Hi Timbo,

I didn't calc the weight benefit. In theory dyneema is 7 times lighter than wire. However I don't believe that such a small improvment will improve the performance of the boat. I gave a guestimate about the drag some postings before, it is neglectable as well.
The main benefit of dyneema is cost. I would pay nearly 50%-75% more for wire including swaging and a plastic cover to protect the sail.

After another day with light wind (in the morning) and strong wind (in the afternoon). I think I will invest in wire. In light winds, it was fine. For strong winds and waves it is not stiff enough in my opinion.

Waynemarlow,

Agreed that the leeward sidestay will be slack. But the leeward forstay (if you have one) should not.

Cheers,

Klaus

Simple answer is.

Use wire for the stays and diamonds, synthetic line is just practical here/

But use lines for the trap-lines. There is absolutely no reason not the use line here. Cheaper, lighter, simpler, less wear on the batten pockets and safer (can be cut in emergency)

Wouter

Sticky back sailcoth on the batten pockets where the stay rubs works fine for this, replace when it gets worn through which is every year or so for me.

Elasticity in side stays while sailing is just wrong, might as well go back to cotton sails.

Darryn
Mozzie
1782

For me it was largely being able to set up my own shroud lengths easily and simply without having to constantly go to a chandler to adjust the stays, cost and weight was not really the issue, as an aside I lost nearly 3 kilos ( including the adjusters ) and had nice soft stays which didn't damage sails nor hands.

It would be interesting to go back to wire for a while and probably see what others are confirming that the D12 is just too elastic or perhaps not. Coming from a gliding background where there was some argument whether stiff platforms were better than flexiable ( basically the flexiable platforms took out all the shock and jolting allowing the pilot to thermal better vs the flexiable wings didn't allow the wing to perform as it should ). I guess trial and error maybe the answer. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

The 3M gunnal non slip is also good for protecting the batten pockets & last quiet a few years

I talked to Mike Krantz at Layline, and he felt that line for the traps was OK (his word) but that for the stays unless you go with the carbon stuff ($$$$) then he felt there is just to much creep. I have to believe that he would know since he could use any line he wanted on his F18 or A cat and still has wire on them. So for now think will stick with wire.

Jody

My concern is not about the small amount of weight you save, but the amount of wind drag you add by going from skinny wires to fatter line, and then add the risk of creep, and the risk of failure if something sharp rubs up against it. You would have to be constantly checking them for wear and nicks, etc. I would think.

I like the lower maintenance of wire because I leave my mast up most of the time. If I were keeping the boat on a trailor with the mast down and all stays coiled neatly in the box, maybe I wouldn't worry about using line instead of wire. Of course I could stop drinking beer and I would lose more weight than by switching to line too. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

Klaus had calculated the extra drag to be a 2% increase. He made some posts about this early in the thread.

Well, it's a small increase but an increase anyway, and if it's blowing 20, going upwind, I'd rather not have any increase in drag up there. I count 3 stays plus 4 trap lines, so there are 7 fatter lines vs. 7 skinny wires.

My origanl reason for the line over wire was just easy of storage as we have to travel to all the regattas, but at the expense of creep and worse preformance I can handicap myself there with stupid stuff, so will have one less beer, and keep the wire for now.