raising of the mainsail

[bitbaltic]

ah okay - I was trying to remember which boats lacked sails!

 

[Dellquay13]

ah okay - I was trying to remember which boats lacked sails!

that'll be Pequod the littlest mobo

 

[Dellquay13]

Until I see the boat again on Saturday, i am working from sketchy memory, but i definitely remember a pair of pad eyes on a sliding track underneath the boom, and they could well line up with the reef cringles. I presumed the innermost was for the mainsheet, but they could be anchor points for the end of each reefing line. I may be mistaken in where the the reefing lines leave the boom for the cringles, it could be at the aft end. i distinctly remember them coming out of slots on the side of the boom, but that could be where they head into the clamcleats for hauling.
Could it be that the lines leave the boom aft, go up to the cringles, down and tie off at the pad eyes under the boom?

 

[bitbaltic]

Could it be that the lines leave the boom aft, go up to the cringles, down and tie off at the pad eyes under the boom?

yep.

 

[TernVI]

...
Could it be that the lines leave the boom aft, go up to the cringles, down and tie off at the pad eyes under the boom?

Yes.
But the true function of the pad eyes on the bottom of the boom is to hit your head on, more modern practice is to tie the line around the boom.
Some people do that as pictured up the thread, which tends to jam on the boom, hopefully in the right place. Some people just tie a bowline or other knot and let it slide to the right place on the boom.
Older boats often had reefing blocks on the side of the boom instead of the end.
All that matters is, when you reef, the boom must be held up close to the cringle and the foot must be tight enough. (you don't want a baggy sail)
That means the line must pull the reefed clew both aft, and back.

 

[Dellquay13]

Yes.
But the true function of the pad eyes on the bottom of the boom is to hit your head on, more modern practice is to tie the line around the boom.
Some people do that as pictured up the thread, which tends to jam on the boom, hopefully in the right place. Some people just tie a bowline or other knot and let it slide to the right place on the boom.
Older boats often had reefing blocks on the side of the boom instead of the end.
All that matters is, when you reef, the boom must be held up close to the cringle and the foot must be tight enough. (you don't want a baggy sail)
That means the line must pull the reefed clew both aft, and back.

 

[Dellquay13]

Yes.
But the true function of the pad eyes on the bottom of the boom is to hit your head on, more modern practice is to tie the line around the boom.
Some people do that as pictured up the thread, which tends to jam on the boom, hopefully in the right place. Some people just tie a bowline or other knot and let it slide to the right place on the boom.
Older boats often had reefing blocks on the side of the boom instead of the end.
All that matters is, when you reef, the boom must be held up close to the cringle and the foot must be tight enough. (you don't want a baggy sail)
That means the line must pull the reefed clew both aft, and back.

luckily the boom is quite short, not very far over the cockpit, and the pad eyes only about 25mm.
my sail foot doesn't have slides, but a rope edging (boltrope?) in a groove, so its difficult to tie off around the boom.

 

[bitbaltic]

Dunno if it’s been mentioned amongst the earlier good advice to test out reefing and unreefing on the pontoon, but when you do it’s a good idea to put a whipping on the main halyard marking the position relative to something when reefed. This will give confidence you’ve got the head of the sail in the right position. My reef lines are colour coded (red,blue,black) and when the halyard is at maximum tension for the reef a corresponding coloured whipping is just outside the clutch.

Similarly for each reef, when the line is on at maximum tension for the foot a green whipping is just outside the clutch.

you won’t always tension the reefs to this flattest position, depending on the sail shape you want, but it’s good to know where it is.

If all your lines are at the mast you’ll have different points of reference perhaps but the principle is the same.

 

[ithet]

The system in the diagram at post #6 only works if you have a loose footed sail. If this is the case it is good practice to tie the reefs around the boom that way even if you do have eyes below the boom. In your case with a boltrope sail you have to do the traditional way and tie of onto the eyes.

 

[TernVI]

luckily the boom is quite short, not very far over the cockpit, and the pad eyes only about 25mm.
my sail foot doesn't have slides, but a rope edging (boltrope?) in a groove, so its difficult to tie off around the boom.

Yes, it makes life hard. One of my boats had little slots in the main above the bolt rope to pass the lines through.
Since the padeyes are there, you may as well use them.

