Sorry, Hans-Erik,

but I am a little pressed for times these days. Our summer doesn’t last forever, and the fine days we still enjoy here, must be spent on better things than writing. These days I am spending the mornings painting a wall on my house (before the wind picks up and the sun starts shining on the wall), and in the afternoons I like to sail, but this night I got a call from Svein Magnus in Samson, so tomorrow I will go up the  in Samson’s main mast to sort out a halyard  -  maybe followed by a test sail.

There is not much wrong in using hose clamps, as I have used them for years. Just wrap some stout tape over them to cover the nuts and pointy bits. Later, if these turn out to rust, they can be replaced with some sort of rolling hitch.

Good luck!
Arne

Scott,
my other reason for not just replacing the rusty hose clamps with new ones, is the same as yours  -  to avoid ‘screw heads and pointy parts’. That said; there has been no damages caused by these.

That red and white material is just tape. I put it under the hose clamps to avoid corrosion, and I didn’t bother with removing it when going Dyneema. Thanks to that little white ‘safety string, that lashing will never slip.

Arne

Anonymous wrote:

Hi Scott,

I cannot recall who wrote about having cut up his wife's yoga mat to pad the vinyl batten pockets at the mast but thought it such a great idea.

Not having a wife, let alone one who has a yoga mat, I purchased two to use in making the sail for Jasmine.

As to the 'slippage' of your batten parrels I am using 25mm webbing and plan to attach them to the battens as Arne did on Ingeborg using hose clamps.

This weekend, before going on a Sunday sail, I replaced all those hoseclamps on the battens with firm lashings of 2mm Dyneema line. The reason was that the hoseclamps bled rust onto the sail. The method appeared to work very well. The lashing, generally consisting of 4-6 single overhand knots, was tied as firmly as I could without tools, and then the final knot was tripled and fused. This is not nearly as taut as the hoseclamp, so a little helping line was added to the backside of it and then stitched to the batten pocked (see white string). Its job is just to get the rolling hitch effect of the lashing ’started’. There is no load to speak of at that white string when the rolling hitch effect of the lashing sets in.

I plan to make a more comprehensive write-up about it, and then incorporate the lashing of the halyard to the yard.

Cheers,
Arne

Hi Scott,

I cannot recall who wrote about having cut up his wife's yoga mat to pad the vinyl batten pockets at the mast but thought it such a great idea.

Not having a wife, let alone one who has a yoga mat, I purchased two to use in making the sail for Jasmine.

As to the 'slippage' of your batten parrels I am using 25mm webbing and plan to attach them to the battens as Arne did on Ingeborg using hose clamps.

David wrote:

This is one area where the junk rig is not so good. There are a lot of hard heavy spars being the battens, yard and boom, and these are not held that rigidly against the mast, and then there is all the weight in the complete sail package which is quite considerable compared to a bermudan sail.

The first sail we had on Footprints was really bad for banging and crashing against the mast. It just had hard bearing surfaces on the battens, yard, and boom, and with conventional parrels there was always enough slop in the system for the spars to come away slightly from the mast, and then crash back in again. This however was not a problem on the second sail that David Tyler helped me make. He had the great idea of sewing soft cell foam onto all the batten, yard and boom pockets as soft fendering. I also fitted webbing parrels which were long fore and aft and I was able to keep these very tight which kept the battens etc. hard against the mast. Even ocean crossing we had no issues with creaking and groaning and slatting. So what is probably needed is softer cushioning between the mast and sail spars, and maybe a better parrel system to hold the sail bundle closer to the mast.

The other thing though is to stop the sail package moving from side to side and for this you really need to set up a preventer system to hold the sail package in position athwartships.

Regarding stopping and waiting, a windvane probably would not help you a lot there because they need forward motion of the boat to produce the steering force. Even a tiller pilot would struggle in that situation unless the boat is fore reaching at a couple of knots.

One way you could stop and rest for a while is to drop all sail and use a small parachute sea anchor from the bow. These small parachute anchors are very common now in New Zealand where fishers in small powered craft use them for stopping and fishing while in deeper water.

Thank you for taking the time to write and help. This prompted me to check the batten parrels. I thought they were tight on the mast when the sail was completely lowered, and only loose when I had them up higher on the tapered mast. It turns out I was wrong. Several of the batten parrels were loose. I snugged them down by adjusting the rolling hitches that I have holding them in place.

I went out in similar conditions again last night, but with somewhat smaller waves, and the 'bonking' was almost non existent when I let the sheet out. The parrels held the battens tight to the mast and the vinyl padding seemed to keep it quiet.

While looking at the quiet sail I realized that the rolling hitches land on the mast such that the mast can 'push' the hitch and cause it to slip down the standing part of the parrel. I think over the summer my batten parrels have been working themselves loose.

This winter I will work on a better parrel system that uses webbing and an attachment that cannot work itself loose like the rolling hitches.

There is still creaking as the sail rotates. I wonder if I need to use more slippery rope for the YHP and Tack Parrel, or maybe coat those lines in some dry lubricant.

Scott.