This is for the North Sails (Cape Town loft) awning that fits onto the foredeck to provide shade from front of the saloon to the crossbeam. It works really well and provides excellent shade even in winds up to 25knots (if rigged correctly!)
Having designed this awning with Steve Meek from North Sails after I saw one he had made for an Escape Cat at the Cape Town boat show. When packed up it probably weights about 6kgs and packs into a bag they provide which measures approx. 800mm X 400mm X 300mm
To rig the awning you will need to (preferably) splice up to two dyneema strops in 8mm or 10mm dyneema (or if ordering one new you could ask NS to make these for you if you are not au fait with doing a Brummel eye splice (they are really easy to do - check out You Tube University!!) When making up these strops I would recommend making these strops long enough so that it is easy to walk around under the awning otherwise moving around on your foredeck it will look like you are hosting a Quasi Modo party!!!
I have rigged my awning by fitting snap shackles onto the front eyes which i then clip onto the thimble of the halyard snap shackles. This makes securing the halyard to the strop and awning a two second task. The strops must have an eye splice on both ends.
Feed the strop through the spinnaker block and then clip the awning and halyard to the eyes of the strop. Then tension the aft eyes with the straps to the shroud and tension them so that the awning eyes are approx 15cm from the shroud. ( i rig the aft side of the awning at roughly the same height as the bow eyes but not higher.
Then tighten the awning around the genoa and also to the required height at the mast onto one of the mast steps.
Then tension the storm jib and spinnaker halyards.
I will post a video rigging set up of this when I get back to my yacht.
