cutter rig

Ask an Expert !
Do you have a question about any aspect of YM designed boats?

Moderators: Eventide Owners Group, Piskie, chris s

Post Reply
rose

cutter rig

Post by rose »

Hi.i want to sail my Eventide 24 as a cutter, she has a bowsprit about 3ft long with the rollerreefing jib atached at the outboard end, she has a baby stay attached to the deck just in front of the fore hatch going about 3/4 up the mast, could i hank on one of my jibs to the baby stay as she is, or do i have to reattach the babystay to the inboard end of the bowsprit about two foot forward of where shes attached now, i think there is a fitting there for that purpose, any help would be great,
Rose.
User avatar
Eventide Owners Group
Posts: 270
Joined: Wed March 1st, 2006, 1:00 pm
Contact:

Post by Eventide Owners Group »

Hello there, the wire that comes from 3/4 up the mast should go to the stemhead, but if there is a very strong attachment place aft of that it could work, though it will limit the foot length of the sail.

More importantly, where the wire attaches to the mast there should be a fitting with a pair of shroud wires attached. These are called the intermediate shrouds and should come to a point on the rail aft of the lower shrouds, that should come from the spreader root. These in turn shoud be aft of the topmast shrouds, that come over the spreader tips from the top of the mast. Chainplates are between 15" and 24" apart on the side of the vessel.

There should be no shrouds leading forward of the mast.

with this set up you can use the lower forestay to induce a bend into the mast, so that from the side it is bent forward in the middle by about half the fore and aft diameter of the mast. Sounds crazy, but it works. When the boat is sailed in a good breeze the mast will straighten by the combined action of the mainsail pulling the centre of the mast aft, and the genoa pulling the top of the mast forward. clever Eh!

The intermediate shrouds not only counteract this initial bend to prevent it from becoming more, but also straighten the mast when viewed from astern, (eye to the mast track and squint up it, you will soon see the effect!)

Cutter rig works so well on these boats. all sorts of other rigs have been tried from Yawl and Ketch to Junk and Gaff, but cutter works best!

hope this helps, see also the Hints and tips page on the site.

Regards,
john
Eventiders.
Web site Coordinator
Post Reply