Halyard/Reef Line Configuration

[George]

Was curious if anyone has made any sort of configuration changes to their 34’ in running all lines aft into the cockpit for ease of single handling? I was looking into running all lines, (jib, main, spiniker halyards and first and second reef (separate tack and clew)) along with replace or remove the cam cleat Schafer traveler and mainsheets to cabintop rope clutches.

The Schafer traveler, although has no mechanical problems, requires leaving the cockpit to go forward and undo cam cleats to trim. Seeing that the 34’ came with four winches on the cabin top I though the forward winches would work nicely for trimming through the rope clutchs, allowing me to make adjustments without leaving the cockpit.

Cheers

 

[Geoff Johnson]

I got rid of my Schaeffer traveler and installed a Harken. Best thing I ever did (well, maybe one of the better things) . . . See attached photo.

 

[George]

Geoff, looks great. I see that it looks like you took the same approach of running all lines aft to rope clutches but forward of the winches. Doyou have a dodger before the clutches?

 

[Geoff Johnson]

Yes, the dodger is in front of the clutches (I replaced the line-chewing Schaeffers with the smaller Lewmars, which are great). The lines just fit under the dodger cutouts for the other lines. The lines can be operated by hand inside the dodger or run off a winch on either side. I attach a better view of the clutch. The teak base for the clutch was made out of two pieces of one inch teak glued together and then hand sawn corner to corner on a diagonal. This works because the bases on either side are mirror images of each other (in other words the slopes work out). I used aluminum stock as a backing plate for the clutches since the six lines collectively must exert considerable force. The traveler was bent mostly to profile by Harken and I fine tuned the bend (using 10 wood clamps) and using the Schaeffer traveler as a template. The new traveler is bolted with 8 1/4" bolts through 1/4" aluminum stock which, in turn, is screwed to the coach roof using the existing holes (another 6 5/16" screws). I did this because I did not think the towers could withstand the horizontal force of an accidental gybe. To help with the vertical forces, I reinforced the underside of the two towers with two 6" x 1 1/2" x 3/16" SS backing plates (purchased from www.onlinemetals.com), which I polished. Originally, they were fastened only with SS washers on the underside of the cabin roof.

 

[Landlocked Capn]

would you mind posting a pic from inside the cabin, looking up at the thru holes?

 

[Geoff Johnson]

I am a little unclear about what you want. I did post a picture on another thread of the backing plates for the two towers, but if you are referring to the threaded holes in the hood, there is no way to get to the back side short of removing the hood. Ericson solved this problem by gluing or embedding the nuts into the underside of the hood so that screws could be inserted from above without having to get to the backside. This works if you use the kind of track that has the bolts inserted from the top. But the Harken high rise track uses a slot on the underside precluding any way of tightening the bolts unless one has access to the underside of the hood. However, the high rise track is designed to be used with just three bolts on either end. Since my towers allow for two only, I bolted 1/4" stock to the hood (using 6 5/16" flat head machine screws countersunk into the aluminum) and to the two towers. The space between the towers and the edge of the hood allowed for two more bolts on either end. So my track is held down by a total of 8 1/4" bolts.