• Untitled Document

    Join us on March 29rd, 7pm EST

    for the CBEC Virtual Meeting

    All EYO members and followers are welcome to join the fun and get to know the guest speaker!

    See the link below for login credentials and join us!

    March Meeting Info

    (dismiss this notice by hitting 'X', upper right)

Second reef difficulty on E35/3

gabosifat

Member III
Hi All,

I have an E35/3 with a Kenyon (sp?) mast. I tried furling the main at the dock yesterday & ran into a problem. The first reef is no problem, main drops, and first cringle goes around the gooseneck hook at base of mast without difficulty. 2nd reef is a problem. When I tried to lower the sail to get the second reef cringle on the gooseneck hook, the lower slides in the track standing on top of one another was too tall to get the cringle onto the hook. The only way to get the cringle low enough is to drop the retainer pin/plate down to the bottom of the track- which essentially opens the gate (used for taking the sail off). The problem with this is that now 3 or 4 of the slides easily come right out of the sail track - including slide which lines up with the bottom full batten. I can see this would be a real problem trying to do this in a heavy breeze. In these conditions I can see the wind catching the luff of the sail with 3 or 4 slides out of the track. Has anyone else experienced this problem? The only things I can think of is filing down the lower slides so they don't stand as tall.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Steve Gabbott
Vancouver BC
 
Hi,
What you tried to do at the dock was REEF the main. You can get around your problem with the second reef by putting in a line--there is a sailmaker's name for this that escapes me right now--that goes through the (plastic) slugs in the mast. When the sail is dropped, the line allows the second reef cringle to come down to the free reefing hook on the side of the gooseneck where you DIDN'T put in the first reef. It is a can-do. Probably a sailmaker can do it for you right at the boat. I have my main rigged like that and it works.
Morgan Stinemetz
 
Last edited:

u079721

Contributing Partner
Reefing Convenience

I had the exact problem you describe with the main on my pre-Ericson boat, a 23 foot trailerable Precision 23. I used to have to remove the sail stop from the mainsail sail-slide groove to be able to put in a reef. And in the process the mainsail could spill out all over the deck if I weren't careful.

My solution was written up in an issue of Sail Magazine in their Things That Work section, and later re-published in their Best of Things That Work book. I tried to scan the article to include in this post, but the resulting scan (1.2 meg) is too large to add as a photo if I use enough resolution to make it readable. I included a low resolution scan below, but you can see a high resolution scan at:

http://webpages.charter.net/besley/Mastgate.JPG

Basically I screwed a couple of narrow strips of metal edging over the opening in the sail track AFTER all the sail slides were loaded into the groove. When I bought my E-38 it came rigged with much the same system of mate gate plates, though I don't know whether it was home-made or original equipment. In any event I quickly installed a Harken Bat-car traveller system, so I never had the problem of dealing with the mate gate anyway.
 

Attachments

  • Mastgate1.JPG
    Mastgate1.JPG
    125.1 KB · Views: 1,192

Ernest

Member II
gabosifat said:
Hi All,

I have an E35/3 with a Kenyon (sp?) mast. I tried furling the main at the dock yesterday & ran into a problem. The first reef is no problem, main drops, and first cringle goes around the gooseneck hook at base of mast without difficulty. 2nd reef is a problem. When I tried to lower the sail to get the second reef cringle on the gooseneck hook, the lower slides in the track standing on top of one another was too tall to get the cringle onto the hook. The only way to get the cringle low enough is to drop the retainer pin/plate down to the bottom of the track- which essentially opens the gate (used for taking the sail off). The problem with this is that now 3 or 4 of the slides easily come right out of the sail track - including slide which lines up with the bottom full batten. I can see this would be a real problem trying to do this in a heavy breeze. In these conditions I can see the wind catching the luff of the sail with 3 or 4 slides out of the track. Has anyone else experienced this problem? The only things I can think of is filing down the lower slides so they don't stand as tall.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Steve Gabbott
Vancouver BC
On our E35-3 we had the sailmaker sew a piece of webbing through the reefing cringle (hole in the sail) with a stainless ring on each end . It is that new ring that now slips over the reefing hook at the mast. The webbing should be just long enough to reach the hook with the sail slugs stacked up. Ernie Schlesinger.
You should not have to do anything like removing sail slugs when the wind is up.
 

hodo

Member III
I believe that what you are referring to is known [around the NW area anyway] as a "Dog Bone". They work very well even at 40+ knts of wind. Remember that if you reef often and hard, you will want to change the point of contact of the cringle to the reef line to keep the line from failing. that kind of excitement you dont need. Hodo :devil:
 

Seth

Sustaining Partner
Jacklines and Dog bones

Morgan and Ernest (and Hodo, too!) are both correct-and you actually should do both. The line Morgan refers to is usually called a jackline (yes, I know this term is used for a lot of things), The function, as he says, is to allow the reefed tack ring, or cringle, to reach the reef hooks without having to remove the slides from the track-they obviously will begin to stack up as you lower the sail. Some sails need this for the first AND second reef. As Morgan says-any sailmaker can do this for you for very low cost-this should solve the biggest problem.