 

[Dellquay13]

, depending on the sail shape you want,

I'll settle for 2 triangles back to back with the pointy bits at the top for my first attempt

 

[johnalison]

Yes, it makes life hard. One of my boats had little slots in the main above the bolt rope to pass the lines through.
Since the padeyes are there, you may as well use them.

Now that you remind me, that is what our first main had, until 18 yrs ago when we changed to loose-footed. It all illustrates the difficulty most of us have in remembering that not everybody’s boat is rigged the same way and that much of the advice we give is meaningless.

 

[Dellquay13]

Now that you remind me, that is what our first main had, until 18 yrs ago when we changed to loose-footed. It all illustrates the difficulty most of us have in remembering that not everybody’s boat is rigged the same way and that much of the advice we give is meaningless.

it's not meaningless, and it helps to understand why and not just how things work when you see the range of solutions to peoples problems

 

[bitbaltic]

it's not meaningless, and it helps to understand why and not just how things work when you see the range of solutions to peoples problems

He doesn’t really mean meaningless, he means that most modern sails (say last 20+ years) will be loose footed as sail handling systems have improved, and we tend to forget that older sails will not be.

your main is probably quite old and there will be advantages to a new sail and handling gear if you keep the boat and have some budget to sink into it.

 

[Dellquay13]

He doesn’t really mean meaningless, he means that most modern sails (say last 20+ years) will be loose footed as sail handling systems have improved, and we tend to forget that older sails will not be.

your main is probably quite old and there will be advantages to a new sail and handling gear if you keep the boat and have some budget to sink into it.

I'm none too keen on boat and sink being in the same sentence. I'm still adjusting to not having a foam filled hull.
the sails are 2001, but haven't been unrolled much at all by the last few owners, they are on a long list of future upgrades if I can learn to live with displacement hull speed and not just nipping over to Ramsey sound at 25knts to see if the Dolphins are out and about

 

[KompetentKrew]

So they come out at a sheave part of the way along the boom? If so each line goes up to a cringle, then down to the boom end.

Either way you want to end up with something like this:
View attachment 115276

The point is that the line pulls the cringle both down and aft, to tension both the leach and the foot of the sail.

Each line only goes to one of the two cringles! And the end of each line should be at the boom, either inline with the cringle if the sheave is at the boom end, or at the boom end if the sheave is inline with the cringle. Hope that makes sense.

This is right for my boat. I found out the hard way, after tearing the sail when I rigged it the way that seemed obvious to me.

 

[anoccasionalyachtsman]

it's not easy to remember something i have only seen once or twice, ad for the last few visits it has been hidden under the stackpack canvas...

Pretty sure you have it sorted now, but I wanted to point out to future readers that your scheme in post #5 is wrong and would damage the sail because the eyelets in the foot aren't designed to resist any loads.

 

[dansaskip]

The system in the diagram at post #6 only works if you have a loose footed sail. If this is the case it is good practice to tie the reefs around the boom that way even if you do have eyes below the boom. In your case with a boltrope sail you have to do the traditional way and tie of onto the eyes.

Just because the sail has a bolt rope along its foot doesn’t mean you have to thread it in the groove. It is quite possible to use such a sail loose footed so that you can tie the reefing pennants around the boom. I did this very successfully for a number of years with my old mainsail before I got a new one.

 

[Dellquay13]

the weather forecast for this weekend doesn't show winds that will have me needing to reef, so I will see what i have got, get some photos and come back to the forum next week with solid info, not guesstimation and supposition,
Thanks all so far.

 

[Topcat47]

I've never heard of any of these 'under and around the boom and tied to itself' methods described above. Any boat I have sailed on has had eyelets in a track under the boom and the reefing lines within the boom, emerging over sheaves at the after end, the sail having no cringles along the foot. The OP has not given us any information in regard to the type of boom he has."

If you'd ever sailed a boat with a bolt rope along the foot of the mainsail, there would be additional crinkles along the foot of the sail. While I have sailed a 54', a 68' and a 75' yacht with pad eyes fixed to the boom to which the reefing pennants are tied, I've never seen then on anything smaller. (I acknowledge that this doesn't mean they're NEVER used on smaller and mid range boats, just that I've never seen them.)

All the smaller boats I've sailed on have used a version of "wrap round the boom and tie off" method but the one I advocated is I'm my experience the easiest to undo.

PS TLouth7 'd diagramme is excellent.