Question I never thought I would ask ... securing headsail sheets to the clew...

Your sheets are probably pretty large diameter compared to mine and many others: suspect particularly if braid is new difficult to get enough tightness on bowline. Sleightholme method looks good IF you can get two doubled loops through clew eye. If not seize bowline ends. Never had bowlines come undone, but have had sheets part under load in a lot of wind - old sheets weakened by UV. Finished that race with three double sheet bends in middle of one sheet.
 
Stemar said:
OK, I've only got a baby boat, so loads are low, but I have a single line for the sheets, that I attach with a lark's head. Once it's tightened itself down, it never slips. I did it as a temporary measure once and forgot to do it again properly, but it worked, so I've used it ever since.

The OP's experience reminds me of the time my brother in law took me climbing. I thought, at least I know how to tie a knot, but he wouldn't let me go up with a bowline because it isn't regarded as secure in mountaineering circles. He made me use a double figure of eight - tie a figure of eight at the beginning of the bight, then take the end round and follow through the 8 so the two parts lie parallel. I wonder if that would do better?
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Double figure of 8s can be very hard to undo after loading. AFAIK climbers regard their kit as semi-disposable. Cow hitch (larks head) in a single line is my preferred choice.
 
Quiddle said:
AFAIK climbers regard their kit as semi-disposable.
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Sorry, what?

Climbers do not consider their lives to be semi-disposable, so tend to stick to knots that can be relied upon not to fail, and which are hard to tie wrong when under stress. Rethreaded figure of 8s achieve this, and can be untied after taking the sorts of force experienced in climbing falls.

In the context of tow-ropes I have often heard members of this forum describe the virtues of the carrick bend for securing stiff ropes. There is a loop variant of this knot (handily called the carrick loop), would this be appropriate for Kukri's sheets?
 
Kukri said:
I usually like the seized eye and stopper knot* set up that the late great JD Sleightholme taught a class at the Little Ship Club in the 1970s, but with a new to me boat I used bowlines - on fairly hard braid on braid.

The bastards promptly undid themselves!

Half a dozen cable ties on the ends later, we got home.

Has anyone else experienced this?

What do the experts do?

* You need a size of rope that will just go through the clew cringle, doubled. Double it, push it through the cringle, clap a racking on it, seize a short end of same size rope to one leg, extending a few inches beyond the eye, make a stopper knot in the end of that, shove the end through the eye. Won’t brain you or catch on anything.
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Have seen bowlines come undone, generally if they have been on for a while, ropes have gotten stiff with salt, and lazy sheet has flogged a bit
1. Bowline with a long tail, and an extra hitch inside the bow 'just in case'
2. As (1) tail taped onto the working end - only suitable if not changing headsails
3. As (2) with a soft shackle if doing sail changes
 
I used the Sleightholme for years, no doubt from the pages of PBO, this sort of thing:

How to Attach Jib Sheets With a Soft Shackle

Then bowlines which were reliable but always hung up on the shrouds and drove me nuts, Then cow hitch, dinghy style. Most recently I am in the process of going back to the Sleightholme. I am not sure why really but that cow hitch gets really tight; on a large boat you may have to remove it with oxy acetylene.

.
 
doug748 said:
I used the Sleightholme for years, no doubt from the pages of PBO, this sort of thing:

How to Attach Jib Sheets With a Soft Shackle

Then bowlines which were reliable but always hung up on the shrouds and drove me nuts, Then cow hitch, dinghy style. Most recently I am in the process of going back to the Sleightholme. I am not sure why really but that cow hitch gets really tight; on a large boat you may have to remove it with oxy acetylene.
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That’s the one! But I make it with a fat stopper knot on the free end of the “shackle pin”, just in case.
 
I know some will disagree with me ... life's like that !!

I would never use a Cow Hitch for sheets.

Note : When applying a chain stopper to a wire mooring wire on a ship - a Cow Hitch is used before wrapping the chain around the wire because it is easily released by unwrapping chain and then smartly smacking the hitch back along the wire.

Despite the illusion that the standing parts exit same direction from the loop and logic tells you one should tension / lock the other - the fact is that its an unstable hitch used as a quickie hitch only for less important uses ...

I have to admit that for years I used a snaphook .... to enable quick sail changes when using hanked. I carried it over to furled but after a while was fed up with it snagging baby stays and also the sheets turning and spiralling .. that I then divided the sheet into two and Bowline'd them to the clew.
I have never had a sheet come unfast .. but do accept that a Bowline if not made with sufficient 'tail' can fall apart.

For those of a more cruising nature - the best cure for snagging on baby stay is a stiff tube over the stay to allow the sheet to roll past the stay. It also reduces chafe on the sheets when furled and moored.
 
Kukri said:
What a Nicholson 55 feels like:

View attachment 91661
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Some of the crews I sailed with on Nic 55's would have scared the average Tiger. Tough, hard bitten and able to go forrard to change headsails in a gale, bow pitching up and down through twenty feet or more. And tie the sheets on with bowlines.
That was the WRENS, you should have seen the blokes......:eek:
 
capnsensible said:
Some of the crews I sailed with on Nic 55's would have scared the average Tiger. Tough, hard bitten and able to go forrard to change headsails in a gale, bow pitching up and down through twenty feet or more. And tie the sheets on with bowlines.
That was the WRENS, you should have seen the blokes......:eek:
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Were you a WREN?
 
Kukri said:
My sister has been known to go to sleep in the foc’sle of a Twister going to windward in F8. After chocking herself in with sailbags to stop being thrown up to the deckhead. I could not do that.
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I used to get a bit vommy many tides ago. Wasnt pleasant. One winter, sailing across to Cherbourg from Pompey, I wasnt feeling my best. Near gale, well reefed. One of my crew was a Minesweeper skipper. Off watch, he would nip to his bunk in the forepeak and read a book. I decided right then that either I was gonna be able to do that, or never leave the Solent again. Can and did!
 
Even Nelson suffered bad Mal de Mer .... they say he used to be laid up for days when returning on board ...

My oldest brother could ride any ship at sea and fine - but on a small boat - he'd have the 'multi-colour yawns' ...

Myself - first year at sea - I had a bit of trouble but on small boats never had any sign of it at all.
 
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