Dart 15 Forums

JIM HANDLEY wrote:

I have a dart 15 which I sail on the solent.I am very
happy with the boar and have great fun.I sail mostly
single handed and I have had alot of problems getting
the mailsail down after I hav e finished sailing.Does
any more have any tips/ideas or know of any
equipmentI I can get to make my sailing easier .

Bob replied:

The technique is as follows
1)make sure that the boat is level and pointing directly into wind.
2)unhook the down haul off the mainsail - also unhook the mainsheet block off the sail.
3) pull the main halyard hard until you hear a pronounced click & you can see the ring is off the hook
4) Turm the mast hard to the port side. Pull the sail down.
Cheers
Bob

George Stephen replied:

Jim,

The halyard end should be fed through the loop at the top of the ring, and the end tied off with a figure 8 stop knot. Do NOT attach the halyard any other way.

When you attach the halyard ring to the sail, make sure that the knot in the main halyard loose end faces away from the luff rope .......

George

AndrewHannah replied:

My technique is similar to Bob's, except that I have the boat slightly on port tack.

1) I stand inside the bridal wires by the mast, facing the rudders. Being on port tack, the sail will be on your left side.

2) Pull the halyard up a few inches until you hear a "clonk". At this stage, the halyard ring is clear of the masthead hook. (If you let the halyard down again, the ring would once more catch the hook, and you would be unable to lower the sail).

3) You therefore need to get the hook out of the way. This is done by rotating the mast. With the ring well clear, you should be able turn the mast to your right.

4) With the hook out of the way, the sail will come down without difficulty.

The importance of going onto port tack, will be seen if you need to lower your sail whilst on the water, eg if you ever need to approach a lee shore in a strong wind.

Andrew.

Duncan Ford replied:

Jim
Bob,Andrew and George have given excellent advice (especially having the boat slightly on port tack and ensuring the knot is facing away from the mast)
There is one other possible cause of difficulty. The hook is offset on the mast and you need to make sure the halliard is straight down rather than "round" the hook when you rig.
Another tip which I use is to put a couple of largish stainless washers either side of the sail and attach the ring shackle through them. This helps to keep the sail and ring out of the way when you rotate the mast.
Good luck
Duncan Ford

Martin replied:

To be absolutely clear on this, as advice in this thread has been given for derigging standing in front of the mast ashore and also derigging afloat. When turning the mast does one turn it anti clockwise?

Does the diameter of the halyard rope make any difference? My boat is fitted with halyard of a diameter normally seen on dinghies. I am aware that other boats are fitted with much thicker halyards.

Of late I have been struggling to get the ring to stay on the hook when hoisting. Any suggestions?

Mike 1683 replied:

You turn the mast so the hook on the mast moves out of the ring on the halyard - the hook being on the starboard side of the mast means you turn the mast to the right (when stood infront of the mast - and being head up to wind means the sail keeps the ring along the center line of the boat.

I would n't have thought the dia of the halyard would make any difference to this - mine is about 5.5mm dia.

Re getting the sail up and staying up, appart from checking the knot on the ring is facing away from the mast, I've seen other cats where they've had bent and/or worn hooks or even twisted rings (kevlar sail and too much downhall!)
Good luck, cheers
Mike

George Stephen replied:

The hook is on the PORT side of the mast. I agree that you turn the mast clockwise, looking down from above.

I started to have problems with the ring unhooking, which was due partly to the rivets becoming loose and the hook moving slightly, and partly due to the hook being slightly small in comparison with others. I re-rivetted the hook which seemed to resolve the problem.

The problem became unresolvable when I bought a new sail this summer, because the eye in the head of the new sail was some 5to6mm further out from the luff rope than on my old sail. The ring would not hook on because it was held clear of the ring by the eye! The problem was resolved by fitting a new hook - which I had bought concurrently with the sail - it juts back around 5-6mm more than did the old hook.

I have since used the old sail, and have to twist the mast rather further round than with the new sail in order to twist the ring off the hook.

A thinner halyard will mean that the hook is held slightly closer to the mast, unless it is unusually stiff and inflexible (think about it!). So a thinner halyard would make hooking on easier (and less likely to unhook!).

I always reckon it helps if the halyard is "unstretchy" so that my pull on the halyard is mostly transferred into pull on the ring - with a stretchy rope some of the pull goes into stretching the halyard before it starts to work effectively on the ring to pull up the sail.


George