Jibstay/bobstay rigging on a gaff cutter (options, opinions)

[bott]

I am currently working out the workings of my (yet unfinished) headgear on a 32’ gaff cutter. I have a pretty good idea that this is all correct, but I wanted to make sure by running it by the vetted and sharp minds here at the WBF. The boat is a true gaff cutter, in the sense that the jib and jib stay is run out the bowsprit on a traveler ring, set in a Dyarchy halyard/stay-tensioning system (which I like). The sprit extends about 10’ out of the gammon iron, and is reefable by sliding down the side deck.
The problem/question arises with the bobstay. Currently (as I purchased the boat) it is all chain with a turnbuckle at the cranes iron. When at the dock/hook with the sails in there is nothing supporting the downward pull of the bobstay, so either it is too loose under sail or too tight and stressful on the sprit when the ring is run in. Ideally I want to have the sprit “floating” in the gammon iron when under sail so all the forces on it are pure compression, especially in the vertical.

To fix this problem, I see two solutions. Both of which I think would work, but I think one of them is better. I’d like to throw this to the committee for discussion in case I am missing something…

1) Put a decent tackle on the bobstay, so when setting the jib the halyard can be dynamically opposed and balanced by the bobstay tackle. I like this one better, but it may be a bigger pain in the butt than I imagine to constantly tweak and maintain this relationship.

2) Put a permanent stay at the end of the sprit to constantly work against the fixed bobstay with its turnbuckle. Then let the job set on the Dyarchy system, or flying. I don’t like the idea of adding another element to the rig, but maybe with something like ¼” amsteel it could be done quite easily… But then you are stuck retuning the rig (at the end of the sprit) every time you reef and re-set the bobstay. Also, right now the mast is pretty much unstayed above the hounds (pole masted with a Cornish topsail), so I am little leery about constant static loads levering from up there.

Are there other options I am forgetting? Are there addition reasons one of those two are superior?

[bott]

Here are some supporting pics...

You can see here the reef'd sprit



And the boat profile with where the stays affix and land on the mast:

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

I vote for "a" - the bobstay tackle.

It's what I've got; it works well. If you need to graunch it down hard, take the tail to the warping drum on the windlass, but be careful doing this as its easy to overdo it (don't ask me how I know that...)

[Ian McColgin]

I don't see the problem with taking all tension on the jibstay when set. The sprit will not be "floating" or under pure compression in any event unless you add side whiskers that are neither apparant nor apparantly needed. But without them the sprit will at the least bow to leeward.

It would be well to leather the bejezus on the inside of the gammon iron to limit the float and slap when the sprit is extended.

G'luck

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

I would fit bowsprit shrouds. They do reduce the bending load on the bowsprit, as Ian rightly says, but, more important, they provide the best means of getting to the end of it, should you ever need to. I've needed to, a couple of times. They can be quite light and made up to lanyards.

[bott]

Thanks for the replys.

I am planning on fitting shrouds, out of HM rope (seems ideal for this purpose) made to lanyards on thimbles. Good call on the leather too... the stbd side of the gammon is angled to allow the sprit heel to kick out so it can run the deck. But this puts a sharp load on the wood on the forward edge. Leather plus a little wedge-like fid seems in order there....

[John B]

You really want to try hard to leave a headstay off if you can. It gives so many options for extras... a nice little fat reacher asymetric which you can gybe inside or out ( with no headstay in the way).
Definitely go the shrouds.

[john welsford]

The other issue about a headstay on the bowsprit is that any tension that is taken by that stay is tension that is not helping to reduce the luff sag on the jib when set, even when considering that the jib tack is on a tackle it will have an effect.
Go and check out John Leathers book "Gaff Rig" to see how it was done when that rig was the norm. Tom Cunliffes "Hand Reef and Steer" could also be helpful.

JohnW

You really want to try hard to leave a headstay off if you can. It gives so many options for extras... a nice little fat reacher asymetric which you can gybe inside or out ( with no headstay in the way).
Definitely go the shrouds.

