I am considering removing the original backstay from my boat and replacing it with TEC12 line or something similar to save weight aloft and reduce mainsail chafe. I'm racing PHRF only and plan to keep the wire backstay should I ever have the opportunity to race OD. I tend to run the boat with very little backstay until the wind picks-up, in fact when I step the mast I only thread the backstay turnbuckles enough to expose the holes to insert split rings.

Questions for the Forum: do other guys keep their backstay as loose? With the swept-back spreaders, I assume the rig can stand at dock and sail in light air (under 5 kts) without a backstay.

I am becoming a fanatical about the weight of the boat and am trying to find opportunities to reduce weight without compromising my PHRF rating. The backstay is about the last left... unless I look at the forestay as well... hmmm...

Going to a rope backstay from wire is a common practice to reduce weight. You are right that it is illegal under class rules. But under PHRF, you should NOT recieve a penalty. I say should because, being a PHRF handicapper myself, I know that our region does not penalize a change like that. But I also know that not all regions are the same. Check with your handicapper first.

If you want to reduce weight aloft, I suggest that you copy the J24 fleet. Get rid of the luff track on the forestay in favor hanked on headsails. Get rid of one jib halyard (how often do you really change sails anyway?). Get all the lights off the mast. Move your antennae to the stern pulpit from the masthead. Convert to stripped-core halyards for the main, spinnaker and jib. If you really want to get picky, you can strip the paint off your mast and have it anodized. All that should be left is a bare mast with 3 halyards and a windex. You might even consider going to smaller shrouds from the oversized ones that J30s were made with.

Have fun....

[This message has been edited by Alan Grim (edited 12-29-2001).]

Thanks Alan. Already checked with the handicapper - it would appear to be okay. Also have copied the J24 fleet already to a certain degree although I don't believe that removing the tuff-luff and using hanks would decrease weight... hanks for a J30 are pretty big and heavy.

Here's a question - how tight is your backstay when the control lines are fully eased? I personally try to keep mine very loose...

For most of last summer I had my backstay absolutely loose unless it was on (when we get over 15 degrees of heel). Didn't have any problem with this.

Also of note, several of the frac rigged J29's run Tech 12 backstays. They set them up threaded to a batton on the top of th mast sticking about 18" straight aft to keep them out of the way of the roach of the main. Until they put backstay on they have absolutely no backstay tension on the mast with this set-up. These are identical rigs as ours. An important side to this...they use running backstays attached at the hight of the headstay.

Have you considered running backs? I'm thinking about it. Frac J29's take a 3 second penalty for using them when racing one design. Could they really be worth 3 secs?

When racing PHRF, I use a Technora backstay set up with a cascade rather than the split. We pretty leave the backstay off until we start to get a little over powered and can not keep the boat flat. You probably only need a batten attached to the masthead if your main has a large roach. With a little attention, the backstay will not catch during tacks or gybes.
Also, someone (I forget who) told me that it was a 6 second penalty for runners on a J-30 on Long Island Sound, so check with your local hadicapper before spending the $$$.

Michael - I have not actually compared the weight of hanks vs a tuff luff but, in order to be competitive in the J24 fleet, you need hanks. Maybe its because of the ease in taking down the headsail and the control of the sail on deck. Maybe its weight. Maybe its both. Whatever the case, on a proportionally identical boat, the benefit should be the same.

If the rig is set up as described in the Sailmakers rigging guides (max rake and all that), then the backstay is almost unnecessary under 12-15 knots. So, it should be very loose to start with. Thats the way ours is setup. I have some considerable roach in our North mainsail. So much so that I have to push aft on the backstay to get the main to go through in light air. So a loose backstay is required.

Regarding the discussion of the backstay setup on J/29s: I haven't seen the specific setup you mention where the backstay is "... threaded through an 18" batten to keep the backstay away from the roach of the sail..." I would encourage anyone considering this sort of setup to seriously consider the loads involved. With a slack backstay or in light airs it may be fine, but if a blow of any sort comes up it sounds like you could tear up your sail badly or even compromise the rig. Just a thought.

If the batten deal is what's commonly done on sports boats, I don't see how you could compromise the rig. The normal arrangement is to
place a batten fore/aft the length of the crane, and extending aft some distance. (A few feet, in general) The batten has a cotter ring (middling heavy) which is put through a hole drilled a short way into the batten (At the extreme aft end) You then lead the backstay off the crane, through the cotter ring and down to the normal attach point. (The standard split tail on the J/30, one rather assumes)

With the backstay off, the batten stays straight, pulling the backstay aft and out past the roach of the main. As you load up the backstay, the batten bends, and the backstay loads up normally. Once you've put any degree of tension on the backstay, the backstay is in normal alignment, and the batten's bent, with the full load merely running past the cotter ring.

Having seen this on the Melges-24, and other sport boats, I've been tempted to try it out. Given that you never end up with a discontigous backstay, I fail to see it as a rig compromising issue. The major reason I haven't done it yet is that seems to me that it's going to be much harder to replace a failed batten on a J/30 thana melges-24. (When you break a batten in the rigs, in the worst case, you end up with the broken batten in an annoying place. You can easily cut it free and let the portion with the cotter ring slide down the backstay. Putting a new batten on, in theory, wouldn't be too hard, but I don't know that I want someone up the rig with the backstay off. (Which is needed, at some point, when it's time to re-rig the backstay onto the replacement batten.)

- David

How you trim your backstay depends on your tuning and the cut of your mainsail. For the usually light air Chesapeake, we setup with very little mast prebend and loose backstay. The mainsail is very full with a loose luff and reasonably eased halyard, for a few ‘speed wrinkles’. We might pull on a bit of backstay if the mast is bouncing in the chop. At about 8-10 knots of breeze, we snug the halyard, and start to tighten the backstay to bend the mast and stretch out the luff in. If we anticipate 15+ of breeze, we set up with tighter shrouds, more prebend, tight luff/halyard and a snug backstay. Then the backstay wouldn’t need to be trimmed until about 12-14. I’ve sailed on other J/30s that use less backstay. We generally have good speed can’t point as well without using more backstay.