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Converting a 1980 E-38 to a cutter

kenLof

New Member
A year ago I bought a 1980 E 38 sloop that a previous owner had added a fitting on the bow about 4 feet back from the forestay to add a second stay to make the rig a cutter. He also built a beautiful curved track forward of the dordade boxes ahead of the mast for a self tending stay sail. I'm considering now to add the forestay with running backstays with a furling staysail to make it a cutter rig. Have any other E-38 owners done this and if so did the boat balance out successfully as the mast is not positioned for a cutter rig. I mainly want to do this for heavy weather conditions so that I can furl the jib and have a flatter cut staysail for pointing.
 

Christian Williams

E381 - Los Angeles
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
Ryan Levinson put on a Solent stay, made of Spectra. He took his 38 to the South Seas. Here's one of his posts, others can be had by searching his name. http://www.ericsonyachts.org/infoex...Project-(thank-you-Pacific-Offshore-Rigging!)

It might be handy to have a self-tending staysail, and your installed gear sounds classy.

However, in my experience the boat handles all weather with a furling genoa on the forestay.
 

gadangit

Member III
Not an E38, but close enough. I also installed a solent stay for the same purpose you describe. While I do have a hank on orange dacron storm staysail sized per the offshore racing rules I've never used used it as such. I did use the staysail when running dead DW wing on wing by sheeting it tight to the center line to stop the rolling. Worked pretty well for that.

The advantage of a solent stay is not needing running backstays. Makes for a less cascading complication of more rigging.

I had hopes to try some combinations of staysail with assym spinnakers to see if I could eek out some gains in very specific wind conditions while racing, but have decided to get the boat ready for long distance cruising instead.

Our innerforestay is dyneema dux with some Colligo fittings. It wasn't terribly expensive and gives some redundancy to holding up the mast. And some additional heavy air options with our sailplan if it comes to that. I've never gotten used to rolling up the headsail partially even though I have a foam luff. Perhaps someday I will.

Chris
 

MCD

Member I
A year ago I bought a 1980 E 38 sloop that a previous owner had added a fitting on the bow about 4 feet back from the forestay to add a second stay to make the rig a cutter. He also built a beautiful curved track forward of the dordade boxes ahead of the mast for a self tending stay sail. I'm considering now to add the forestay with running backstays with a furling staysail to make it a cutter rig. Have any other E-38 owners done this and if so did the boat balance out successfully as the mast is not positioned for a cutter rig. I mainly want to do this for heavy weather conditions so that I can furl the jib and have a flatter cut staysail for pointing.

Hi kenLof,

I was just curious to see how this turned out if you went ahead with it. And in particular, if you had advices on how to rig running backstays for the staysail?

Smooth sailing,
Marie
 
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