49er mast height?

It is also hastle to make a working sheave for the top of your home made carbon mast. a loop of string is eiser, cheaper and works better on the water than 20m of spectra or wire(back in the day).

The other advantage is that boat on its side is stable so you can leave it there, leaving a cherub upright with sails up is a disaster waiting to happen

Compression. The halyard goes up the mast, around the sheave at the top and then to the head board. For the bow and arrow analogy imagine an external halyard as the bow string and the mast as the bow. So this puts a compression force on the mast which manifests itself as bend. Obviously the more flexible the mast, the greater the effect, and it is a bit more of an issue with unstayed masts which don't have the extra support of the halyards to control the bend. You can get round it by using halyard locks, but this involves external halyards (in all the ones I've seen) and a bit of faffing around.

Edited by Lukepiewalker

Did I mention I own a 1.5mm shortie???

In fairness if I chop it up and slap it in a pitta bread it will pass for my local kebab house...

Fair do's forgot you only had 1 prod, however I'd still be pretty gobsmacked if you can change in less than 10 mins...if it takes you a measly 60 seconds (which it won't) to take a sail from being rolled up in it's bag to being on the boat totally rigged, or vice versa, that's 6 sails to do and that only leaves you 2 minutes to take a complete rig down and another 2 minutes to put a new one up...

I won't get my wetsuit relish out the fridge just yet...

I took that picture.  It was just a giggle, Stu was not seriously looking to use that sail.

The main reason Cherubs don't have main halyards is because they don't have jib halyards...a jib halyard does put big compression loading down the mast, which can be lessened with a 2:1 system as some fireballs use.  However, traditionally you do then still need a lot of string and blocks and cleats etc or a muscle box or nasty highfield levers, and all this wire, string and fittings does actually weigh a bit, and of course cost a lot too!  So if you are going to roll it over for the jib, you might as well do the main too.

However the Daemons use halyards, and to be honest my new boat probably will too, simply becasue it's a pain in the bum to find space to roll boats over, and they are easily damaged (racks/hulls more than rigs).  I will probably go for a system similar to a 14, with a boatbreaker and a zipped jib, the jib halyard can be 1:1 and simply holds the jib up, not the rig tension.

Andy, I'd be gob smacked if it takes you less than 10 mins to do an complete rig change on a 12.  It takes me most of that just to change mains on my Fireball.  So on the 12, you have to roll it over, drop the boom off, take the main off, take the jib down, take the kite off, bag all three, remove 4 traps, D2s, shrouds and lowers, take the mast off, put the new one one, attach shrouds, 4 traps, D2s, lowers, jib, tension it all up, get the main out the bag, get it up the mast, attach the boom, and you're off.

No wait...undo 2 cheesewires, bobstay, antlers, undo tack line, remove prod, put other prod on, re-attach antlers, cheesewires, bobstay and tack line, attach tackline, halyard and kite sheets, then put it in the bin, tape over all of the split rings, roll it upright and finally go sailing!

If you can do that un under 10 mins I'll eat my wetsuit!