BelleSerene
Well-Known Member
Pete, how did you get on? I'm looking to do the same, for the same reasons: to reduce friction in the system. I have a 39' boat with two double slab reefs.
I plan to overcome the 'sticky' problem above by using a low-friction ring soft-shackled through the reef eye to a steel ring (which is just there to hold the LFR in place beside the sail). Like you, it appeals to me to have a thin, low-friction line doing the up-through-down sail bit of the run.
Plan A is to long-tapered-tail-splice some 4mm dyneema (breaking strain 2000kg - my reef lines can't be taking two tinned can they?!) into the rope that goes through the clutches, and replace the mast base blocks with low friction rings. I prefer this to stripping the cover off half a sheathed dyneema sheet because the dyneema inside a cover generally doesn't have the polyurethane coating that protects against UV and lowers running friction.
For example, the first (lower) clew reef goes up maybe 1.5m, down to the boom end and forward through the boom: I could splice this so that the splice is within the boom regardless of reef position.
Plan B is just to use a sheathed dyneema sheet for the whole job - but still employing low-friction rings beside the reefing eyes.
Do you think it matters to have the whole reefing line in dyneema rather than just splicing thin dyneema to the end of a polyester sheet? If you did such a splice yourself, did you find it catching where it went through a block? Do you have any top tips having done the job yourself?
