Inner stays

[Digwell]

Hi. Coming to you from Southern Cal. Thanks for this forum.

Can you explain the differences between Solent stay, inner forestay, staysail stay?

[Ian McColgin]

Mostly spelling.

A staysail stay is a more generic term. My old schooner Goblin had two, a main staysail stay running from the mainmast down to about deck level abaft the fore mast, and the forestaysail stay.

So forestaysail is specificly the stay on which you hang the forestaysail. On simple double headsail rigs with a bowsprit, the forestaysail typically lands on the stem. In double headsail boats with a stem tacked jib, the forestaysail stay lands on deck.

The solent stay is a more emphatically detachable (usually) forestay that attaches on the mast near enough to the jib that it will not require more support in the way of running backstays or swept shrouds. It's value is that it brings the location of a storm jib inboard a bit and it can be used for spreading some extra light sail on a reach. It's usually too close to the jib stay near the top to allow tacking the jib with the solent stay up.

G'luck

[Brion Toss]

Hi,
You've hit on one of my favorite obsessions. In our shop, we call any stay with a sail on it a stays'l stay, and differentiate according to location. This reflects historical evolution. So we say "forestays'l" when we mean what others call a stays'l. Technically, inner and outer forestays go to different points on deck, but to a more or less common point on the mast. If the upper attachments are separated, we might, for instance, call the lower one the forestay and the upper one the jibstay. Again, this reflects rig evolution, and on large vessels it greatly simplifies locating and naming stays and sails.
The Solent Stay is made possible by roller furling; the slot is too narrow to tack through with a hank-on sail, but one can roll up to tack past it.
Fair leads,
Brion Toss