Best deck fitting for attaching Solent stay?

our boat has a Solent-type movable inner forestay, but for some reason a deck fitting was never installed. i think the idea may have been to use the bow cleat, but that is less than ideal as it interferes with anchoring.

i would like to start using the inner forestay for hanking on smaller jibs, as our furler has a #1 genoa on it and it points terribly when furled.

i know a lot of people use padeyes in this situation, however my thinking at the moment is to bolt a chainplate onto the bulkhead that forms the rear of the anchor well, and cut a slot for it to emerge up onto the deck. it would be good if the new fitting didn't create bad foot-hazard though.

i would appreciate any thoughts on the best type of fitting to install...

Hi Fish,
An alternate idea is make it a soft shackle.
If you have the room in your anchor locker, and the need, you can make it adjustable underdeck , that is if it is not adjustable at the mast.
I have a simple radius plastic deck fitting with one big hole and two small holes. The babystay is soft and has a hardpoint at the top on the mast. It connects to a dyneema lashing with a loop and knuckle on the end, which is fed through the deck plug and anchors via: a 2:1 to a hardpoint on the vertical rear wall of the anchor well.

The following is a pic of the deck fitting and underdeck hardpoint. If I describe it by rope;
- big hole takes the lower babystay shackle (silver) and the rope for the underdeck low friction ring tensioner (blue).
-the lower babystay shackle is the fat silver dyneema one and is a splice. No more than a few feet long. It is connected to the babystay in the pic (you can't see the knuckle though)
-it terminates to the top low friction ring.
-the low friction ring tensioner is the blue dyneema rope, it is fed back through a Karver deck jammer, then through to the starb'd top winch in the cockpit.
-This is the babystay tensioner, the whole 2:1 terminates to a hardpoint in the bottom of the anchor well.
- the little holes take the small silver dyneema loop that acts as the clew attachment.
-this simply ties to the same hardpoint glassed in at the bottom of the anchor well. You set the loop size so it is close enough to the deck, but enough so you can clip your clew onto it.




I haven't got any better photos of the hardpoint itself sorry, it's not ridiculously big and it does takes the babystay tension as well as the halyard tension with no problems.





You may not need the adjustment, but as a minimum I'd keep a 2:1 if you can fit it just to ease pressure off the padeye hardpoint
I'll get photos for you tomorrow if you like as I'm down the boat.
Cheers,
SB
Edit: the babytay shackle lies loose permanently on the deck, you don't push it inside the locker or anything.

Get outa here shaggy that's a great set up and an even better discription ! I've been musing over the same issue as fishmonkey. I was thinking along the highfeild lever line but that's the ants pants !

Very nice Shaggy but too much for my rig. I use a highfield lever to preload the stay but the real work in tensioning the stay comes from the runners. My rig is to flexible to tension the inner stay without something opposing that pressure.
Runners are required or another set of shrouds leading aft from the inner( but they would require a permanent inner stay and not a removable one.)

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woko said..
Get outa here shaggy that's a great set up and an even better discription ! I've been musing over the same issue as fishmonkey. I was thinking along the highfeild lever line but that's the ants pants !

G'day Woko,
The first time I looked at it I was horrified, as the blue tensioning rope literally bends at 90 degrees as it exits the deck plug on its way back to a cockpit winch, and I couldn't imagine how you could possibly get enough tension on it with such a crude bend. Like, where the hell is a turning block for the change of direction?
In practice, it all works fine, and you have to put a lot of load into it as its an inner forestay, so it's bar tight. Buggered if I know how it hasn't worn a big groove through the plastic deck plug as a minimum, as the blue sheet is under tension all the time the babystay is connected because of the deck jammer.

But it does work, and three years later it's still the same, so that's a good start.

Edit: BTW, you can see a thin blue rope to the deck jammer, that is the lock release so you can do it from the cockpit. The locking actuator I left without a line running back (the red t handle thingy), I still want a human on the foredeck to confirm the jammer is locked before we attach any sails. None of which is necessary unless you need to tension it of course!

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jbear said..
Hi Fishmonkey

Just make sure the bulkhead is strong enough to take the load etc ?
All the bulkheads on my yacht are glassed in and bolted or self tapped every 100 mm to stop the glass pulling away from the ply under shear loads .

yep, i'm going to have a closer look at it today. from memory it's completely glassed in.

i also wonder what the best "budget" tensioning system is? our inner forestay is stainless wire.

And this is the Tylaska knuckle on the baby stay shackle in case it's of interest!

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Jolene said..

fishmonkey said..

jbear said..
Hi Fishmonkey

Just make sure the bulkhead is strong enough to take the load etc ?
All the bulkheads on my yacht are glassed in and bolted or self tapped every 100 mm to stop the glass pulling away from the ply under shear loads .

yep, i'm going to have a closer look at it today. from memory it's completely glassed in.

i also wonder what the best "budget" tensioning system is? our inner forestay is stainless wire.

Assuming you have a masthead rig, It's worth keeping in mind that if you go for a solent stay and you tension that stay up , you now have forestay and a solent stay tension possibly being opposed by a single backstay. Is the back stay up to the task? Especially if its all cranked up to point.

good point.

yep, it's a masthead rig. i'm assuming that the rigger considered all that when they installed it, but i will double-check with them.