Sheet Lanyards
28 April 2016
Richard
Issuma has three stays (wires) ahead of the foremast (jib stay, forestay, inner forestay). These stays complicate tacking because the sheets (ropes attached to sails) get caught on the stays. A while back, my friend Maggie mentioned to me that traditional schooners with multiple jibs use lanyards between their sheets and the sails. So I tried it out on my forestaysail (shown), by putting eye splices in the sheets, and then tying the eyesplices to the sail with smaller ropes. The sheet lanyards worked pretty well (not 100%, but much better than just using bowlines), so I put some on the jib sheets as well. I don't think the length of the lanyards is very important, just that the knots & splices are some distance apart, so they don't all drag across the stay at close to the same time.