Graham Cox wrote:I have just come in from a sail in strong winds and lumpy seas.  I am forming the opinion that Hasler Mcleod style cambered sails probably should have HK parrels to stabilize the sail when hoisting or lowering in a swell.  They can be a little slack as they are no longer essential for sail trim.  So I plan to refit them.  HK parrels are probably less important on Fantail type sails, which have much shorter spans between battens at the luff. 

I am also going to try Paul Fay's fixed luff parrels to see if this aids batten stacking.  They will stop the battens going forwards, but I am unsure whether I will find the friction too great.  Paul Fay fitted slotted plastic hose over the parrels where they go around the mast and does not seem to have any issues with them but then his masts are vertical.  I'd settle for neutral stagger, though a little positive stagger would be nice if I can  adjust the parrels accordingly.  My system of hauling on the throat parrel with one hand and easing the halyard with the other is effective during the day when I can watch and tweak, but if I crash furled the sail like Arne does I'd end up in a snarl.  I am dreaming of a long passage out into the Pacific one of these days, get back into the rhythm of the open sea and to do that I need a sail that stacks properly without me monitoring it too closely.  I hope I can eventually achieve this with my cambered sail as it all other respects it is a winner.

I am also going to put my yard hauling parrel back to the way Paul Fay has it, where the tail goes to the front of the yard before coming to the deck.  I set it up this way recently then went back to the traditional PJR way because it crossed the spare halyard.  I find that there is considerably more pressure on the throat hauling parrel when the yard hauling parrel is set up in the traditional PJR way.

Graham, would it be an idea to have a LED lamp ready to let you see the sail even when pitch dark? If set to a low level they should not need to blind you. Just an armchair idea from a die hard daysailer...

Arne

David Tyler wrote:

I think you may have missed the point here, Arne. HKPs may help to trim out the diagonal creases when the sail is set, but what they won't do is to stop the upper batten going forward of the lower batten, as a panel is reefed (which is Graham's problem). That's a simple matter of geometry. A HKP must go slack as the panel is reefed.

Stavanger, Thursday

David, maybe, but I rather think we are talking past each other. I fully agree that the HKPs will not aid correct stacking of the battens when furling or reefing. Graham’s method with one hand on the halyard and one on the throat HP is good.

The HKPs’ job, now as a supplement to the THP, is to do the final diagonal stabilising of the working panels. My idea here was that they would also stabilise the half-set sail a bit while hoisting until the THP has been set up.

On my Johanna, the standard procedure of lowering the sail has always been to crash-dump it. Thanks to the friction in the 5-part halyard, this works perfectly fine. The reason why the sail stacks so well, after an initial negative stagger of 25cm, is probably that the semi-short batten parrels prevent any further forward movement. This could have lead to the batten parrels jamming against the mast. My hunch to why I get away with it (just) is that the mast is vertical or is raking just that little aft. This reduces the forward pull to a tolerable level.

On Broremann’s sail, with AR=2.15 and 1-2° aft rake, the sail behaved absolutely perfect without the slightest tendencies for the batten parrels to jam. With hardly any frictions anywhere, I of course had to ease the halyard out when lowering the sail, but that was a luxury problem.

Cheers, Arne

It is possible that HK parrels will stabilise the sail when hoisting in a swell and I may refit them later but with a little slack in them.  They will be used just to dampen the surging of the sail, since I don't need them for the set.  But I am going to try something else first, which may also assist with controlling my batten stagger automatically, instead of me needing to apply just the right amount of tension on the throat hauling parrel.  Firstly I have shortened the forward end of my standing yard parrel to limit the amount the yard can surge aft, by seizing it to the yard just forward of the mast when the yard is furled.  The yard can still swing forwards of course until the aft end of the parrel takes up just forward of the sling point.  What I am going to try, to solve that, and give me some positive batten stagger, is fit Paul Fay style fixed luff parrels to the lower four, parrallel battens.  These are lines that go from the forward end of each batten around the mast and back forward.  Paul says that fitting hard plastic hose over them has almost eliminated any extra friction.  I will try that or maybe even parrel beads.  A friend of mine used golf balls with a hole drilled in them as very effective parrel beads on his 50 ton Thai junk.  By adjusting each one, I will be able to give each batten about 50mm positive stagger when furled.  If there is a bit of friction I should be able to relieve it by hauling on the throat parrel which moves the battens aft.  If I find the friction too much I can revert to HK parrels and just keep manually controlling the batten stagger but that will not give me what I want for reefing at night.  I am tempted to say, cambered sails for coastal cruising, flat sails for far voyaging but am keeping my gunpowder dry for the time being and continuing to experiment.  For the record, I had no problems with my HK parrels.  They did not bend my battens up, they did not detract from the sailing performance, and I think they do contribute to a more stable sail BUT that is not the problem I am trying to solve.  I only took them off to experiment. 

I am also considering fitting standard PJR downhauls to the lower four battens, as sometimes they need encouraging if there is any wind in the sail, even with the wind forward of the beam, though they usually shake down eventually.  Given that they will be attached to the battens about one third of the way aft from the luff, and that the tail will go forward to the partners before coming aft, they may also provide some resistance to fan ups, though PJR does not seem to think they will (they seem to attach them further forward).

I do love my cambered sail and I will do everything I can think of to make it work the way I want it to.  I am a cautious sailor, but I have been through two major storms at sea and numerous minor gales and I have a clear idea of the standard of reliability I desire.  When you are handling your gear in 20 foot seas and driving rain at 3 am, you are basically blind and relying on everything working the way it should.  If the gear is well designed and well maintained, it should.  This sail has not met that standard yet, though it might given time and experimentation.  I am grateful for the ideas and shared experience of all members of the JRA who have been so generous with their time.

Arne Kverneland wrote:For some reason a sort of Hong Kong Parrel (HKP) phobia seems to have spread on this site. This was understandable as long as the throat hauling parrel (THP) had not come into use and this lead to hard loading of the battens. Now that we understand the need for, and the use of the THP, I suggest one give the HKP another chance. This summer, as we rigged Edmond Dantes with her new sail, the use of the THP indeed allowed us to trim away most of the diagonal creases most of the time , but not all of the time. So we added the HKPs and the sail was from then on looking close to perfect with only light loads on the HKPs.

So, again, I suggest you give the HK parrels a new chance, and hopefully this will help taming the sail during the setting and reefing process.

Bravo Arne! I will be rigging LC with HKP's (at least to start with) and then I'll play around with all the other possible lines and combinations. My goal will be sails that set well and do the job they are required to do under all conditions. I will be looking for an end result that is simple and has a minimum of running lines consistent with achieving the above. Ideologies will not be coming into it.

Kurt Jon Ulmer wrote:

...

If Chinese sailors way back in time, had had the kind of communication and cooperation we have now, maybe there'd be nothing left to do. Buy the kit, offshore or performance model, and string it up. 

But all their boats were work boats, no recreational sailing at all.. their usage was quite different to ours. They used dual sheeting which means they dont need to care how the battens stack and they used crews who made sure everything worked as it should. Also I think word of mouth between sailors and with boat yards competing and copying each other, the R&D process worked quite well for them.