[Ian McColgin]

A stray note about why "floating" the the sprit in the gammon is a bad thought: A spar held at two points is stronger than one at one point. Remember how the scantlings for a deck stepped mast are heavier for the same boat and rig if keel stepped and also held at the partners. You want to shape the iron and spar and leathers to hold that spar nice and firmly when the pole is run out.

[John B]

The other issue about a headstay on the bowsprit is that any tension that is taken by that stay is tension that is not helping to reduce the luff sag on the jib when set, even when considering that the jib tack is on a tackle it will have an effect.
Go and check out John Leathers book "Gaff Rig" to see how it was done when that rig was the norm. Tom Cunliffes "Hand Reef and Steer" could also be helpful.

JohnW

Mind you, you can also look at it as a guage or measure. if you have one. Waione is set up that way and to set my jib, I wind on halyard until the headstay goes slack. The trick with the wykham martin, is to get it slack enough but not so slack that it winds up with the sail.

[Hwyl]

Do you have furling gear on your jib? If so the permanent headstay thing will get in it's way.

I don't know what HM rope is, but I'd go for some kind of spectra for the whisker shrouds and you need a way to gather it in when you ship your bowsprit. I agree with Andrew about the footropes and etcetera. With a suitably attached halyard and well placed cushion, it also makes a nice place for relaxing (and or affection).

[bott]

HM = high modulus i.e., spectra, amsteel and the like. so we are of the same mind

[John B]

Spectra creeps.This amsteel stuff you guys talk about might be better.

[seo]

It looks to me as if your rig is bald-headed (without topmast). If that's the case, why not use running backstays to tighten up your headstay?
I'd be tempted to set up the rig so that when the bowsprit is run all the way forward the shrouds are tight, the bobstay slightly slack. Very slightly. Just slightly enough so that the tension doesn't hog the bowsprit down. Then once the headstay is run forward, if a running back is tightened up it hauls the masthead aft, tightening up the headstay.

I've had some experience with this type of rig, sailing Friendship sloops and gaff schooners from 45' LOD to 100' LOD, in various configurations. Bald headed, gaff topsail, club topsail, square topsail. On one of them we had eight, count'em, eight running backstays to tend. And running main forestays, for goodness sakes.

My general observation is that the sail out front, whether it's a jib, or jib topsail, or flying jib, isn't really a going to windward sail. It's good on a reach, and is wonderful when there are people around with cameras. But before spending huge amounts of energy on this topic, I'd suggest that you use modern technology to figure out how winding up headstay tension effects speed made good to windward.

[Ed Burnett]

There are of course any number of options here. At one end of the scale, bowsprits like yours can have very simple rigging, and are almost an optional extra in the rig. At the other end, they can be decked out with all kinds of rigging and tackles and so on. Where you want to be on this scale will be dictated partly by the overall proportions of the rig, ie how much sail area is in the jib relative to everything else, and how important this sail is to the boat in general.

Looking at the pictures, I expect you are somewhere in the middle. I would be inclined to have a little more support for your bowsprit, but everything you add now makes running the spar in and out more of a pain.

The main thing to consider here I think is the need (or otherwise) for some sort of headstay. The purpose of this would be to do some of the jobs that the luff of the jib would do when the sail is set, primarily supporting the end of the bowsprit, and secondly holding the top of the mast forward.

The aim would be for the stay to take no load (go slack) when the jib luff is tensioned. The end of the bowsprit can need support for example when you are punching into a head sea with no jib set (for whatever reason). If the bowsprit pokes itself into a wave, and the boat then pitches up, the downward loads are considerable. This is quite a popular way of breaking bowsprits, and in one recent case the bowsprit took the fidded topmast with it courtesy of the topmast headstay. You can set up the jib halyard to support the end of the sprit, but it is perhaps most likley that the boat will be pitching a lot when you are changing jibs and it only takes one wave.... Similarly, and depending on the proportions of the rig aloft, the top of the main mast may need some support against the load from the peak halyards (again when the jib is not set).

