Jib Halyard - Downhaul System

[intheboatshed]

I would be grateful if someone could give me some more advise on how to set up my Baggy Trousers.

I'm sure eventually through trial and error I could work it out for myself, but I'm hoping that some of you very helpful/knowlegable 12 owners can short circuit my learning curve.

Token Gesture has a downhaul from the jib tack, through a sheave in the bow to a pulley system.

When I purchased the boat the original wire downhaul had broken (because the bow sheave had seized causing wear in the wire). I have now replaced the sheave, but I am struggling to work out what length the downhaul should be, and in truth, how to use the halyard downhaul system anyway (I have only ever used boats where the jib tack is fixed to the bow and the jib halyard tension is adjusted using the halyard attached to the head, rather than the tack).

What is the purpose of the downhaul pulley system?

How/when is it used?

How do I set the rig up to go sailing?        Am I supposed to pull the jib up and attach the halyard; attached to the head of the jib; to the rack on the mast (altering it's location on the rack depending on how much rake I want to achieve), then pull the downhaul until it has pulled the tack of the jib to the bow, in what to my mind, is the correct position?

Any looser, and the foot of the jib rises a few inches off the foredeck - this doesnt 'look' right to me (I seem to remember reading something years ago about wanting the foot of the jib to touch the deck to stop the wind from escaping under it).


At this point should the shroud's be loose - with rig tension obtained by tightening the shroud muscle boxes?

To add a little bit of complication to my story, the sails I have came from a Street Legal that went to the great lake in the sky. I have a hunch that the jib luff wire is shorter than the previous set of sails and that the jib halyard rake is now in the wrong place (its position appears to have been altered in the past).

Having pulled the jib tack to the bow (it obviously wont go any further) - why do I need a pulley system - there isnt a lot of tension in the system at this point. Do I not adjust the rig tension with the shrouds?

Why would I want to loosen the jib downhaul whilst sailing, doing so wont pull the mast forward or anything like that.


Any advise would be really apprecaited.


Tim
Token Gesture

[oldskool (Guest)]

In think that the answer is too involved for a forum post.
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In a nutshell I think that the original owner intended to put the halyard on the rack.  He would then use a combination of downhaul and shrouds to control rake and rig tension.  I believe that the thinking was he maintained a more consistent jib leach tension as rake changed.  With a ‘normal’ rig as we rake back the jib leach opens, most of us think that’s good because we’re trying to depower when we rake back anyway.
[face=Arial] [/face]
In your position I’d get a fixed strop that I would fix in a position that means the jib’s tacked closely to the deck and forget about it.
[face=Arial] [/face]
I’d then start by using the jib halyard on a rack and preset the rake on the beach before you go sailing.  You may need to mess with the halyard length if your new jib has a different luff length than the old one.  I’d then use the shrouds to control rig tension.
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As you get more confident you may choose to put the jib halyard on some form of adjustment so you can change rake while racing.
[face=Arial] [/face]
Good luck.

[intheboatshed]

Thank you very much for the advice - sorry to make it sound complicated (and this forum is probably not the right place to ask). But I suspect therein lies the answer - it probably is making things unnecessarily complex (for me anyway).

I just thought, before I remove all the blocks and cleats, that I would ask the question. Just in case some one else has a similar system, and can enlighten me on how it should be setup and used.

Tim