question on head sail

I have an 1973 Ericson- 27 , on my 155 Genoa there is a cringle on the luff edge about 2' up from the tack . The sail is hanked on . can anyone tell me what it is for ?

I may be mistaken, but it sounds like a jib cunningham used to tighten the luff.

Best Always,
Frank

re: headsail question.

Would having a jib cunningham give me a different effect than tightening the jib haylard ?

The cunningham pulls the sail down from the bottom and thus tightens the luff without greatly affecting the twist at the top of the sail. Tightening the halyard tends to pull the sail up from the top and thus pulls the twist out of the top of the sail. Others may know more of this than I, but that's been my experience. Haven't used one of those critters for a very long time!

Best always,
Frank

Cringle on jib

I had a 1973 E-27OB (#372) with hanked-on jibs and a cruising chute, but they were all ordered to my specs. I think the guys who said it was a Cunningham were right. On my boat, though, when we needed a tighter jib luff, we just tightened up the backstay. It was easy to do from the back of the boat. The only time we messed with the jib halyard tension was when we were wing & wing and wanted some tension off. We did both the main and the gennie at that stage. I was always afraid we'd forget to tension them again. We didn't.

Tightening the jib

The stated concept that tightening the halyard tightens only the top of the sail is specious. When you tighten the jib, you tighten the luff of the entire sail. Yours is the only case I have ever heard of wherein a jib has a Cunningham. Never seen one either.

Actually I have heard of a cunningham for a jib, and the purpose is (was?) the same as for a main sail. Remember that you use the cunningham for the main because you cannot hoist it further than the black band at the top, when racing. The sail is typically cut to fit right up to the band for general purpose sailing anyway, so the usage is the same for cruising.

Back when sailors used to order up a maximum size jib, they would have one built that used the whole head stay. In light air it would be a perfect fit on the luff, but in heavier air that luff needed more tension... so a cummingham line was led back to the cockpit.

Lot of hassle (IMHO) for a little more pointing ability... and then along came composite sails that stretched a lot less and did not need that added adjustment line anyhow.

Even "dacron" is said to be different/better today in its characteristics than it was 20 years ago.Hopefully our resident sailmaker Seth will stop in with a definitive answer, also.

My .02 worth,
Loren

Morgan, I didn't intend to state that tightening the halyard or the cunningham didn't affect the entire luff (provided of course that the sail is connected at either end). It was my observations of long ago that the difference in use affected twist. I havent't even seen a jib cunningham in over 30 years, kinda tuff to remember what they do.

Best Always,
Frank

Cunningham

It's my opinion is that Briggs Cunningham is still alive and is the oldest living member of the NYYC. Can you imagine what your investment would be worth if you bought one of his used race cars when he got out of racing?

Morgan, I agree - Briggs is still alive and sailing well. Net worth of one of his cars? How much is in Ft. Knox?

Best always,
Frank

I've seen genoa cunninghams before. A boat I used to race on, I think it was an S2 9.1, had a genoa tack attachment point that was basically two prongs, one on each side of the headstay. Kicking loose around the genoa bag was a thin line with a lot of bowline loops tied into it. The line was designed to attach to one of the prongs on the boat, pass through the cunningham cringle on the sail, and whichever loop put the right amount of tension in the luff of the genoa was supposed to go over the other prong. I don't know how well it worked but it sure was hard to put on.

My dad's 1976 Pearson 28 was equipped with a hanked-on 150% genoa with cringles midway up the luff and leech, and a row of reefing eyes, that enabled it to be lowered and reefed just like a mainsail. It reefed down to about 120%. I know this because the boat also had a 110% genoa and this reefed down bigger than that. Tacking was awkward, but it did work. This was of course in the days before roller furling was prevalent.

The roller-furling 150% genoa on my 1969 Ericson 32 has a distinctive feature that I've never seen on another boat: a set of 6' battens installed down the leech, parallel to the luff, that reduces flogging and improves sail shape substantially. They roll smoothly into the roller furling sausage. Dave Bierig built the sail.

Thanks for all the suggestions so far . Any further ideas will be much appreciated .

Morgan Stinemetz said:

It's my opinion is that Briggs Cunningham is still alive and is the oldest living member of the NYYC. Can you imagine what your investment would be worth if you bought one of his used race cars when he got out of racing?

Click to expand...

Nope. He died in 2003 of Alzheimer's at age 96.

Cunningham

Ooops! I stand corrected. Right you are about 2003. I see where John Fitch drove for Briggs. Back in the early 60s I had a Corvair Sprint that John Fitch had gotten behind with a Lotus/Chevrolet dealer from Millerton, NY, Pete Pulver. Mr. Fitch and I went driving together in my new car at Lime Rock. He was nice enough not to get out of the car and suggest I get a car that I could drive more efficaciously. Maybe a Buick or something like that. You could drive all day at Lime Rock back then for $10. There were some Lister/Corvettes out there on the track with us that were positively scary. But that's a long way from sailing and a long ways back in time. Onward!

Here's the deal....

Hey guys-

Here is the deal:

1). MANY smaller boats still use jib cumminghams-we use it all the time on the T-10, and many One Design boats still do.

2). While it is true that halyard and cunningham affect luff tension all along the luff of the headsail in question, it is also true that as you tension the halyard only you will see the biggest impact in the top half of the sail, and if you add cunningham you will see most of the impact in the bottom half of the sail. The comment about twist is close, but not exact. Adding luff tension will adjust the fore and aft location of the max draft (chord depth). Adding tension on the luff pulls the draft forward, and easing it moves it aft. This is the primary purpose of changing luff tension on a sail. Wrinkles are irrelevant by themselves. If in order to have the draft in the right place for the conditions you have wrinkles, so be it. Adding tension to remove wrinkles in many conditions will result in the draft being pulled too far forward.
When you pull the draft forward you relieve some of the leech load, and the result of this will be an increase in leech twist (or the reverse if you reduce luff tension). So, we use the cunnigham to adjust draft location in the lower half of the sail, and halyard to adjust it in the top portion of the sail.
3). Backstay tension has no impact on sail luff tension. Adding or removing backstay tension will affect headstay tension (sag), but not halyard tension/luff tension.
4).The ring you see on the sail may have been a cunningham, but I suspect it was a changing ring. Did this sail orginally have luff tape and was converted to hanks? It is fairly common on headsails with luff tape to have this cunningham-looking thingy installed, whose function is to allow a new (larger or smaller) headsail to be hoisted in the free groove. When doing an "outside set", a sail tie or line is attached to this ring on the sail being changed, so that the tack on the old sail can be released and the old sail taken down underneath the new one.

Clear as mud?

Cheers!

S

Thanks for chiming in, Seth. Well said!

Jim McCone
Voice Of Reason E-32-2 Hull #134
Redondo Beach, CA