Upgraded running rigging J/80

Back on track after Xmas! Time to prepare for the coming season. Still a long to-do list, but we are slightly working our way through it. Do you also feel as if that list grows forever, no matter how many items you tick off?

After getting new clothes (here about J/80 doublehanded sailinventory), Veloce was in much need of an new, fresh and upgraded running rigging.

Sitting down at Liros Ropes, we listed out all lines, figured out the best materials for the job and a colour coding that works even sleep-deprived and still looks modern and cool.

Main and Jib halyards and jib reef

Having your luff under control is fast.

Requirements:

• minimal stretch
• maximum grip in cleats and clutches
• easy to splice and strip

We settled for Liros Racer XTR for all luff controls. It is a stiff line that does not kink. The smaller diameter available, at 8mm is small enough to easily run through a fairlead without obstructing it, but thick enough not to glide in clutches and cleats.

The 8mm line has a 4700Kg minimum breaking load and working stretch at 1%. Loads on halyards and jib reef lines (reefing the tack) on a 26ft boat hardly exceed 350Kg. That gives us a 7% of that 1% which means 7mm stretch along 10m halyard… Acceptable for us. Such stretch is likely absorbed by the sail anyway.

Spinnaker halyard and tack line

A spinnaker halyard has different requirements. Sailing upwind, with the spinnaker down below, twice the length of the line stands where it hurts most, vertically along the mast, about 10m up to the sheave and back down to the deck.

Light is the word!

Secondly, when blowing tack line and halyard, the spinnaker needs to come down fast and with no mess-ups . A smaller line runs easily.

Last but not least: sometimes these lines need be eased or pulled with a full kite. The J/80 has no auxiliary winches for spinnaker handling. Brute muscle force is the only way. A line easy on the hands is what we want here.

Liros Magic Edge ticks all the boxes, comes at an attractive 7mm. Thin enough for all the reasons above but thick enough not to cut through skin. The line is very soft, super easy to taper and the 12 braided strands cover is very grippy.

Main sheet

On a J/80 you work the main sheet all the time. I mean, ALL THE TIME. Doublehanded, the main trimmer doubles as helmsman, therefore the trimming is literally single handed. We decided to try out a line designed specifically as sheet for dinghies and small sportboats, the Liros Magic Sheet 9mm. At “only” 1500Kg breaking load and up to 8% stretch it is not the lowst-stretch of lines, but we reasoned, that’s ok:

At 24kts wind speed and no reefs, the load on the mainsheet hardly reaches 600kg (Harken mainsheet load calculator). The tackle on the mainsheet has 4 rope sections, therefore the load on each section is only 600kg/4 = 150kg (note the margin here, as we wouldn’t be able to pull half of it one-handed!) which corresponds to 10% of the breaking load and therefore 3% of elongation (pic below). The tackle is only about 1 meter long sailing upwind, therefore a 3cm max stretch. It sounds like a lot, however the line stretches as soon as the load is applied, and only pressure differences caused by gusts are relevant, and even so, if any additional minimal stretch were to be significant, it’d automatically twist the sail spilling power.

Jib sheet

And jib sheets? Shouldn’t they be easy on the hands as well? True, however we decided to achieve this with a different approach. In fact we stole it from the J/70 class. The sheet goes from port track car through a ring at the clew, back to the port lead, across the cockpit and continues through the starboard lead, another ring at the clew and back to the starboard track car. Effectively producing a continuous sheet with a 2:1 pulley. The idea is to be very fast tacking and skipping the winches entirely whenever possible.

Requirements: tough line, no tapering, slippy through rings and leads.

We settled for a 8mm Liros Dynamic Color. Glides well, but soft at the touch. With a MBL at 2300Kg we don’t think we will ever reach 10% of that load (Harken Genoa load calculator) , therefore a stretch of 1.5%. Entirely acceptable on a 2 mt loaded section.

Spinnaker sheets

Requirements: Soft and light.

Stretch is not really a priority here. In fact, we’d rather have the line absorbing part of the stretching rather than the spinnaker. We looked for a soft line on the hands, light enough not to need a sheet change with the light spinnaker.

I knew that Liros produces custom made spinnaker sheets which I wanted to test. When I felt one in my hands I fell in love. Now let us hope that those beautiful sheets will return their love on the race course.

We chose two 8-to-5mm tapered lines with only 3 meters cover-stripped. While we were tempted to have one single continuous line to reduce rope in the cockpit, we reminded ourselves that, doublehanded, we want to have something that we can blow in case of fuck-up, rather than trailing a water-filled spinnaker with the single sheet pulling around the mast. The short taper allow us to sail the new gennakers sheeted tight for reaching angles.

Main reef

Requirements: low stretch, grip in cleats, tough.

We chose a Liros Racer Vision as it is slightly softer than the Liros Racer XTR and follows better the bottom leach up to the reefing cringle. This is a line we know well and used as spinnaker sheets on the Sun Fast 32i. I was impressed at the almost new cover after 3 years of abuse trimming wrapped around the winches!

Cunningham, traveller, kicker, reaching jib twinges, backstay tackle, outhaul

All trimming lines are Liros Magic Edge 5mm. This is an amazing line, soft at the touch, very low stretch, grippy and extremely easy to splice and taper.

Backstay

We are changing from the standard class wire backstay to one made of synthetic fiber.

Requirements: strength, low stretch and low weight.

We chose a Liros D-Pro Static 6mm.

It is probably overkill and could go down at least 1mm. However… The standard wire at a breaking strength around 1700Kg weighs almost 1Kg. The 6mm line, with its breaking load over 4000Kg, weighs 250gr. The additional breaking strength point reduces stretch to pretty much the same as wire at maximum load.

Furthermore, the D-Pro Static is made of Dyneema DM20 fibre which has no creep. While we are not worried about long term elongation, we hate that fastidious initial reversible creep phase that kicks in immediately after applying a load with the effect to lose its trim after a few minutes.

And now, down to splicing for the coming few winter evening….