Trouble raising the sail all the way on our 2008 SunCat

[juliamcg]

We are having trouble raising the sail.  First of all, it is really hard to pull up -- much harder than the sail on our ComPac 16 that we sold this spring.  Second, we haven't been able to get the sail all the way up the mast -- it stops about 6-8 inches from what we think should be the top --and won't go any farther.

Rich Hutchins suggested that we use some white lithium grease on the slot in the mast.  That did not work.  We keep the gaff boom horizontal while raising the mast.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

[Joseph]

These are the possible reasons I could come with that could cause a main to not being able to be hoisted to its top, but there may be others. Some are obvious, aother not so much...

a) the halyard getting stuck in the sheave or in any of the blocks redirecting it pull, i.e., halyard too thick? tangled with other lines? (once I get the jib halyard tangled in the sheave with a piece of the luff...)

b) luff of the mainsail too short (unlikely...)

c) sail getting stuck in lazyjacks (only if you have them installed...

d) reefing line stuck or not being fully released (quite common if the boat was reefed before and the sunugged down without releasing the reefing line...)

e) mainsheet not released before hoisting the sail (when hoisting the sail all lines should be released with the possible exception a a topping lift...)

f) boomvang too tight (probably not relevant to the SunCat)

g) not releasing a dowhaul or cunningham (if installed...)

h) slugs getting stuck in the track (i.e., the track is bent?) or off the track?

i) if the sail has no slugs and the mast only has a slot for the boltrope at the luff, then the slot may be bent, the boltrope too thick or there may be something inside the mast (i.e., screw from a tang?) hooking the luff in its progress.

J.

[hitchhiker]

I can answer this quetion. I felt the same way when I sailed my SC for the first time.
You put your gaff spar horizontally when you hoist the sail is the answer as you said.

And a few more thing to add are,
1. Keep your boat head close to the wind to release the wind power.
2. Put the long pin in the goose neck for the boom to keep settled over it.  It helps you hoist the sail easily.

I also put the main halyard sheet around my body to pull it with my body weight because SC doesn't have winches!

[Craig Weis]

I don't know a thing about the mast tender system on the cat boats. Having said that lets assume that the plastic slide cars sewn onto the mast and fitted into the slot are suppose to be very loose. So loose that when the halyard is released all the main sail falls down, stopping at the sail stop.
OK
With the halyard off the top-o-sail, does the halyard work easily? Up in one hand down in the other. Up down up down with no drag. Good. If not so find out why. Lubed the pulley? Line too large, rubbing on the masthead? Pulley rubbing on the masthead? halyard developing a twist as it goes up, becoming 'thicker' as it is raised? With the halyard working easily.
OK
You have a gaff to deal with. The gaff goes up and down on what? In a slot? with a ring around the mast? A yoke. I don't know. But that has to work easily as well and go high enough. What ever that means.
Gaff is good.
OK
Now pull the sail up but not taced to the boom. Can the sail be raised to the top-o-mast? No? look at the gaff and the halyard relationship. OK?
OK
Again pull the sail up but taced to the boom yet. Be sure that the down haul is not attached to anything yet. Redouble the effort to make sure that the gaff is up, the sail is up, tie off the halyard. Now pull the boom down tight and tie down the down haul. Now you'll not be able to raise the sail up any higher. It would be all the way up anyway. With all this up/down business you may stumble onto why the pull is so hard.
OK
QUESTION: Your not raising the sail in the wind with anything less then dead on the bow right? I can't get my sail up unless I'm straight on into the wind. My furler head sail does not care which way the wind is blowing.

When setting up my down haul I used my winch to pull the last of the luff out of the main sail and I marked my main halyard with a magic marker. If that mark is in the rope clutch, the sail can go no higher. Don't even have to look.
Once up I down hauled it and out hauled it on the boom. P.S. My boom also has a sail stop to hold it up on the mast when I drop sail.
Any help? I doubt it.
skip.
 

[cavie]

Where is the boom in relation to the mast hinge? Is the pin in place and stoping the boom from going up all the way.

[Potcake boy]

Had a Picnic Cat and felt the main halyard was a bit difficult so I did two things which solved the problem.

