Quickest secure way to tie up sail/spars for highway travel

stollie

stollie

Active Member
It takes me a while to tie up the bundle so I have peace of mind when I get going, using both the mainsheet and halyard. I'm looking for alternatives. Anybody use ball bungees like this, or pieces of velcro, or whatever? Anything to get out of the sweltering heat asap.
 

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stollie said:
It takes me a while to tie up the bundle so I have peace of mind when I get going, using both the mainsheet and halyard. I'm looking for alternatives. Anybody use ball bungees like this, or pieces of velcro, or whatever? Anything to get out of the sweltering heat asap.
Click to expand...

I just ordered more ball bungees to use for mine.
 
If you do a lot of saltwater sailing and your sails get crusty from flying spray, you can also rinse the sail(s) and let them dry before furling, stowing, whatever... otherwise, salt crystals work their way into the fabric or sail material and cause damage on a microscopic level (but it's still damage which will tell over time). :confused:
 
Spar bag it is. I should use the chain sinnet more often. Thanks

Pehare, I'd stuff the salt crusty sails into the bag. Once home, everything gets a good freshwater rinse, including the bag.

I usually brace the sail up against the house and spread it out til it looks like a big wide "A" and use a couple of chairs to keep it from falling down. It makes it easy to spray it down with the hose. So far, no big wind has knocked it down.
 
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Haha, Stollie, I did the same with my Minifish sail and lateen rig, propping it up against a high wall of the ol' beach cottage in Coronado and rinsing it well on both sides... cinderblocks or stacked bricks down on the concrete driveway slab worked well enough to keep the spars from sliding around in a breeze, unless it really got windy. :rolleyes:

Had to be a bit more creative with the Laser rig (boom unshipped), but we had an old wooden carport all tricked out with multiple drying racks and whatnot... an aluminum step ladder occasionally came in handy to support the foot of the mast with the spar itself horizontal or angled slightly upward, the sail drying in the breeze which funneled through between beach cottage and carport... :cool:

Sometimes, one has to get creative to figure out the best way to dry a rinsed sail, including rigging the boat again in the driveway, though I never needed to do that as I had enough options. As soon as the sail is dry, ya wanna go ahead and furl it round the spars or stow it properly (with a Laser, for instance). I had nice spar racks built under the carport, while my dry Laser sail and all other gear lived in one corner of my room back in Coronado. Big room, so no worries... ;)

P.S. When I worked as 'Sail Hut Attendant' at SDNSC (Fiddler's Cove Marina on the Silver Strand in Coronado), it was acceptable for club members to fly rinsed sails from flag halyards, as they dried quickly that way and posed no great problem with the flagpole footed in a concrete slab in the middle of a lawn overlooking the cove. Well, time to go watch some entertainment and think about dinner... :D
 
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A spar bag is definitely worth purchasing. I’ve found some deals on eBay. Protect your sail from the elements and the critters, too. Roll your dry sail around itself, not around the spars, then tuck it between the spars before using the chain sinnet. Thanks for that reminder, Tag. I confess I don’t always use the chain sinnet but it’s the best way to go.
 
Haha, Norcalsail, I hear ya... and if it's late (after dark) when you arrive back home, it won't hurt too much to rinse everything the following morning. Sometimes, I'd be so beat from sailing that I'd set everything on the concrete slabs under our open carport, then deal with it in the morning... easier to see everything that way too, and check all your gear as you rinse it. As long as everything got rinsed properly, it was okay, though I usually tried to rinse it right away upon arrival at my house, especially if there was still some daylight left. :rolleyes:
 
That sure is the most tiring part of the day, having to rinse everything when ya just wanna knock back a cold one and take a snooze, which I've done as well. I'm planning at least one late afternoon/early evening sail before I wrap it up for the season. When that happens, the gear will definitely have to wait til next day for the rinse.

If only the chain sinnet tied up as fast as the untie. I'm sure the more I use it, the faster I'll get at it.
 
I recently acquired a sail bag but for runs to and from the lake this is my quick set up.
I wrap the halyard towards the end of the spars, about 2 wraps, half hitch then a couple wraps back crisscrossing over itself. Finish with a half hitch.
With the mast through the gooseneck I place the bottom of the mast in the storage compartment. Run the spars under the traveler. Bungee and pool noodle the spars to the traveler. Wrap PFD around the sail group at the coaming, and use the bowline to tie the gooseneck to the bow handle. One more bungee over the middle, just for good measure. It may appear to be sitting on the deck, but the pool noddle aft and the PFD at the coaming keeps the hard parts up off the deck. Secured in the front and rear with the mast in the storage compartment this is very secure for highway travel.

Notice the red flag (bandana). You know because the distracted driver wouldn’t notice a 14’ sailboat in a truck without it!!!

Quick and easy,
....besides the pool noodle and bungees we should already have everything we need.

Now obviously stollie your setup is impressive, even superior to mine in being secured and neat, it might be the way to go if I was traveling for long distance, but it may be a little over kill for my quick run to the lake. Mine is a 10 minute ride.
I can break down my riggings and have her on my truck this way in about ten minutes.
I have done about 50 miles with this method, I just added a couple more bungees and cam straps.
 

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Here she is getting ready to load into the truck for the ride home. Wrapping the sail in the water helps beat the heat.
 

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Wow, that's a lot of work. I roll up the sail and scrunch up the halyard, then put the spars and sail and mast into a sail bag. I pad the coming with a towel and tie a line through the traveler eyelets around the back of the sail bag, and a line through the deck cleat around the front of the sail bag. That's it.
 
Nyet Comrade, it's actually one of those old Sunfish sheets with the snap shackle spliced on the end, you know, the ones that are about 2 feet too short?
 
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