According to John Harris, the sail is up high on the mast for performance, not aesthetics. The extra height is to move it out of the confused air along the surface of the water. Moving it back down could lose you some driving power.

Jaws work fine on booms. I've used them on gaffs and sprits. You'll probably need to add a vang, though. You also have to be sure that the jaws are strong enough to handle the twisting action from being flipped all the way around the mast by a strong gust if you're going to use that maneuver to depower the boat.

Not sure if a simple lashing and halyard instead of a mast attachment at the throat would work. It might not be tight enough to take the aftward pull at the peak and still maintain the sail shape you're going for when the snotter is tightened down hard. The throat may just get pulled away from the mast. Maybe a very tight downhaul on the luff would help but my thought is that you'll have another dimension of stretchy standing rigging needing constant adjustment.

It seems to me that everything that you're trying for, with the exception of lowering the sail, would probably be achieved more successfully with the balanced lug rig. You can reef it, there's no gooseneck or jaws and it can flip all the way around the mast with no problem.

Laszlo

   Hello,

I have been pondering some similar things.  I notoced that one can buy a sew sprit sail with reefing points.  Not sure how that would work.  I noticed in the photo bellow there appears to be a line from the end of the boom to the mast.  Is that a brailing line? 

Keith

Hard to tell from the photo, but that appears to be a crease. A brailing line would run from the top of the mast out to the brailing eyelet, back to a block at the top of the mast and down the mast to a cleat on the mast or deck.

I added a brailing line to the sprit rig for my brand-X dinghy and it's been very useful. The only problem is that it makes the top of the mast a busy place, what with the extra lines and block.

I did some more poking around and found that there are some boats out there with lanyards to raise and lower the sail, but that they do have to worry about keeping the throat frimly attached to the mast.  The pull from the sprit is the only thing keeping the peak up and the sail in the correct shape, so there's a lot of tension there which could lead to stretching of the lanyard and lashing plus the need for frequent re-adjustments. One way around this is to use racing-quality low-stretch synthetic lines.

The point of a sprit rig is simplicity, cheap materials, a low center of effort and the ability to stow all the sticks in the boat. It sacrifices some upwind performance and the ability to easily reef to accomplish this.

Putting on all the additions to take care of this sacrifices the simplicity and cheapness while doing nothing to increase the performance. Reefing, even with all the modifications to make it possible, is nowhere near as easy and fast as on other sails.

I really enjoy my boat with the sprit sail, have had a lot of fun with it and have no plans to change it to another rig, but I still think that if someone wants to address the sprit rig's shortcomings changing to a balanced lug rig will give a much better result than adding more stuff to the sprit.

Have fun,

Laszlo

OK, just found a nice article that addresses all the questions in this post. Khamm, that probably is a brail line in your post. It seems that boomed sprits use a slightly different sysem with the brail line running to the boom, not through an eyelet in the leech.

It also discusses reefing and changing the position of the sprit to maintain a correct shape. Note that the reefing method discussed will not work with a lanyard to raise and lower the sail.

Laszlo

Laszlo, thank you for the detailed replies. I'm glad to get your thoughts before I go and do something I might regret.

The stretching of the throat lashing didn't occur to me. Given how the throat is lashed now with 4 turns of line through the hole in the masthead, I assumed that lashing it around the entire mast (rather than through) would make no difference. Is it the extra length of the lashings that may let it stretch more? I had come across the article you linked and while it does address reefing I don't feel comfortable unstepping the mast on the water in conditions where a reef might be necessary. The sprit sails demonstrated are loose-footed while my Skerry has a boom. Also I'm having trouble visualizing the throat and snotter pennants as described so forgive me if I misunderstand. What is really the difference between the pennant hitched to the mast through the throat grommet then tied off to the masthead compared to the halyard arrangement where the throat is lashed to the mast and the halyard run up to the masthead before being fastened to a cleat down low? Is it the length of the halyard compared to the pennant that would cause the extra stretch? Details aside it still seems to me like I'm in the right neighborhood with lowering the sail by some means to enable me to furl up the foot somehow preferably without needing to stand. The pennant setup for throat and peak seems close enough to a halyard and outhaul to me but correct me if I'm wrong.

Can you elaborate on the boom twist and vanging please? For example which way would the boom try to twist? Would it be simpler/better to lash the boom to the mast like is shown in the article you linked? I realize this might require a slightly longer boom.

Appreciate your thoughts.

   This build log talks about adding a halyard and a combination brailing line/lazyjack to the Skerry: https://forum.fyneboatkits.co.uk/viewtopic.php?id=382

   This is great information  Thank you.   I think I will attempt some brailing line modification this summer. After I scrae the hull.  and sand.  and paint

Keith H

I have included a link to a picture taken while I was setting up the spritsail on my Skerry.  I have a sprit boom that uses a snotter to attach and tension the boom.  With this type of boom you can remove it and go boom less.  With out the boom you will need to setup a Barber hauler to help shape the sail.
You can see the grommet where the brail line loops around the sail as in the picture Laszio posted.  My sail is approximately 62 square feet, a bit larger than the stock Skerry Sprits'l.  My sale is also shaped a bit different than the stock sail.
There are two really good articles one on “Sprit Rig Basics” in the July/August 1989 and “Managing the Spritsail” in the March / April 2002 of Wooden Boat Magazine.  Good Luck!

https://photos.app.goo.gl/ZPZKqenZQRHe8CAr6   

Jackie's picture:

Skerry,

The vang (in a boat this size a simple line) attaches to the boom near the mast to keep the boom from flying up. I think that this would be needed if you use jaws instead of a gooseneck since it's a less rigid connection. Depending on how you have it sheeted, it may not be necessary, but in the 2 small boats I used boom jaws in I needed some kind of vang action.

No experience lashing a boom to the mast, so you're on your own with that. It's cheap and easy, so try it and tell us how it works.

As far as the jaws needing to stand up to a twist, every rig I've had with jaws has always twisted when the wind caught the sail. The windward jaw moved up on the boom and down on the gaff, opposite for the leeward jaw. If it was a quick gust the jaws made quite a noise. I never had one break, but at times it sounded dramatic. That's why I was saying that the jaws should be strong. I never saw that kind of motion with a gooseneck.

Laszlo

Jackie, that's a gorgeous spritsail!

Thank you for the replies everyone. I appreciate the help with my armchair sailing until my trailer is ready. I will tinker with my ideas and report back. Afterall, that's why I went for a simple boat like this as opposed to a complicated and expensive boat with furlers, sail tracks and who knows what else.