Singlehanded or onehanded sailing means to sail a sailboat or a sailing yacht all by yourself. Reefing single handed and other sailing discussion in the seabreeze general forums, page 1. Single line reefing is the devils work, the bits that tangle are not accessible. The single handed community is fairly small and a few names are well known. Best mainsail if ease of use single handed were your sole criterion would be junk rig. Know your limits and consider any sail with inexperienced sailors a singlehanded operation. A singlehanded reefing system for a sailboat including a sail, halyard, reefing line and winch mechanism. Reefing the mainsail and tacking three times singlehanded aboard sobrius, my 1972 dufour arpege. An inboom reefing system which is ideal for fast and efficient reefing when sailing single handed or short crewed.
Roller, slab, jiffy and single line reefing are among the choices. By the way, there are great books for single handed sailing, which also have many tips for single handed sailing, read them and try out some things beforehand. The system described allows for progressive mainsail reefing, either by a freely chosen amount or in two distinct stages depending on the system used. A line at the leech is secured to an eye strap on the port side of the boom. To make your reefing truly single handed ask your local sail loft or send your sail to us for installation of jack line on the luff of your main. We finally get around to finishing our single line reefing project, and show you if it works or notwe also manage to get out sailing.
In this article ill outline some ideas to make your own catamaran sail better. I am aware that there might be a performance penalty but would accept that for the ease of sail handling. Reefing and tacking singlehanded with pauly dangerous and. If we are racing, we pull the pin on the mast slugs and drop them out and.
On wildling we have the leech reef lines at the mast, but the main halyard is led back to the electric winch at the helm, so its easiest to reef with two people. Information on trimming the mainsail, get great boat handling skills information from the rya, using main sheet, kicker and traveller to the best effect, creating twist in the mainsail. Single or double line systems can be set up to allow you to reef without leaving the cockpit. I have single handed sailed my last boat, a sea wolf 40, but in the protected waters of puget sound and salish sea. Individual ties work fine to snug the sail to the boom, but the process is laborious and less practical for the singlehanded sailor. Its drawbacks include the increased friction induced in the system through the inclusion of yet more turning blocks. Single line mainsail reefing system 430 for boats 22 27 ft 6 8 m with mainsails under 150 ft2 14 m2 installation manual intended for specialized personnel or expert users 4171 12 reef mainsail with one line easy to install reef from cockpit in.
Lowering sails single handed sailing forums, page 1. The luff cringle will pull tight while the leech cringle is just starting to pull down. You can always get into a situation where your partner or team on board fails. As i sail all year round i played around all last year with various methods of reefing as my problem is i have to go on deck coachroof for any adjustments to the mainsail. A doubleline system is a little bit simpler design but it can take more time to use. Reefing systems for trailerable sailboats typically come in two types. There isnt much to it but i do show you a couple of tips that make all the difference. On an unfamiliar river, at night, using our roller reefing mainsail for the very first time. Newer boats are being designed a bit more mast forward, with. Several slides are attached to the line which extends from the tack to the luff reef grommet. Opponents of single line reefing will point out that a single line system cant pull both reef points of the sail evenly at the same time and theyre right. I have a westerly longbow 31 ft which i sail single handed. Could not get the bag out of the sail even with the full battens. Then there were rotating booms, around which a sail could be wound to achieve the same effect roller reefing, in fact.
One to ease the halyard, the other to do everything else. This helps keep the sail taut for better trimming when reefed. What are the options when considering a boat that tacks its own sails from one pointofsail to another. Thats the kicker to being able to do almost any maneuver with these boats single handed. Traditional or inmast or boom furler sailboat owners forums. Filmed on the st johns river on christmas morning 2017. Singleline reefing, in which a single line runs to both the tack and the clew, simplifies the reefing process and is the most popular method of slab reefing today. I single sail my h36 by my self all the time and while cruising from anchorage we would get early start and my wife would be down below making breakfast and i would get the sails out with my inmast main sail and my rollerfurling jib and all while she is below and me never leaving the cockpit and hand me up my coffee and than my eggs. I also wanted something i could reef without moving much once on deck as you usually reef in poor weather and i am also usually sailing single handed. View 129 photos, 1 video, features and a detailed description. A mainsail furling systems like this, enables much easier handling of the mainsail, without even leaving the cockpit.
This question developed out of a thread in the smaller boats forum trailerable hunters only, and i thought it was interesting enough to ask a wider audience. I convinced him that the problem wasnt the sail but the single line reefing system. If conditions dictate further reduction in sail area, reefing the mainsail will reduce the power in the sails and balance the rudder better when sailing with a reefed foresail. In order for any mainsail reefing system to work correctly with a mast that has a slug opening for bending on the mainsail, there should be a way to. Single line reefing essentially means that the outboard and inboard reef cringles use one line.