1. Dead ended the main halyard at the top of the mast instead of the gaff spar by inserting a SS strap into the slot and securing it with screws.  Attached single block to bail on gaff sparr (where halyard had previously been dead ended)and rove the halyard through that and then through the existing masthead block. That provided a double purchase and eased the effort to hoist the sail - also made it possible to grab both halyards and raise them simutaneously.
2. Replaced the halyard with the next smaller diameter - the larger diameter was used to provide better grip on the halyard in the absence of a winch but is a bit large for the turning blocks provided - easier to hoist less grip needed.  Even the smaller halyard is probably at least 10 times stronger than could ever be needed - check the breaking strength against your lifting ability.

* block sheve diameter should equal 4X rope diameter, i.e. 1/4 line should have a 1" diameter sheve.

Ron

[Craig Weis]

Potcake boy, "...also made it possible to grab both halyards and raise them simultaneously."

I don't follow this for one sail of a cat boat. I don't understand the gaff/sail business.
So the sail has a halyard and the gaff has a halyard?

Or the gaff has a halyard near the mast and another halyard [all that triangle line stuff between the mast and gaff] for the gaff to raise the end of the gaff near vertical.

I saw Tim Graul's [Marine Archetect] cat boat sailing around the pond with it's gaff pointing almost straight up. This that what's going on?

Yea I'd consider a smaller halyard on the pulley, good idea.
skip.

[Potcake boy]

Skip,

The PC and Suncat come with the same halyard arrangements as far as I know.  The main halyard is attached to the forward end of the gaff spar and is simply rove through a turning block at the mast head.  The gaff or throat halyard raises the gaff spar from the center and is rove through an arrangement of blocks that provide a double purchase.  Both ends of the spar need to be raised more or less in tandem but the same heave on each halyard raises the main twice the distance and leaves the gaff dangling unless you stop and give the extra heaves.  By making the main halyard a double purchase it becomes easier to raise and both halyards can be gripped and raised together with out stopping to catch up the throat/gaff spar.  My terminology for the halyards may be askew, I only sailed the PC for a year and never got deeply involved in gaff rigs. Any help from you salty gaffers out there with the terminology?

Yes the gaff goes almost vertical on these rigs, the higher aspect makes it a more efficient sail.  The functional purpose of the gaff on the Compac cats is twofold.
1. Short mast section is easy to raise without special mast raising gear - though the Suncat now has a gin pole attached to help.
2. The short mast section allows it to fold within the boats length so that it can remain attached to the stump without excessive overhang, an important advantage of the Mastender system.

Ron

[tmorgan]

The reef hook was catching on the guide rail when I was having difficulty getting the main halyard all of the way up.  I installed a simple  system where I can reef from the cockpit and then cut off the reefing hook with a hacksaw.  Sail goes up and down like a charm now.

[Potcake boy]

Tmorgan,

Thanks for sharing the outcome.  Many posters requesting help never post the results, so it is of no further benefit to other sailors.  We all learn from others' experiences so "pass it on baby".

Ron

[jdonaldson]

One or more of these suggestions may work for you, they work for us.  First, raise the boom by hand until the gooseneck is above the long pin slots.  Insert the long pin.  Then pull on the halyards together by seizing them in front of the rope stops.  After the head of the sail is at the top, then finish raising the gaff separately by, again, pulling the halyard in front of the rope stop.  Of course, it is not necessary to say that you should be headed dead upwind to do this.  Also, the Spinlock rope clutches provided by Hutchins are terrible.  Remove them and replace with the smaller model dual Lewmar rope clutches Model #29101208.  You can pull the halyards behind these rope clutches very easily.  Don't forget to drop the gooseneck below the mast-n-dr joint by pulling out the long pin after getting the sail head to the top of the mast!!!!
   

We are having trouble raising the sail.  First of all, it is really hard to pull up -- much harder than the sail on our ComPac 16 that we sold this spring.  Second, we haven't been able to get the sail all the way up the mast -- it stops about 6-8 inches from what we think should be the top --and won't go any farther.

Rich Hutchins suggested that we use some white lithium grease on the slot in the mast.  That did not work.  We keep the gaff boom horizontal while raising the mast.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

[jdonaldson]

Gaff does not come close to vertical, but does have a smaller angle with the mast than, say, Sanderlings, etc.  If the gaff were nearly vertical, it would be a gunter rig.

