Running backstays

[GILow]

Originally Posted by wingssail

"is to oppose the load of the staysail stay. Without a running back stay the staysail stay could tend to bend the mast, slacking the stay..."

Oh yeah...which would reduce the performance of the staysail

Actually, I missed that post. The gist of it was there after all.

And I just realised that Jim mentioned it too.

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by GILow

Nobody appears to have mentioned it, but the running backstays on a cutter rigged boat not only keep the mast straight but they also maintain tension on the staysail luff and thus improve its upwind performance.

Umm, Matt, did you note my post of yesterday?

Our previous boat had an inner forestay and in-line spreaders. The runners were employed when using the staysail, especially upwind. The mast was beefy and we never felt it to be at risk without the runner, but the stay, and hence the luff of the staysail, were quite slack without the runner and upwind performance suffered noticeably.

Tush, lad...

Jim

[GILow]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Umm, Matt, did you note my post of yesterday?







Tush, lad...



Jim

Yep, see post #16.

Tush, right back at ya. [emoji106]


Mea culpa and all that stuff.

[sailcomp]

Thank you everybody for your great responses. Now we just need to go out and practice!