justanothersailboat
Active member
My (unambitious 26' older family coastal cruiser) boat has a mainsail reefing arrangement that I'm not happy with. Halyard comes back to the cockpit, everything else is done from the mast with horrible clam cleats for the two leech reefing lines and the admirably simple old arrangement of ramshorns for the luff end. Funnily enough this was just about OK when I bought the boat, with quite a lot of friction in the halyard sheaves and mast slides, and a feeble old clutch of weak design for the halyard that could be left in a position where it could be overruled from the mast foot. No, I don't know why anyone thought this was OK. However in the natural course of looking after things I have cleaned up and re-bushed the halyard sheaves and cleaned and lubricated the mast track and fitted a good modern clutch. This is an enormous improvement for unreefed sailing (the sail practically leaps into the air when hoist from the cockpit and I can tweak the halyard tension easily now til it's just right), mildly hairy for putting the sail away (it comes down fast now) and... now markedly harder to reef in exactly the conditions you most want to, when the wind is a bit strong and getting stronger.
I don't fancy going to 100% at the mast, though I have seen how well that arrangement can work on another boat where it is done well... I do not want single line reefing... so I am looking at double line reefing to the cockpit. I don't think I will need to add winches and I will do all the work myself, so it works out a lot cheaper than in the other thread that's running at the moment, but still in no way cheap. However, what I'm worried about is whether there is a risk that if the lines are not in exactly the right places, that they will end up restricting the movement of the boom.
Consider just one line running from the boom to the deck. If it is exactly under the gooseneck pivot point, then the length of the line doesn't need to change as the boom goes from one side to the other. The run of the line from boom to deck will be exactly vertical regardless of the boom angle, the line just twists a little. However, there's not room to put five lines (two for reef 1, two for reef 2, and the outhaul) in that exact point! If a line runs from boom to deck not under the gooseneck pivot then clearly, by geometry, it can't be vertical at every boom angle - so it can't be the same length at every boom angle. If it is very close then the effect is small, and of course the reef lines will be slightly slack until I put a reef in. But I'm still worried about creating a restrictive bunch of lines that will need fiddling with on every tack. Is there anything special that I need to do to get five lines in that space without problems, or is it less of a problem than it looks, or is it a real obstacle?
(I hope I'm explaining this well enough! if not I'll try a diagram)
I don't fancy going to 100% at the mast, though I have seen how well that arrangement can work on another boat where it is done well... I do not want single line reefing... so I am looking at double line reefing to the cockpit. I don't think I will need to add winches and I will do all the work myself, so it works out a lot cheaper than in the other thread that's running at the moment, but still in no way cheap. However, what I'm worried about is whether there is a risk that if the lines are not in exactly the right places, that they will end up restricting the movement of the boom.
Consider just one line running from the boom to the deck. If it is exactly under the gooseneck pivot point, then the length of the line doesn't need to change as the boom goes from one side to the other. The run of the line from boom to deck will be exactly vertical regardless of the boom angle, the line just twists a little. However, there's not room to put five lines (two for reef 1, two for reef 2, and the outhaul) in that exact point! If a line runs from boom to deck not under the gooseneck pivot then clearly, by geometry, it can't be vertical at every boom angle - so it can't be the same length at every boom angle. If it is very close then the effect is small, and of course the reef lines will be slightly slack until I put a reef in. But I'm still worried about creating a restrictive bunch of lines that will need fiddling with on every tack. Is there anything special that I need to do to get five lines in that space without problems, or is it less of a problem than it looks, or is it a real obstacle?
(I hope I'm explaining this well enough! if not I'll try a diagram)