Gerr downhaul

R

rwthomas1

Sustaining Partner
I had a very similar setup on my Catalina 22 but without the line running to the clew. Basically a small brass ring for each hank, a light line passed through them and a snap clip at the end, small block at the tack. The snap clip was attached at the head of the sail and then a brass ring, with the light line through each, snapped into each hank, then passed through the block at the tack and back to the cockpit. Its like a halyard in reverse, the brass rings keep the line close to the luff, release the halyard and pull the sail down, cleat it off. Keeping a jibsheet snug holds the sail on the deck as it runs aft. Simple and quite effective.

RT
 
F

Frank Langer

1984 Ericson 30+, Nanaimo, BC
I had a similar arrangement on our previous boat and it worked well. I also had an elastic cord attached to a stantion base on each side about 4 feet aft of the bow. Once the sail was on deck, I could attach these elastic cords to each other and they held the sail in place, especially on windy days, until I could put it away properly.

Frank
 
u079721

u079721

Contributing Partner
My first sailboat was a pretty tender 17 footer that you didn't want to have to go forward on. And I used something like this system for the jib, but I don't really think you need to make it so complicated. Just run a line forward to the tack and up the leach to the head of the jib - the part running out to the clew isn't really needed to just get the sail down and controlled on deck.
 
Mark F

Mark F

Contributing Partner
Blogs Author
A jib downhaul should work fine. I used one on my E23 mk1. The "Gerr Downhaul" looks more complicated than it needs to be. My setup was a line run from the cockpit to a block at the jib tack then up to the head of the jib. If you "weave" the line through the hanks it will keep the downhaul line from flopping around.
 
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