If you add a headstay, you will need a tackle to adjust it and to be able to release the tension when you want to run the bowsprit in.

Bowsprit shrouds are also worth considering, but again what is needed in one boat is not necessarily needed in another, and if you add them you will need some means of adjusting them.

Tackles on bobstays are something of a pain, primarily because it requires a lot of purchase to get enough tension, and it is hard to find nice looking blocks that are strong enough without being huge.

There is one system I have used quite a lot in the past which may well work for you, but it is hard to tell from the photos exactly how your bowsprit works with the samson post. Does it plug into a socket on the forward face?

[seo]

You might be interested in looking at some of the very modern designs for housing bowsprits that are seen in racing boats. The point being that a well-made dacron jib with a correctly built luff doesn't really need a headstay, particularly if the sail is used for reaching. The old "flying" jib, reborn.
A sail set flying can get a little wild going up and coming down, but if you've sailed with spinnakers it's not terribly daunting.
Particularly with a boat like yours, where it might be possible to leave the jib up while housing the bowsprit, or jibboom, or whatever it's properly called.
When figuring out rigging details on traditional style vessels, it's easy to become doctrinaire about how it ought to be, because that's how it was done a hundred years ago. But if your design is two hundred years old, then hundred year old isn't really "authentic."
As a small example, a couple years ago I was involved with rigging and running a modern-day version of a Baltimore clipper. She had galvanized steel rigging, when the original design was gone before even the Royal Navy could afford steel rigging. So what we sailed with was sort of a cobbled-up amalgam, but there was no reason to not change things out of a love of being "authentic." If we were being authentic, the standing rigging would be hemp, the sails flax, etc.
My point being that if it makes sense to try a jib set flying, try it. What's the worst that can happen? Amazingly strong sails are available from a used sail brokerage like the one in Annapolis for next to nothing.
It's not like we're tampering with the rites of the catholic church...

[Ed Burnett]

To clarify, the headstay I mention above is independent of the jib, which as bott has already mentioned is set on a Dyarchy stay. It could equally well be set flying (which is perfectly normal on this sort of boat), or flying but with a wykeham martin type roller gear. The headstay I am talking about is there as a security measure when the jib luff (however it may be set) is not providing a connection between the bowsprit and the masthead.

I do agree very much with what seo says about not being bound by what might be advertised as the "correct" way of doing things. There is huge variety in traditional boats, all used by different people in different ways. What is right for one won't be right for all, and it is actually great fun to work out solutions (in terms of arrangements and materials) that are appropriate in each case.

[bott]

Thanks for the replys...

First off, I am indeed looking for an effective and solid solution... We no longer live in a time when obtaining a new spar to replate a broken sprit is as trivial, so I am keen to keep the spar safe with a little more rigging if needed. I was looking to use Amsteel (or similar, SK-78) for a permanent headstay if i were to go that route. So far I am going to keep the dyarchy setup over a flying jib, but I am sure it ultemately makes little difference (and I am not keen on removing the nicely hand-stitched hanks on the luff).

As far as the sprit heel attachment... the sampson post has a stainless socket on the fwd face with an opening gate at the stbd side so the heel can be kicked out and slid along the stbd side deck. If that makes your system applicable Mr. Burnett.

[seo]

