

[NormMessinger]

I gotta get LazyNorm off his duff and get the tops'l for Prairie Islander rigged. Next week?

What do you use for rotten stops, Ian?

[Ian McColgin]

Forgot to mention above, I'd call the line the topsail outhaul rather than a sheet.

Anyway, rotten stops are a nice traditional way to get a light sail up in a kind of snake for later breaking out. Named after the rotten bits of string formerly used.

On spinakers and topsails I've used light threads. Once around and a reef knot. A good snap on the outhaul or guy and sheet and they break out zipper like.

Light largish rubber bands also work. These tend not to break but will slide towards the peak on a spinaker or to the peak and tack on a topsail. Those that don't break in any given use can be used again.

If I've the time and leisure, it's nice to zigzag fold the sail and then stop it, but really you can just scrunch it under the left arm and torso and tie them in as you go.

On a little gaff schooner I rigged for short handed sailing, I put each topsail on a staff and had three brail lines that came together to one down haul. That way the sail could be both set and struck at least somewhat confined to the staff.

The brail lines went from the staff through a cringle in the leach, at the clew and in the foot and back to the other side of the staff. The brail from the clew had a block about half way back to the staff, and all three were joined below the brail from the foot. That way, they all snugged up together even though the brail around the clew was, perforce, a good deal longer than the other two.

Takes a bit of hand coordination to handle the hallyard, outhaul and brail line all with only two hands but the amount of line to be handed when setting and let slide when striking is so close to the same for all three that it's not as bad as you'd think.

G'luck.

[George G]

I rigged Dalia´s topsail so that the hauling part of the halyard is used as a leader. The sail is hanked on to the haulyard in two places along the luff. That way it goes up and down on a jackstay, so to speak, and not flying - much more civilized. It is a smallish sail (15 sqr. meters).

As for the sheet, or outhaul, I do run it through a block at the gaff jaws and thence down to the pinrail. That is not the part of it that causes problems. It is the other part - the part that runs from the gaff tip to the topsail clew when the topsail is down, as in when dropping the main. This part cannot run through blocks, lazylifts, or anything that the sail itself can´t run through when being hoisted. Thus it drops to the deck in a long swinging bight of poliester once the gaff starts coming down, and in trying to wrap itself around things and people, it seems to have a will of its own. Does that not happen on other boats, if there is no spare hand to take in the topsail sheet as the gaff comes down? Is there a solution, or do you just get used to it, like so many things on our wonderful boats?

[Ian Wright]

Originally posted by NormMessinger:
What do you use for rotten stops, Ian?

This Ian no longer bothers to hoist the tops'l in stops, but when I did rotten cotten(or rotton cotton) did the job.
Buy the green hairy string that gardeners buy to tie up tomato plants. It's a natural fiber with a short life.
Wind your ball of string around a couple of fence posts and leave it to the sun and rain to begin the rotting process. After a month check it every week or so until you judge it weak enough then re-ball it and use it to your hearts content.
No, I'm not kidding,,,,,,,,, [img]smile.gif[/img]

IanW

[Ed Burnett]

Well, if you are about to drop the main why not just cast off the end of the topsail sheet and pull it out completely. That takes it out of the equation when you are dealing with the mainsail.

If you don't want the bother of re-reaving it next time just tie a knot in the end and pull it through til that gets to the end of the gaff. At least then you halve the problem.

Either way, and as Ian said, you want the hauling part of the sheet to lead back along the gaff to the saddle before heading down to the pin rail. The usual thing is to have a small block on a short leader at the saddle. The ultimate luxury is to lead the sheet down the inside of a hollow gaff but it is probably a bit late for you to do that now.

[NormMessinger]

Thanks, Ian OTR. The stuff I used to tie tomatos up last summer should be about ready. There was a reason I didn't clear the garden last fall other than lazyness, eh.

[John B]

As above except we keep our topsail permanently on the boom so when its left set up to go( the halyard and sheet attached), the sheet is close to the sail IE inside the topping lift/ lazy jacks .

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Ed Burnett is right as usual, but consider this:

The annoying end of the topsail sheet is actually a safety device.

Once you have belayed the hauling part of the sheet, if you grab the other end of the sheet and trap it under a cleat near the cockpit you can use it as a vang to control the mad antics of the gaff as it comes down.

This is of academic interest when dropping the mainsail in a light air on your mooring. In a gale at sea it is not at all academic. Eric Tabarly, one of the finest small boat seamen that ever lived, was swept overboard by the gaff as it was being lowered in a gale, and I speculate that, his crew being fairly inexperienced, no-one was using the topsail sheet as a vang.

