Summary
Should a staysail be set on a fixed inner stay, or on a furling anti-torsion cable? The AT-cable furler wins: it lets you pull the staysail out and back in from the cockpit alone, keeps the foredeck clear for tacking the Genoa, and means you don't have to wake your watch partner to go forward at night.
The possibility of setting a staysail instead of or in addition to your usual foresail, normally a Genoa, adds enormous flexibility to your sail-plan. On some wind angles, it may pay to set your staysail inside the (part-furled) Genoa. But the real benefit is when the wind pipes up, and you can sail on under staysail and main alone. Or when short-tacking up a narrow stretch of water, where a staysail is so much easier to tack than a Genoa or other large headsail. For all options on the cutter rig and similar sail-plans, see also or dedicated article Two Headsails: Exploring Cutter Rig Options.
How Best to Set a Staysail
One bluewater cruising couple who have tried various options in setting up their staysail are Amy and Matt of Sailing Florence. First, they had a removable inner wire stay on which the sail was set and hoisted on hanks. “We could set our storm jib here as well, but that meant that we had to come outside of the cockpit to use the stay sail when setting or taking it down. We have a rule on Florence that if it’s dark at night and one person is sleeping, if the other person’s going on the foredeck they wake the sleeping person up just from a safety point of view. That meant there were lots of times when we would have wanted to use the staysail, but we didn’t because it wasn’t really worth waking the other person up, and also the fact that we had to come up on the foredeck when it got really windy made us kind of reluctant to do that. In effect, a lot of times we’d still be sailing with a part furled Genoa when really we would have been much better off with only the stay sail.“
Setting the Staysail on its Own AT-Cable
Now they set the staysail on its own AT cable on a furler which has multiple advantages. “We now use it so much more as we can pull it out or pull it back in and swap sails so easily that we just do it all from the cockpit all of the time. We have had so much more use out of our staysail than we ever would have before. The tack of the sail is attached to a continuous line furling system of the kind usually seen on offshore racing yachts. Usually, there would be a solid fixed foil of the kind seen on the Genoa.“
So why this special furler, made by Profurl? “What we really liked about our old system, with the removable wire stay, was that we could move it out of the way when we wanted to tack upwind with our Genoa. This system allows us to do the same, but now with the sail furled and on deck.”
With a fixed inner stay, the Genoa would have to be furled on one tack and then be unfurled again on the new tack, after tacking, which is a lot of hassle expecially in confined waters.
The Anti Torsion Cable
This is an integral part of the sail, allowing it to be set flying and also to be furled without the fixed foil, similar in principle to a Code-type reaching sail. The two to one purchase of the hoist and the halyard winch allow sufficient tension to be put on the luff of the staysail. The downside of this system is that the sail cannot be part-furled as it could be if it were set on a fixed foil. The storm-jib can also be set on this furler instead of the staysail.
But the real game-changer is how the stay sail can now be lowered and pulled back to the mast and out of the way to clear the foredeck for tacking the Genoa while furled but still ready to be set, attached to the tack and halyard. “This has completely changed how we sail Florence. We are incredibly happy with it and I think having two furling head sails is an absolute must for a cruising boat. It would be on top of our list if we’re ever looking or dreaming about having another boat but having the inner one on a torsion rope so that we can pull it back to the mast and still tack with the full Genoa is just the icing on the cake and, for us, the absolute perfect setup!“
