outhaul routing - why?

[Daydream believer]

I think you'd struggle to get a decent flat, reefed sail without a winch or block cascade on the outhaul.

If you are reefing, the outhaul to the clew on the foot (which is what we are discussing) does not take any load at all. The load goes to the reef cringle on the leech further up the sail (which is not part of the discussion). The tension on the clew at the foot of the sail becomes irrelevant & redundant.

 

[Daydream believer]

I do not find there is so much tension on the clew, as suggested above. The most friction is from the sliders, or bolt rope in the track along the foot. This friction is emphasised by the load applied by the leech load trying to pull the clew upwards & out of the track. I usually ease the vang a litte, so I am not fighting all the elements. Whilst one sometimes wants a fairly flat foot, one does not usually have to winch the sail dead taught. It still needs to retain some flow. Off the wind, one should be looking to induce different degrees of flow along the foot & in the bottom third of the sail. This does not need a taught clew. Quite the opposite in fact. With my 45M2 sail I let it off by up to 125mm

Sail shape is the product of multiple forces, outhaul, mainsheet, vang, halyard, cunningham, backstay, mast bend & finally rig tension.
(I leave it slack when not sailing, I dislike stretching sails unnecessarily.)

A 1:1 sheeting tension should be sufficient for a line lead back to a cockpit winch, for the majority of smaller craft. It means less friction when one wants to ease the clew. A cascade, or block system, in the boom makes for friction when easing & can be difficult to maintain on a cruising yacht. Not having the controls to hand for the crew in the cockpit, just leads to poor sail adjustment, because it means that every tweek needs a trip forward. Crews soon get fed up of that, even when racing.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

Our main is loose footed. The tension in the clew may not be that high in a horizontal direction, but it is still considerable, about 40msq of fully battened sail, in high apparent wind. Plus theres the friction in the car, under pretty much the full load of the mainsheet. It’s a man’s job to sheet it home, with a 24:1 2 speed mainsheet. A cascade, in fact. Which gives you an idea of the clew load. You need a big mechanical advantage to move that.