Forestay, Roller, and My New Sails

Last autumn I was bought a set of second-hand sails from another Tiki 21 that had sadly been put out to stud as a committee boat for a local yacht club. It no longer needed its sails.

I'm very pleased with my new wardrobe which includes a main, genoa, working jib and cruising chute. All are in good condition and better than my old sails.

The main difference now is my old set up included a furler with the luff cable as the forestay. Now, with a choice of foresail I need a fixed forestay, and as the new sails all include a luff cable, a method to tension the luff. The new sails are not hanked on.

Roger's posts on the jib downhaul are most helpful. He has hank-on sails, but it's much the same set up.

I wanted to get a little separation between the forestay and the sail, so rather then have them to a common fixing, I've made up a bracket.

Cut from a 4mm A4 stainless plate, drilled, ground and polished, the new plate finally went on the boat over the weekend. I went for a short test sail, and all seems to work well. I'd like more tension in the forestay, but I'm out of adjustment on the bottle screw. Here's the finished article.

Here's the original set up, way back when ...