Ernest touched upon a feature that most of the high quality sailmakers include as standard (but the offshore-producing guys typically don't)-the idea is a piece of webbing through the tack ring at each reef (at the luff end, of course) with a SS ring on each end of the webbing. There are several purposes for this-the original reason was to allow you to not be limited to which side of the reef hooks to use-or in what order. It also helps transition the luff away from the reef hooks-often eliminating an ugly and dangerous wrinkle-dangerous because of high loads in directions and areas that are not meant to take them. The other benefit is that sometimes, but not always, the webbing is long enough to stretch and reach the hook without having to remove any luff slides-this is not really the best idea, though, because unless it is an easy fit, you will still be pulling those luff slides away from the mast.

The best and proper solution, when the luff slides stack too high for easy reefing, is to have a jackline webbed onto the mainsail luff, and the lower slides (from the top reef down), run through this line, rather than attached directly to the sail. The sail can then pull away from the mast, but the slides stay in the track. Include nicely built "dog bones" (great name-never heard it, but it fits) for each reef point, and your sail will love you for it!
Any sailmaker can add both to your sail.

Steve's idea of basically extending the track all the way down (or being able to keep the slides captive at a lower height) to the boom also works well and may help-but you may still find you are pulling those slides away from the mast at bad angles, and may or may not reach the 2nd or top reef.

His solution is certainly sound, but will not gurantee the reefing solution for all boats-on some the distance between slides, height of them when stacked, etc, will be perfect, while on others it will still be too high for the tack cringle to reach the hooks. Many boats have similar setups to Steve's, but still use a jackline and/or dog bones as well..

Great ideas all!
Cheers,
S
 

Mindscape

Member III
Jack Line?

Can anyone post a picture or drawing of the jack line mentioned? I'm missing the value if the lower slides are not attached to the sail, why have the slides at all? I know I must be missing something.
 
Hi,
No pictures available because it is the middle of the night down here in Florida, but it works this way: The main has small grommets in it where the slugs might be attached to the main and the jackline (thanks, Seth) is led through those grommets and also the slugs. When the sail is hoisted the jackline becomes taught and the slugs line up where they need to be, in the sail track opposite the grommets. Both reefs in my main work this way.
Morgan Stinemetz
 

Seth

Sustaining Partner
Thanks Morgan

1). Don't know how to post a pic, but I will try and supplement morgan's description with this:

Above the 2nd reef, and at the grommet normally used for attaching the first luff slide above the top reef point, a section of 1/4-5/16" line is spliced into this grommet. It is long enough to extend to the tack ring-and should have another 2-3 feet extra. It then is loosely weaved/passed through the lower grommets (which would normally have slides webbed or shackled on them), and the end tied off-usually at the tack ring. IN BETWEEN each of those grommets, luff slides are attached with shackles to the line. Sometimes the line-jackline-is passed through the luff slide hoops-eliminating the need for shackles-it depends on what type of luff slide you have. What you now have are the lower luff slides being attached to the jackline instead of directly to the grommets/sail. As mentioned above, the jackline in turn is attached to the first grommet above the top reef, woven through the lower grommets and dead-ended on the tack ring. Since the jackline is fairly loose, it allows the sail to be pulled away from the mast by the amount of extra slack in the jackline (when the sail is lowered, of course). When the sail is all the way up, the halyard tension on the cloth will hold the luff of the sail close to the mast and essentially up against the slides-so there is no problem with the sail pulling away from the mast when it is fully hoisted.

This is by no means rare-many,many cruising boats will use this-Westsails, Valiants, Cals, etc. They use this method to solve this exact problem-how to get the reef tack ring down to the reef hook when the luff slides are stacked so high that you can't reach the reef hook without removing some of the luff slides. Imagine if you somehow just managed to get the tack ring to stretch down to the reef hook, then re-hiosted the halyard 9with the reef completed): you would be pulling DOWN and away from the mast as well as UP (loading from halyard tension). The usual result is that some of the slides will tear away from the sail-you may actually tear the sail or breack the webbing (if used)-either way you are placing strain in directions the sail was never meant to endure. Sorry to be so redundant, but without a sketch I am trying to paint a clear enough picture. hope it helps.. Maybe one of our members can take a photo of his set up?

2). Floppy Rings!! That is the name I was looking for (amazing how soon we forget these things when we leave the industry!).

Floppy rings and jacklines make reefing much easier!
FAIR WINDS,
S
 

Jeff Asbury

Principal Partner
I am now having the same difficulty.

I am now having the same difficulty reefing now that I have the big full batten batt slides. I believe I have a Kenyon (SP?) mast. I wish I could find a device like this insert for a Selden Mast. Looks really efficient. See attachment.

Catalina Yachts makes Mast Gates like the one Steve shows for the 22, 25 & 27. They don't fit my mast.


http://www.seldenmast.com/
 

Attachments

  • SeldenInsert.jpg
    SeldenInsert.jpg
    76.1 KB · Views: 1,576

Ernest

Member II
Just have a piece of webbing with a stainless ring sewn into the hole in the luff. Make the webbing long enough to reach the reefing hook even though the luff slides are stacked up. Ernie Schlesinger
 

Jeff Asbury

Principal Partner
I guess this is what you are talking about.

This came from the http://www.offshoresailsrts.net

Web Site

If you have a full batten mainsail with high-stacking battencars, or you have no reef hook/tack horn at the gooseneck, then we can supply (no extra charge) the sail with a grommet at the luff with a strong webbing band and 2 stainless steel rings (see Fig.14).
 

Attachments

  • std_fig_13.jpg
    std_fig_13.jpg
    65.6 KB · Views: 2,021
Top