Not that many years ago, the sailing sloop or ketch would have reduced sail by either reefing the mainsail or changing the size of the headsail. Then it is run up through a jiffy grommet on the leech above the clew and down to a bullet block on the other side of the boom. Weve used a slab reefing main as found on many boats, but inmast furling and single line reefing mains will obviously make life easier, although these systems do have their drawbacks. Using a singleline reefing system sail fanatics youtube. To some extent, mainsail reefing has turned full circle. A singleline system has fewer lines to attend to, which can make it faster to use but its a little more complicated than a doubleline system. He finally got rid of the single line reefing system and this past june i helped him again bring his boat north. Shorthanded sailors should reef their sails early and often, as the old rule advises. Sailrites jiffy reef system focuses stress on the strongest parts of the sailthe leech and the luff. Not coincidentally, nikkis crew had trained in heavy weather and could reef the mainsail in 40 seconds or less. To make your reefing truly single handed you must choose from one of two additional options.
First there were simple reef points short rope pennants that could be used to gather up parts of a sail to reduce its area. The position of the aft turning block on the boom is a little back from the cringle when the sail is reefed. I have bought many books and researched weather and sea conditions best i can, but personal experience of others would be the best source. Ive been sailing on catalina 22s and a choy lee 27 now for about a year, usually with a couple people, but id like to get into single handed sailing. On any well set up boat of around 40ft one person should be able to tuck each reef into the mainsail within 90 seconds. Inboom furling systems for reefing advanced rigging. Easiest sails for single hander since it is pretty much established that a boat with compact dimensions or a monohull meets the need here, the question on how to strike the mast is the next logical one like it might be a good idea to avoid a rig that requires a crane to lift the mast when the boat has grown to full size. A tutorial with hints tips and techniques to make it nice and easy duration. Single line reefing works best with slides installed on the luff. Hello, i am preparing to get a sailboat and single hand cruise the caribbean in about 4 months. Most reefing systems are designed for full crews, but there are things you can do to make reefing the main single handed much easier. Inmast mainsail furlers have persisted in spite of an increased mast weight package and a mechanism buried inside the mast profile.
Reefing a sail is simply the name we use for the process of reducing sail area. Only change i have made for short handed slab reefing is adding downhaul lines to the luff, just 1. On this boat, the reefing line runs through the cringle at the sails luff rather than using a horn. The best solution for a short or singlehanded sailor is a rollerfurling headsail, which can be deployed or put away at a moments notice. Sailing single handed wouldnt want to have to add the hike back to the cockpit to raise or lower a sail.
The kind of reefing system depends on the boat and the mainsail. Single line reefing since more and more boats these days are leading the halyards aft, single line reefing has become a very popular method for reefing your mainsail. This book is only available as a free download from the singlehanded sailing society at. How do you step the mast on your trailerable sailboat, with a gin pole.
Just a short fim this week showing you all how we reef sea horse when sailing single handed. As you reef, the grommet can be snugged right down to the boom without anyone going on deck to remove slides from. An important fea ture of a roller furling headsails is having a foam or rope luff, that is, a tapered piece of material sewn into the luff that takes up the camber of sail when it rolls around the headstay, ensuring that the sail still has a clean flying shape when its rolled down. Be adept at reefing, heaving to, and depowering the main in a flash. If singlehanded, it can be worth putting a smaller jib. Single line reefing properly set up from the cockpit can work very well. Reefing it makes sense to be able to reduce sail easily if youre sailing short handed, yet few boats are configured to do so. So you should ease both the traveller and sheet before tacking. Anything single handed in any kind of weather takes exponentially longer that it does on a nice day with help. My friend was adamant that his sail was just blown out and he needed a new mainsail.
Eric has everything at the mast on sea child, so he can do this single handed. The reefing line is secured to the leach of a flexible sail approximately half the distance between the head and foot and passes alternately through rows of grommets spaced generally horizontally on the sail and fairleads secured on the boom and a turning block on the mast to a winch. This video covers the basics of what is involved in reefing a mainsail, as well as tips on how to safely and easily carry out the operas while sailing in heavy weather. Usually the problem is because if a big roached mainsail is sheeted too tightly then it will weathercock and the boat stay head to wind. Shortening sail single handed practical boat owner. Single handed reefing a mainsail sailing wisdom youtube. If you have roller furling jib, take in some jib and come close hauled with the traveler set to leeward. I pull the boom topping lift up to the reef cringle, release the mainsail till the front drops to near the horns, then pull in the reef line and release the topping lift. A reefed sail using a slab reefing system is illustrated in the photo shown. First thing i try to keep in mind is that i dont care how long it takes. How to step a mast single handed with or without using the boom as a gin pole.
Being in my early sixties, and with an eye to the future when i might not be as ablebodied, i was considering replacing the present, original, mast with in mast reefing. An overview of how the single line mainsail reefing system is setup and operates on a pearson 312. There are a number of effective reefing arrangements, but all have two common elements. Its the best change ive made to the boat and would never go back to at the mast reefing.
246 1522 20 579 226 1098 592 1182 25 694 1535 1463 590 1521 1369 1141 132 530 1216 358 726 58 631 1541 503 946 1358 415 543 964 718 1038 656