Staysail on a boom

[Ian McColgin]

Ahoy there.

If you're going to make a new staysail anyway (can't modify an existing to this) consider the more expensive but absolutely worth it alternative of a camber spar sail. In this unit, the bent and partly rotating spar is in a sleave in the sail running from normal to the luff to the clew. The luff, by the way, has a forward thrusting angle cut into it at the spar/stay connection, allowing for some interesting variations on luff, leech and foot tension.

Otherwise, for a conventional staysail of this size you might not be able to really tell the difference so long as the seperation is more than 6" and less than 12". I've sailed rigs with porportionatly less and more seperation but that range seems to work mostly. Chat with your sailmaker to be sure.

G'luck

Ian