Actually I won a pre 1978 P16 and it came with the "Hobie 16" style jib setup. =(replacing forestay jib)



But yes it has a wires in the luff and is fitted on my P16 in exactely the same way as a Hobie 16 with one exception. Hobie uses a (permanent) pully system with lots of line. My boat use a steel wire with a block on its mast end. I pull the jib up without purchase by a line attached the the block and which runs trhough a turtle block or something on the bottom of the mast. Than when the jib is up but not tensioned I have to run the line through the block on the wire and run it trhough the guiding eye of a standard cleat. (no fancy stuff like cam cleats , picture the old T -shaped cleats). I then have 3 :1 purchase and with the modest size jib (compared to the H16 jib) that is enough to set the tension my my jib /forestay.



The forestay that was there no hangs slack.



I had the zippered jib on my P18 and with the zipper shot It took heaps of time to get it fitted.



Last weekend I had to decide on the jib setup of my new boat and wanted something with the ease of a replacing forestay jib and without the [censored] that comes with the standard hook and ring. I also didn't want the old forstay to flap around my jibs leech when sailing. That would not be performance oriented.



Then I remembers the way things are done on skiffs and figured that the same thing can be done on cats. Ergo use a trap wire as a stay holding up the mast when parking the boat and unhook it when the jib is hoisted. When singlehanding I will just hoist a stell wire instead. This will leave me without an old forestay flapping around.



Now I didn't want the jib halyard to run down the leading edge of my mast and I certainly didn't want to sacrifice the sealing of the mast by leading the halyard through the inside of the mast.



Than I thought that if I hooked the jib on something up the mast that than the halyard wouldn't have to transmit the big rig loads while sailing and that I could use a small diameter halyard and just let it run don one of the sidestays, away from the sails and mast. Put a bungee with plastic hook on the chainplate and the halyard would always be tensioned resist flapping. Can only be done with 3 mm specta of dyneema line but I have done this already and it worked very well.



But how to hook it up the mast and not have the hook and ring blues when lowering that jib at force 10. I spend 90 % of the time trying to figure that out. I draw a few force diagrams out of boredom and lack of inspiration and found that I had drawn one wrong. The hook system could never sit that way because the halyard tension would pull it away from that position. WHAM ! it hit me. By manipulating the halyard tension I could move part of the system towards or away from the jib !

Than it took me a few hours to get it just right and simple. Turns out that I can use a standard chainplate with holes, two pins, one wheel, two shackles and one sail hook to make a hooking system that could be manupulated to hook or release with one movement of the arm.



Ergo the new "forestay replacing jib" was born. It look almost certain that it will go on my new boat. I'm still looking for something to act as a hook in my test setup.



Anyway. That's what I've been doing last weekend.



WOuter