Slab reefing

[pappaecho]

My E 32 has round type booms, resulting in lots of stringy things hanging down from the reefing system.
I have been offered a second hand boom with internal reefing system which will tidy the mainmast boom up no end... but having used a similar system on the last boat I cant exactly remember how it worked.
On the round boom external system, a block on the boom leads the reefing rope up via the reefing eye in the leech and back down to a second fixed point on the other side of the boom opposite the block . Pulling the reefing rope brings the sail exactly to the correct point on the boom, because the pull both sides is exactly in the right place.
However it looks like with the internal reefed boom, one side of the reefing rope comes from the end of the boom, goes via the reefing eye in the leech, and then down to a adjustable hasp on the underside of the boom. This means that the pull when reefing is going to be asymetric and therefore less efficient.
Am I correct or have I missed something?

 

[tjbrace]

The pull from the end of the boom provides the new outhaul on the reefed sail. You would need to provide another line to do this if the reef pennant was vertical on both sides of the sail

 

[MoodySabre]

Does this diagram clarify anything?

or perhaps it is continuous like this:

 

[pappaecho]

Moody Sabre has done the trick. We would retain the cow horns on the gooseneck, and rig the downhaul as per his sketch. Thanks for that... by the way when we lived in Lee on Solent in the 1960's we used to get mail for Leigh on Sea... not so now, so the postal service has obviously got better!

 

[MoodySabre]

I can't take credit for the sketches - came from Zspars website. Do you need to retain the horns - if the downhaul comes through a bulls eye on the mast then it should all get tight enough to work. You could put a whipping on the reefing line where it reaches the jammer so you know when it is in the ideal place to be jammed off.

Beats spending too long at the mast what ever the purists say (and they usually do!)