Am I asking a dumb question??
I have a few sails with the standard metal clasp and small roller lock (Goya and NP) at the top of the sail. This is where the webbing and top cap thread through to allow adjustment for different size masts etc.
I think that I have threaded the weebing correctly and the sail rigs fine with plenty of downhaul tension. The problem is if I get hammered by a wave and the mast bends etc the sail loses tension and falls down.
Am I doing something fundamentally wrong in the rigging of the top cap??
Tie a half hitch just above the metal clasp with the spare bit of webbing and you'll never have the problem again!
Or, you can often feed the 'tail' of webbing back and through the spare end of the roller 'cage' thing..
I find that it's a major pain to get the knots out of the webbing once they've been there for a while, and been beaten, and filled with sand and salt etc. If you're only ever going to rig it on the one mast, a knot will work just fine.
Thanks for the answers. Obviously not such a dumb question. I had/have resorted to tieing a knot in the excess webbing but thought sail maufacturers would have overcome this. Maybe something they need to think about....
Many years ago I got a friend of mine who was a sail maker to sew a webbing handle/loop in the top cap of my sail so if I was swimming for my gear and all I could reach was to top of the mast prior to the next wave getting my gear, I had a nice easy to hold handle to grab rather than holding the top of the mast. Another thing that could easily be incorporated into wave sails.
I'm not familiar with NP or Goya sails but I have heard you can sharpen the edge of the clasp on some sails with a file so it grips better.
I too have this problem with my Naish sail, which I solved with a half hitch in the webbing strap.
I found it wasn't possible to tie the half hitch hard up against the clasp, so I had to add a couple of cms. to the suggested mast base setting, to get the overall mast length correct.
Will try the duct tape idea, to see if that results in a tidier rig.
