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Date Posted: 09:59:44 05/18/09 Mon
Author: Ari
Subject: Re: mainsail downhaul
In reply to: Bob Hall 's message, "mainsail downhaul" on 14:21:15 05/15/09 Fri

Hey Bob,

Agree with the other comments, hard to see without seeing your main.

I have pretty much the same issue on the Santana 22. (Believe me, no issue on Macha -- that gaff main comes DOWN when you loose the halyards.)

The main on the little boat has a bolt rope. And I believe that improving the main to use cars or slugs is illegal from class racing perspective. I could go on a crazy rant about that -- basically anything done to improve the handling of the boat: moving the mast aft or shaving the rudder, is unsportsmanlike. As is sailing engineless -- they want to carry a 20lb weight as handicap. Weight really makes a difference -- we sailed down on the "hottest sailor in the fleet" in the Estuary the other day. He was singlehanding in 10 knots (i.e. light for around here) on a broad reach with a kevlar 155, drysailed hard bottom, etc. etc. and with three of us aboard, a tired 120, running rigging from Home Depot (soon to be replaced) we caught up to him and engaged him in a lengthy conversation about how he rigged his boat. I'm convinced it was purely a matter of wetted surface: as soon as I pulled the outboard and the two giant skanky auto-batteries, she floated like 1.5" above her waterline.

Anyways, back to the topic at hand: I can't change my main to be easy to drop.

So... I've had to adjust my technique when sailing singlehanded to take that into account. I almost always raise the main at the dock, and leave the main up for final approach -- since jib is easy to drop and raise by myself.

It also depends on the balance of your boat: will she hove to with jib only? Will she balance on a close reach with jib only? (Latter is more likely than the former for a high aspect sail/keel kinda boat -- as most people reef on a close reach.) If your boat will behave either tracking upwind, or parked, then you have all the time in the world to go forward and pull the damn sail down.

I've always been a fan of docking with mainsail only, but I've got a buddy who is a jib-only docker, and he makes that work. If you need to go forward early to get the main down, maybe that's what you gotta do?

- Ari

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