Attaching a one piece jib sheet

[RobF]

ctva,

A stopper knot would be unfair to the cringle in a different way to the cow hitch. The load needs to fall along the sail so that the strain is taken by the crew reinforcement and tapes. A stopper knot would place the load laterally into the cringle, thus trying to twist it out of the sail.

That's helpful, thank you. I had the stopper knot arrangement on the first season on my boat and it appeared to work ok (although it's only a 20footer with a jib). Stopper knots wer a bit hard to get out but nothing too onerous.

My current thinking is to put a soft eye into the ends of the sheets. These can be attached to the jib clew using a soft shackle. If a continous line is required, the ends of each sheet can be quickly passed through the eye of the other sheet, forming a very quick 'reef' style knot.

 

[alahol2]

We, apparently, use the worst of all worlds. We have a single sheet with the Alpine Butterfly, but we also have a short length of 8mm braid cowhitched to the clew of each sail. Both arms of the 8mm are then double sheet bended (????) into the eye of the butterfly. That way you don't have to pass the whole sheet through the clew (or itself) to change sails. Never had it slip or undo and it is easy to untie the double sheetbend. I guess a slightly neater way would be to eye splice a piece 10mm permanently through the clew of each headsail.

 

[LadyInBed]

We, apparently, use the worst of all worlds. We have a single sheet with the Alpine Butterfly, but we also have a short length of 8mm braid cowhitched to the clew of each sail. Both arms of the 8mm are then double sheet bended (????) into the eye of the butterfly.

Maybe I will try 'a short length of braid' through the clew with a Monkeys Fist in each end. Then I can put the Fists through the eye of the butterfly (in opposing directions). That should add a bit of bulk to the arrangement

No one has yet suggested a Clove Hitch rather than a Cow Hitch

 

[Oldhairy]

Keep it simple, no knots:

Hope that the above is self explanatory. Never let me down in over thirty years.

Yea! Have used it on several boats up to 45'. Still using it on a Rival 34, Never a problem.
Pretty sure I got the idea from the "yellow pages" in Y.M.

 

[DaveS]

With a furling genoa I now use single sheets tied on with bowlines, but on a previous boat with changeable fore sails I used a single sheet with a seized eye in the middle. Each sail had a short length of line tied to the clew with a seized bowline and this was attached to the sheet eye using a double sheet bend. This worked quite well, but if I ever went back to changeable fore sails, I think I would try Penton Hooker's system: it looks neater and simpler.

The idea of tying the sheet ends together in the cockpit to avoid them escaping is so obvious that I cannot imagine why I have never thought of it. People mention this being common practice in dinghies: are there any problems with trying this with bigger boats?

 

[Leighb]

The idea of tying the sheet ends together in the cockpit to avoid them escaping is so obvious that I cannot imagine why I have never thought of it. People mention this being common practice in dinghies: are there any problems with trying this with bigger boats?

I would think that having a length of sheet always flopping about on the cockpit sole would be a significant and unnecessary hazard, in a dinghy the situation is quite different.

I use a method I saw advocated on here a year or two back. Spliced eyes in the sheet, which are attached to the genoa using soft rope shackles. Very strong quite easy to unfasten if needed, and do not snag on the babystay which was the problem with bowlines.