Highfield (Hyfield?) Lever

hi all...

so i am a new builder and and trying to figure out the best way to maintain tension on a forestay.  i just read about a thing called a highfield lever, and was wondering if anyone has come up with a homemade solution that does the same thing.  requirements for my purposes are:

1) relatively cheap

2) able to make myself or cobble together from things I find at home depot

3) capable to tensioning and being quick to release when I take down the mast.

This is for a PDRacer I am building so, you know, were not talking rocket science or super expensive gear.  Just looking for a simple solution that might have been engineered already.  thanks for any input!


2 replies:

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RE: Highfield (Hyfield?) Lever

The Highfield lever is overkill. It's designed for tensioning wire backstays and has to be pretty strongly engineered.

Sounds as if what you really want is a cleat. You can make wooden ones from scratch from good quality scrap wood (requirement 1 & 2) and you can set up ot take down the forestay in under 10 seconds. For under $11.00 you can get a really nice brass or nylon one, ready to use.

For between $3.00 and $13.00, a nylon open clamcleat jam cleat will let you adjust the tension simply by pulling a line, no wrapping lines around the cleat. Again, you can make wooden versions that work the same way.

In the same price range, a camcleat (note the different spelling) will give you a bit better control and allow more tension.

And if you have around $25.00 to spend, you can use a clamcleat trapeze and vang cleat to give yourself a 2:1 advantage to get very easily adjustable high tension. I use that setup to control the snotter on my sprit-rigged sailing dinghy. It's very simple and convenient. I can even have passengers who've never sailed before adjust the tension because it only involves pulling a single line.

All of these, except the vang cleat, are available here on the CLC website. Some of them are priced much higher than I've mentioned because they are sized for much larger and heavier boats with greater sail areas than the PDR racer. If you don't need the strength margins, you could try the folks at Duckworks.

We had a PDR racer show up one year at Okoumefest. A lot of people either ignored it or were put off by the boxiness, but it was also only one of 2 boats that went sailing that day (25-kt winds from the NW with a 20 mile fetch for the waves). It won a prize of some sort, too.

Have fun,

Laszlo

 

RE: Highfield (Hyfield?) Lever

   Highfield levers are big honkin' devices for keel boats.  Similar, over-center quick releases are made by Johnson and others for dinghies.  Here's one:

It's still probably overkill for a PD.You might also be able to use a mini snap shackle like this:

Or, just a friend to lean on the mast while you put the pin in!  I take it you are doing a sprit w/ a foresail, because the pix of PDs I've seen all had free standing masts.

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