Skip,

The PC and Suncat come with the same halyard arrangements as far as I know.  The main halyard is attached to the forward end of the gaff spar and is simply rove through a turning block at the mast head.  The gaff or throat halyard raises the gaff spar from the center and is rove through an arrangement of blocks that provide a double purchase.  Both ends of the spar need to be raised more or less in tandem but the same heave on each halyard raises the main twice the distance and leaves the gaff dangling unless you stop and give the extra heaves.  By making the main halyard a double purchase it becomes easier to raise and both halyards can be gripped and raised together with out stopping to catch up the throat/gaff spar.  My terminology for the halyards may be askew, I only sailed the PC for a year and never got deeply involved in gaff rigs. Any help from you salty gaffers out there with the terminology?

Yes the gaff goes almost vertical on these rigs, the higher aspect makes it a more efficient sail.  The functional purpose of the gaff on the Compac cats is twofold.
1. Short mast section is easy to raise without special mast raising gear - though the Suncat now has a gin pole attached to help.
2. The short mast section allows it to fold within the boats length so that it can remain attached to the stump without excessive overhang, an important advantage of the Mastender system.

Ron

[Potcake boy]

jdonaldson - not to promote a petite dispute over terminology, but the gaff comes to within what appears to be aprox 15 degrees of vertical - you may wish to measure that for verification.  However of interest is the following from Wikipedia:

Confusion between Gaff Rig and Gunter Rig
Over time the two terms have been used with some interchangeability. While a true gaff rig is with the gaff at an angle to the mast, small boats such as the Heron, the Mirror dinghy and other small sailing dinghies have small, light gaffs which are raised to the vertical position by a single halyard fixed close to the midpoint of the gaff.

This looks like a gunter rig when the boat is fully rigged. However it does not have the sliding component of the wire or the hooped gunter.

Nonetheless such small dinghies have been termed gunter rigged and gaff rigged with free use of each term. It is likely that the fluidity of language allows both terms to be used with correctness for these small boats. For larger craft the terms tend to be more rigorously applied

[jdonaldson]

Measure the angle of the gaff?  Well, maybe if I remembered my trig and also knew how to correct for perspectival distortion, I might be able to guesstimate the angle, but I ain't climbing that mast nohow to measure the angle!
Yep, gunter rigs don't have sails hoisted in a track, so if the mast is hoisted with the gaff nearly vertical, it isn't really a gunter rig.  But we call them gunter rigs anyway.
My guess is that the reason why the Suncat gaff is at a shallower angle to the mast than most cats is because it is uncanvased, as is well known, probably by about 15-20%, so the more vertical gaff was a compromise to get back some of the sail area that had been subtracted by the design constraint of having a mast that did not extend beyond the transom.  Anybody have a superior theory?

jdonaldson - not to promote a petite dispute over terminology, but the gaff comes to within what appears to be aprox 15 degrees of vertical - you may wish to measure that for verification.  However of interest is the following from Wikipedia:

Confusion between Gaff Rig and Gunter Rig
Over time the two terms have been used with some interchangeability. While a true gaff rig is with the gaff at an angle to the mast, small boats such as the Heron, the Mirror dinghy and other small sailing dinghies have small, light gaffs which are raised to the vertical position by a single halyard fixed close to the midpoint of the gaff.

This looks like a gunter rig when the boat is fully rigged. However it does not have the sliding component of the wire or the hooped gunter.

Nonetheless such small dinghies have been termed gunter rigged and gaff rigged with free use of each term. It is likely that the fluidity of language allows both terms to be used with correctness for these small boats. For larger craft the terms tend to be more rigorously applied

[juliamcg]

Thanks, folks, for the suggestions. We are making progress.  Suggestions on the sequence and/or process for raising the sail have helped.  We will probably exchange the "locks" as someone suggested because the current ones do seem rather feeble.  However, a friend pointed out that once you release them, you have to press back on the "frame" of it -- and then the line runs freely until you want to lock it down again.  That helps, too.  We are looking into repositioning the blocks for the main sail and gaff --on the mast-- to relieve the pinching, too.

Thanks again.