When a friend of mine broke the bowsprit on his Friendship sloop he went out in the woods and got a young spruce tree, and in a couple of hours, voila, bowsprit. In similar fashion, I was on the Pride of Baltimore when she broke her jibboom in transit San Francisco-Panama. Once a stick of wood was got, it took the ship's carpenter with a couple of helpers the time it took to go through the canal to shape a new jibboom.
They are just trees, after all.
One of the oddities of modern life is we sail these traditional rigs, but treat them as if they have to be rigged just LIKE THAT, all the time. Whatever happened to the fun of ringtails and jibbooms, club topsails, etc?
In my life sailing boats, I've sailed on many schooners with fidded topmasts, but the only one that I've sailed in that actually, routinely, housed her topmast was the schooner Mary Day. They needed to house her topmast to get under the bridge in Eggemoggin Reach, Maine, which she commonly did at least once a week, all summer long.
I must confess that I was on board as relief captain, so really had no idea what they were doing up there. I asked the mate how long it would take to cause the mainmast to shorten, and he said out ten minutes, and so I said all right you'd better go ahead and do that, and shortly, the mast was shorter, and then we went under the bridge, and up it went again.
What a lot of fun.
At one point there was a question of whether the Amistad would fit under a certain bridge over the river that leads up to Bristol, England. That would have been an adventure, slinging the topsail yard from the maintop, housing the foretopmast and maintopmast.
But then it turned out there was plenty of clearance.
Bummer.
We would have had a grand old time, playing sailboat.

[Ed Burnett]

Bott,

It sounds like you need to be able to release the bobstay then to be able to run the spar in, unless you are prepared to reconfigure things a little.

The system I had in mind works such that the bobstay is tensioned by pushing the heel of the bowsprit down. You slide it out poking down, until the heel of the spar passes over the top of the samson post and can pushed down the forward face of it. As it slides down, the bobstay comes tight and (once it is all correctly adjusted) forcing it down the last inch bends the spar a little and that's that. A pin through the heel or across the top keeps it safely in place. If you are lucky, the bowsprit shrouds have a bit of downward angle too, so forcing the heel down tensions all three things in one go. All that remains is to snug up the headstay with a tackle and that's it. You need guides to keep the butt of the spar middled in the samson post - or it needs to sit between a pair of bits with bearing blocks on the sides of the spar.

The joy of this is that you can do without a bobstay tackle (I find a lashing for length adjustment is more satisfactory than a rigging screw). If the angles don't work for the bowsprit shrouds, you can have lashings (which are slow), tackles (which are cumbersome) or some sort of pellican hook. The nicest solution is to run the shroud through the bulwark to a highfield lever on deck.

Your bowsprit isn't that long and looks quite light, so it would be nice to keep the system simple. The only downside I can see is that your samson post is well forward, so when it is fully out you don't have much weight of spar inboard to balance it. With the system I mention, running the spar in starts with giving it a good pull upward and it can then be hard to stop it! Some sort of "catching line" over the top of the heel of the spar might be an idea.

[seo]

Isn't the usual way of working a housing bowsprit to have two bitt posts in the foredeck, with a cross bar though the two of them for making up lines on. The bowsprit's width is the same as the space between the two bitt-posts. The bowsprit has a tenon cut though it, and a pair of wooden quoins (wedges to some, but a quoin is a right triangle, and a wedge is an isosceles triangle) are driven in through the tenon, one from each side, so that they push back against bitt posts, and forward against the forward side of the tenon.
The butt end of the bowsprit is caught between the bitt posts, and so can't move athwartships.
When the bowsprit is housed, it slides back between the bittposts, and is held there neatly and securely. My guess is that if you want to stow the bowsprit over against the bulwarks that you'd have to make it so that the cross pin on the bitt posts could be driven out, allowing the bowsprit to be lifted up out of the space between the bitt posts.

[Hesp]

I tried all sorts on Hope my 27' gaff cutter (except using a traveller).

Chain bobstay tensioned by tackle - Didn't like it and no amount of hauling on the tackle could get rid of the sag (which then acted like a spring).

HM rope bobstay tensioned by tackle - better than chain, and worked okay in itself. I suspect that because the tackle wasn't in line with the bobstay (it was along the bowsprit most of the time) the end of the bowsprit was able to move slightly, transferring a bit of rope from the tackle to the bobstay. Putting the tackle actually on the bobstay instead of along the bowsprit helps a bit in this respect, but it's more difficult to set up a really decent mechanical advantage. Note that a double or triple block will tend to twist and bind because of the different directions of the ropes. Also check the working loads of the blocks, the bobstay is under considerable tension.

