Saba 50: Slide mechanism on Saba mast?

[HabibiDah]

I was on a Saba 50 in the Greek islands recently. (It was awesome!) On the Starboard side of the mast there is a slide mechanism that is connected to the end of a dyneema line. What is this? No one on board knew. Our best guess was that it was the either 1) the forward stay, or 2) it was effectively the Genoa halyard, the Genoa being mounted on the forward stay and likely to be rarely removed.

So...what say you?

[Lady Roslyn]

It's used to adjust the forestay tension.

[cal40john]

Did you identify all the halyards? Was there one under tension other than the line on the car in the track? If not it must have been the halyard.

I know a Saba 50 owner replied, but it seems scary to me that the mast is being held up by a line rolling through a sheave at the hounds high on the mast. It sounds like the OP didn't find a jib halyard, so if there isn't a jib halyard you'd have to go up the mast to lower the jib.

[Lady Roslyn]

Please accept my apologies for misrepresenting the correct facts. The Saba has a forestay. Around that is a tube into which the luff of the genoa is slid when raising the genoa. This is attached at the head of the sail to a connector at the mast which runs down to the slider that the person who posted was referring. This slider is used to adjust the foresail not the forestay tension. Nic

Originally Posted by cal40john

Did you identify all the halyards? Was there one under tension other than the line on the car in the track? If not it must have been the halyard.

I know a Saba 50 owner replied, but it seems scary to me that the mast is being held up by a line rolling through a sheave at the hounds high on the mast. It sounds like the OP didn't find a jib halyard, so if there isn't a jib halyard you'd have to go up the mast to lower the jib.

[Helia 44]

Hello again HabibiDah,
Thank you for putting this in the Forum, if I keep answering questions by Private Messages, I would have to repeat myself over and over... Here it is done once and for all to see... Sorry I did not get back to you sooner, as I have been beach combing the outer Islands of the Whitsundays, I will post some pictures with an update on my "Improvements to the Saba 50" Thread and my latest inventions...

Now to your question:
Yea, "What Lady Roselyn Said"

There is a "foil" around the headstay, that the heavy duty working jib runs up in a track on the foil of the roller furler. The Dyneema on the track is attached to a car on top of the foil, that the working jib is attached to...

IMO it is waaaaay overkill, but you use that with a winch to pull the car on the lower mast track to tension the car on top of the foil, and then lock in the pin on the lower mast track... Personally I think it is waaaaaaay over kill, that sort of 1/2" Dyneema would almost replace the head stay...

Kind regards, Steven, Single Handed Skipper on the Saba 50 SERENITY... In the islands inside the Great Barrier Reef, Whitsundays, Australia...

[HabibiDah]

So, this is what I surmised, and it is good to know that this is the case. Of course, this just brings more questions to mind...

1) This means that if one wanted to lower the Genoa, as it is currently rigged, one would need to release the tension on the dyneema line by tensioning the mast car in order relieve pressure on the Pin, release the pressure on the mast car (and therefore the tension on the head of the foresail, send someone up the mast and connect the spare halyard to the head of the Genoa, and then take it down by un-threading it from the tube that is around the forestay. Is that correct?

2) On the Saba that I was on, there was one spare halyard on the mast. If one wanted to add a bowsprit and a Code-0, is it possible to duplicate the dyneema tensioning setup for the code-0? It seems to me that since a furled headsail is almost never actually removed from the furler, it makes sense not to have a full halyard just hanging on the mast for months or years and never moved.

3) It would make sense to me to duplicate this system for a code-0 on a bowsprit. This would leave the one spare halyard available to be used to raise or lower the headsails when necessary and could be used for a spinnaker (which is raised and lowered completely on every use.)

Helia44, Lady Roslyn, thanks for the replies!

By the way, we have purchased a Saba 50 and are putting it into charter with Navigare for the next few years until our kids are out of school. In the mean time, we are doing all the sailing we can!

Michael (Habibidah)

[BigBeakie]

Michael,

The unit in your photo is the Antal Halyard system that they developed for HMPE halyards for furling foresails. I put 2 of them on our new cutter sail plan cat, for the staysail & jib. They help de-clutter the mast area & are also good because you can use larger diameter bare Dyneema to minimise creep, But still use a winch to re-tighten them from time to time. When you want to drop the sail you just take up tension on a winch on the bottom lug, release the pin, attach a chaser line to the eye in the end of the halyard and pull the sail down so the halyard and chaser go back up inside the mast, in our case.

Hope that makes sense. They are the bees knees!


Sent from my iPad using Cruisers Sailing Forum

[HabibiDah]

Thanks BigBeakie! This makes total sense and seems like a very efficient way to remove some of the clutter at the mast. I'm going to want 2 also!

[Helia 44]

If you look earlier in the Thread " IMPROVEMENTS TO THE SABA 50" you will see how I did it quite successfully on the Helia 44 and now the Saba...

There are two big sheaves, back and front at each side at the top of the mast. I took one of them on the Port side and abandoned the adjustable topping lift. I put a fixed topping lift at one of the empty shackle holes at the top aft end of the mast, and made it adjustable at the bottom.

I show you pictures of the turning block at the bottom and the line down to the boom, that makes the topping lift adjustable with the top fixed... Then I abandoned the third reef, jiffy reef, as I will never need a third reef on the main, I would drop it and run on my heavy working jib. I used that line fed back to the cockpit, to run up the internals of the mast and over the top to make a second Genoa Halyard. I have a second roller furler out on the end of the prodder. You can see the pictures in the Thread above.

In the future I am going to run fittings down closer to the water line and put whisker stays on the bottom of the prodder and run Power Furling on the massive sort of 160 Genoa in Mono-hull terms, that I am running there. Then I can tighten it up with the 2 to 1 purchase I have done on the hoist, and 16mm torque rope, without lifting or flexing the prodder and I will have a massive 5 oz Genoa for power and down wind as a Single Handler of the Saba 50..

Again, I did this to the Helia 44 and also the Saba 50... Further pictures of how to do this extra Genoa Halyard are all on the Thread IMPROVEMENTS TO THE SABA 50...

Kind regards, Steven