HW Tilman, who did not bother much with topsails, but who was a very safe seaman, always had a vang rigged to the end of the gaff, purely to control it when handing the mainsail at sea. This is a bit of "advanced" gaff rig seamanship that you don't find in books and I will tell you how Tilman knew. He was taught it by Robert Somerset, who took HWT sailing on "Iolaire" when he had her. He was taught it by EG Martin from whom he bought Jolie Brise and Martin was taught it by Brixham trawlermen.

[George G]

Thanks to all for the replies. I believe the best destillation would then be to cast off the clew and pull up the sheet (with a stopper knot) in light weather, and to use the sheet as a vang in heavy going - although with Dalia´s lazylifts we haven´t have any trouble with misbehaving gaffs yet. Then again we haven´t dropped the main in more than a force 5 yet!

I didn´t know Tabarly was done in by a gaff. Should have worn a harness... But did he have lazylifts or something similar to guide the gaff down under some control? Dalia has twin topping lifts with lazylifts, and we trim them in before dropping the main - seems to tame the sail and gaff. Could that have saved Tabarly, or would it make no difference in a serious wind?

Tillman is quite a character... one of my oracles. Plus he got to die at sea at a riper old age than Tabarly...

[John B]

I have forgotten to pull the topping lifts on before now when dropping the sail.The typical gaff topping lifts you usually see capture the gaff and trap it in line with the boom. I always surmised that that is what happened to Tabarly.Inexperied crew who(or simply a mistake), in the rush to douse sail, dropped the halyards before setting the lifts . If the lifts weren't set up , the gaff was able to fly around. I can't see how else the gaff can fling around enough to throw someone overboard.
Does anyone actually know the truth of the loss.?

http://www.ybw.com/auto/newsdesk/199...24ywlnews.html

[ 03-23-2004, 05:46 PM: Message edited by: John B ]

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

In my experience, the lifts are not enough to effectively control the gaff when the mainsail is lowered at sea.

There are several reasons for this.

First, the lifts must be eased to get the boom down, either into a permanent gallows, if fitted, or down on deck. X shaped or Y shaped portable crutches are not up to the job of holding boom and sail agaist the violent accelerations which occur with the boat rolling heavily.

It may thought thought that the lifts can be set up hard, with the sheet hardened in, and the sail dropped between them, some tyers put round and the whole lot then dropped into the gallows or onto the deck.

But this will not work in a hard wind with a lot of sea. The sail will hang up on the lee lift, needing violent antics to try to clear it, and quite possibly it will tear into the bargain.

The lifts will not be able to restrain the gaff enough to stop it throwing a man OB, because the boat is chucked about quite violently as the sail comes down and the wind will still be in the sail as well.

The only safe answer is to use either a dedicated vang, as Tilman did, if you have no topsail sheet, or to use the topsail sheet. It goes without saying that a very light topsail sheet is unwise.

The mainboom must be secured rigidly before the sail is lowered away; it will be necessary to ease the throat halyard to acheive this, but the peak may not need to be touched.

This leaves the question of what to do if singlehanded. The answer is, as usual, to be found in Worth (""Tern" in the gale of 1896"" in "Yacht Cruising") but the trick is to go very gently lowering first one halyard a few feet, then the other, and ideally leading the topsail sheet back to the mast via a block or deck eye aft.

[George G]

Dalia has no boom gallows, and the idea of dropping the main boom on deck in a seaway, with the sail still up, sounds frightening. We drop the main by setting up the lifts (actually, the boom has a high angle, so we sail with the lifts set up but slack - when we slack off the throat the boom drops about 25 cm and thus tightens the lifts). Then we drop the main with the sheet slack. If the sea is up we do this hove-to under foresail and headsails, to lessen the roll. But from Andrew´s post I gather this might not work in a serious blow.

At the same time, if we keep the sheet tight to hold the boom still the sail refuses to come down, as it presses against the lifts and lazyjacks - it seems that it would be even worse in a blow. Tom Cunliffe advocates tacking, and letting fly the halyards as the boat goes through the wind. Then again, I believe he had no lazyjacks in Hirta...

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Much as I like Tom Cunliffe I am not wholly sold on some of his advice. He says there is no need to mouse the hooks of your peak halyard blocks on
the gaff spans; I tried this once and got a halyard at the top of the mast within a few hours.

[Ian Wright]

Patience has, for the last couple of years, twin topping lifts, and gaff vangs both sides. Lowering single handed ought to be a problem, two lifts, two vangs, two halyards and only two hands.
I was going to describe how it's done but find my literary skills are not up to it... but it all works, mostly.
Andrew, you're right about Tom Cunliffe, but at least he is more to be relied on than John Leather. [img]smile.gif[/img]

IanW

[ 03-24-2004, 11:59 AM: Message edited by: Ian Wright ]