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A different mainsheet idea?

rwthomas1

Sustaining Partner
I singlehand my E38 occasionally and I can handle it pretty well but the mainsheet winch being on the cabintop is a bit of a pain. Leads to some jumping about in the cockpit to keep up with the trimming sometimes. Thats where I had this idea..... At the boatshow I saw a few boats with a mainsheet system that was double ended and teminated at a winch on each coaming. If you reworked the block setup on a common mid-boom setup like my E38 so that both ends of the sheet ended up at the gooseneck, then ran to a block on each toerail, just aft of the aft lowers, then back to another block at the very end of the toerail track and then up to a secondary set of winches just aft of the primaries. Would this not accomplish the goal? Easy access to mainsheet for trimming on either side of the boat. No need to leave the wheel? An idea worth trying? RT
 

treilley

Sustaining Partner
Not a bad idea Rob. I generally do not do too much trimming with the main sheet when single handing. I use the traveler control lines which are long enough to reach the helm.
 

Cory B

Sustaining Member
I usually stick to my traveller as well when I'm by myself.

Here's another idea though on the mainsheet... easier but not quite as "slick" as yours. Leave one end of the mainsheet as is, but put a block with a camcleat on the mainsheet at the traveller instead of dead-ending it there. If you are by yourself you can remove the front dodger window if you have one, and have some control over the mainsheet with a long line leading back to the helm. Now if you have guests on board and don't want ropes running through the middle of the cockpit your idea is way better.

Having the mainsheet/traveller right in front of the wheel is probably the thing I miss the most about our old 32 when sailing un "crewed".
 

dwigle

Member III
I use the cabin top winch as a turning block and bring the mainsheet to a winch near the helm which I originally installed for assistance in furling the jib when necessary. Works well enough in light to moderate air.

Don Wigle
Wiggle Room
E 38 #8
 

Guy Stevens

Moderator
Moderator
Admirals Cup sheeting

This is a mixed bag as far as sheeting goes. Generally you reduce the purchase on the sheet to a simple 2:1 and use the winches as your purchase.

The disadvantage is that you are going to be winching more than when you have a greater purchase. The advantage is that you have a weather sheet all the time so your crew can be on the high side.

If you try for a greater than 2:1 purchase then you find that the friction of the main sheet becomes so great that it interferes with the movement of the traveler. This is because with the admirals cup sheeting arrangement the main sheet has to travel through the blocks as you move the traveler.

These photos should give you something to look at and think about.

Excuse the mess, I was in the middle of a project, removing the coffee grinder from the bridge deck.

Guy
:)
 

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rwthomas1

Sustaining Partner
Lots of good ideas here! Lots to think about too. Guy, I'm a bit dense and I see what you mean about the sheeting setup in your pics having to allow the mainsheet to feed when working the traveler. What I am unclear on is in my solution the mainsheet, both ends are led back to the gooseneck... I don't see how the mainsheet would affect the traveler if this was the case. Maybe I can't see this?

Regarding traveler use, I really don't use mine that much. I have tried, experimented with moving the traveler windward and leeward and I can only slow the boat down with it or depower the main, which is what I do use it for. The full batten main doesn't seem to respond to playing the traveler like other boats I have sailed on so I don't mess with it a whole lot. Usually when I get to needing to depower I just end up reefing....

RT
 

Guy Stevens

Moderator
Moderator
Take out the turns and make it simple

The best thing often to do in complex rigging especially with blocks it to take out anything that is not purchase. So all the fairlead blocks come out the the equation, and what you have is a purchase attached to fixed points on both ends on the deck.

So lets make it easier, a simple 2:1 purchase, created by a block on the boom. Take both the ends down the the traveler, then over to winches one on each side.

Now what you have looks like bad drawing.

The Traveler car is the red square in the middle, the blocks are purple, the winches are green, the traveler track is black, and the mainsheet is blue. The traveler control lines are not shown for clarity :)

So both ends are fixed in this case one on each winch. If the traveler car is to move, the line is going to have to move through all the blocks (Those purple things in the bad drawing). So the friction of moving the traveler is the friction in the traveler system + The friction in the traveler control lines + the friction in the entire main sheet system. That is a lot of friction even using really good ball bearing blocks.

Guy
:)
 

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Loren Beach

O34 - Portland, OR
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
wandering travelers

Comments from the Peanut Gallery:

What would be nice (and would motivate us to really want to move up to this particular Ericson) would have been a factory main sheet option that put the traveler in front of the helm, either on the bridgedeck or spanning the cockpit right in front of the wheel guard. The later was common on the older E-35-2, and the later CS-36 and Niagara 35, to name only a few examples.
Also on the Ericson RH models like the 33 and 36... and... the Olson 911S and the Olson 34. And, don't forget the Ericson Cruising 31 and 36.

If you look at this current Yachtworld listing for an earlier E-35 (located in the UK!) you will see that a bridgedeck traveler was installed.
URL: http://www.yachtworld.com/core/boat...ats=1766691&rs=yachtworld.com&boat_id=1766691

This gets me to pondering if such could be done for an E-38?
Several pics from the YW listing show the changed traveler location, and I will drag-n-drop one here.
No, this is not the perfect answer, and yes, you would want to retain the stock housetop traveler bases so you could restore the factory setup someday when you sell the boat.

But for single handing, I have always pondered why (even with the bulk of the lemming market moving toward a condo-with-mast type of boat in the late 80's) Ericson did not even offer the *OPTION* of an aft traveler and, gasp! - a tiller! on their nice-sailing later models. (Neptune knows, they sure offered a bazilion other options...)
:rolleyes:

Oh well.

Loren
(on the same soapbox, again)
 

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Dan Morehouse

Member III
Rob,
I've considered the same thing for my 38, and it always added up to several new blocks whose placement left little room for error. But when I started thinking about how I would rig such an arrangement under duress, Don Wigle's suggestion is more what I pictured. If my mainsheet was long enough, it would be easy to lead the tail back past the cabin top winch to a secondary winch on the coaming near the helm (if you have one). It would clutter the cockpit some, but if it was only for the occasional singlehanded outing it probably wouldn't matter much.

Dan Morehouse
1981 E-38 "Next Exit"
 

Trucker Doug

Member II
At the risk of sounding stupid, why would the RW setup need to be double ended? When singlehanding couldn't you just run the mainsheet from the bottom of the mast to..well maybe even the spinaker block and back behind the wheel. Guess you'd have to check if it can be a straight run but if it can, all you'd need is 1 extra winch back there.
 

rwthomas1

Sustaining Partner
Beating the dead horse:

Guy,
Just out of pure curiosity I built a "boom" and traveler setup on a sheet of plywood and a few 2x4's to try this. In your setup you are leading the sheets right from the boom to the traveler and then the winches. Yes, you are correct, that requires the mainsheet to feed as the traveler is adjusted. If I run both ends of the sheet forward to the gooseneck/pivot point and then back to winches there is no mainsheet issue. Just think of it as a loop of line that starts at the gooseneck runs down the boom and returns. No interference from the movement of the traveler. Clear as mud I suppose.....

Doug, you are correct. The mainsheet could simply lead aft to one winch on the coaming. The reason to have two is simply convenience and being able to stay on the same side of the boat to trim the genny and main at once. RT
 

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Guy Stevens

Moderator
Moderator
Oops missed the part about foreward....

I missed the part about it going forward to the mast then back. Indeed you would only have to move the distance between the two blocks on the mast in the case you have illustrated. Not much to speak of.

You still will need to use the winch a lot more often with the 2:1 purchase then if you had a larger purchase.

Guy
:)
 
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