Wire bobstay (big) tensioned with turnbuckle - best option for me. There's no question that it's strong enough or that it's tensioned enough.

......

Jib hanked to fixed headstay - I think I tried this once or twice but going out on the bowsprit wasn't good.

Jib set flying with wire halyard and a tackle/downhaul to bowsprit end - too compicated,and again the tackle didn't work well.

Jib set on Wyckham Martin furling gear with wire halyard on winch - worked well, but only when I'd switched to the wire bobstay with turnbuckle.

My conclusions - others might have come to different conclusions having different priorities and different boats/rigs.

An adjustable system that allows bowsprit reefing isn't as stretch free as a permanent setup.

Again, having the jib "permanently" set on a WM furling gear was preferable to hoisting it. Worse than hoisting it is getting it down when you're short handed. A winch tensions things up considerably more effectively than a tackle, and once the system is set up it needs little adjustment for the season. For me this was by far the best solution and the one I'd choose again.

The above did make reefing the bowsprit more difficult, but it was difficult anyway as bowsprit shrouds had to be released before reefing, and remade up again afterwards (they were on lanyards which always worked okay). For me the convenience of being able to make sail quickly far outweighed the ability to reef the bowsprit. But then I have an aversion to marinas

John

[bott]

I vote for "a" - the bobstay tackle.

It's what I've got; it works well. If you need to graunch it down hard, take the tail to the warping drum on the windlass, but be careful doing this as its easy to overdo it (don't ask me how I know that...)

I very much appreciate you weighting in on this, but I was doing a little sleuthing and am a little confused... I am interested on how things are set up on Mirelle because I see a lot a similarities between our two boats/rigs.

looking at the picture below, it looks like you indeed have a "fixed" jib stay (although it is on a block and tackle to adjust once the sprit is run out, no doubt). So when you have your jib furled up and run in, there is still a stay out at the end of the sprit to keep it supported upward, no? On my boat, there would be nothing as it sits now. Is this still consistent with your opinion to only add a bobstay tackle?



Thanks.

[McKee]

E I just changed the arrangement on Pendragon's bow sprit, and jib stay, again. When I bought the boat Pendragon came with a chain pennant to a 2:1 tackle, and the jib was on a furler. My first trial was to a chain bobstay w/ a turnbuckle, and a fixed jib stay. Change two; I'm going back to a 2:1 rope bob stay and a Dyarchy style jib stay/halyard. I'll let you know how it all works out.

[gazzabo]

Put a tackle on a chain withenough drift to harden up. The big advantage is that you can haul it up when at anchor with a 6mm TRICING line. No problems then with the anchor chain fouling the Bobstay.

[py]

I'm not sure I understand the concern about a little upward flexing-surely it won't more than an inch or so as you tension the luff, at which point the bobstay will be nice and tight. With no whisker stays, there'd be more sideways flexing and stress than the upwards, which is restrained by the bobstay. Unless this is a new rig which has never been sailed, I'd be in the "if it ain't broke why fix it?" camp
Phil

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

I very much appreciate you weighting in on this, but I was doing a little sleuthing and am a little confused... I am interested on how things are set up on Mirelle because I see a lot a similarities between our two boats/rigs.

looking at the picture below, it looks like you indeed have a "fixed" jib stay (although it is on a block and tackle to adjust once the sprit is run out, no doubt). So when you have your jib furled up and run in, there is still a stay out at the end of the sprit to keep it supported upward, no? On my boat, there would be nothing as it sits now. Is this still consistent with your opinion to only add a bobstay tackle?



Thanks.

You are quite right, but I call it the topmast forestay rather than a jibstay because no sail is ever set on it; its only function is to give a little support to the masthead when the topsail is set and, frankly, to look pretty, because boats that don't have such a stay look odd, to me.

You will have spotted the bobstay tackle is twisted round itself - an irritating consequence of using three strand rope on the tackle. The tricing line is just visible but I have not triced the tackle up because I have not yet eased off the jib halyard hardener tackle.