First Reef sail shape revisited

[Brooks]

First, thanks for all the great suggestions and ideas given me at end of Oct. I read them all and did a lot of thinking. Finally got to test ideas and saw much improved sail shape.

Lot’s of crappy weather and time away from boat since then so didn’t get to try out new ideas until Nov 30 - had a peaceful (geese, no motors), beautiful season’s end sail in the Chesapeake area. Enough wind to fill sail well but not freeze me - it was around 48 deg F, a frigid 8.9 deg C - that just sounds a lot colder.

I’ve attached sunset photo I took and also some photos of the new sail shape.

Any further thoughts much appreciated.

Theorizing
I came to the conclusion that a big part of my problem was the clew of sail was too close to attach point on boom. What had happened last time is that when I tightened choker, the foot of sail got board tight but 1st reef clew cringle still wasn’t back far enough. I theorized that the reef clew tension should be more horizontal, but with boom too far fwd, the tension was angled upwards. I figured by allowing the boom to move further back, the reef tension would be angled lower. I will definitely entertain counter theories.

So, I lengthened the main clew-to-boom attach point distance several inches before raising sail. This allowed 1st reef line boom attach points to be several inches further back before foot got tight from main clew tension.

Sail Raising Procedure:
I slacked the choker, raised main so that first reef tack was a few inches above desired final position (I’ve marked halyard) and cleated halyard. Then I put tack reef line on winch and tightened up luff (treating reef line as a Cunningham).

Next I tightened clew reef line quite tight, tightened choker, which put a strain on first clew reef line. I then put clew reef line on winch and tightened further. Clew reef cringle ended up about 6" above boom and about 13 inches from boom attach points. It could not get much tighter - I plucked it and it hummed.

Results
Now, sail shape is far better but it looks to me like there is definite “cupping” of sail. I’m pretty sure trailing edge of battens should be parallel to centerline. I think raising boom with topping lift would have reduced tension on leech and reduced cupping but it was already as short as possible - so I assume need to shorten the permanent part at least 6". Please confirm.

The sail is still touching boom in center area but at least the batten section is not and that horrible bag below the boom is gone.

Any more ideas? I can play with the main clew-to-boom distance some more. And I really need to see what that does to sail shape when using full sail. Full sail shape looked very good with the original distance - a bit worrisome.

I haul out Monday so no more experimenting till Spring, sigh. But she’s finally very near point where I can start worrying more about looks and cruising than basic functionality.

Brooks Bridges
Nonsuch 22OB #24
“An B’ad”
Cambridge MD on the Choptank

(attachments)

[user43]

A sunset sail on November 30th … you LUCK-EE DOG !!

Honest, Brooks, you’re making some of us cry. And you are so right about the weather - up here in Toronto, it’s been AWFUL. We were one of the last clubs to haul out at the end of October and it was a vile weekend. Ugh …

Various things to experiment with… I would try (seriously) ANYTHING that comes to mind. Sure, there are rules and conventions, etc., but, within reason, anything should be on the table. I, sincerely, do not go for the 2 bottom FULL battens that you have on this new Mack sail and I’m still amazed that they put them in. Yes, in perfect conditions, without a reef, they MAY "improve’ sail shape but, I swear, on my new Mack sail, I have wonderful sail shape (at least, I think I do) with only the very top batten being full. I’m grousing about these full batten because they will really get in the way when you reef and, who knows, possibly snap and tear the sail. Fair to say, they sure won’t HELP. And reefing is something that we SOMETIMES have to accomplish under a bit of duress when we don’t want some “added feature” getting in the way so …

On a nice day, pull out both bottom battens and, be honest now, see if it makes a whit of difference. My guess is your sail will still perform virtually as well. and, if so, relegate these 2 battens to the rafters in your garage. Your photo shows the bottom batten ON the wishbone. If you go to your 2nd reef, the next batten up will lie on your wishbone.

As you mentioned, do mess around with the length of the lash line from your clew to the boom but, if you wish, go BIG. Leave an 8" - 12" gap, one day. Go sailing - see what happens when you play with the choker and/or reef. A longer lash may allow you to get less distance between boom attachment points and the reef cringle i.e. less than 13".. Think about it - raise the topping lift as you hand tighten the 1st clew reef line. This should put the reef clew practically at the same place where the attachment points are (provided the reef clew is, indeed, in the right place on the sail).

I read somewhere that under normal and nice conditions (full sail - no reef) that between 3’ - 4’ of sail should be kissing the boom. With my new sail, I now tighten the choker as much as reasonable and flatten that sail, sometimes, avoiding reffing.

Try messing around with some of this stuff at the dock or your mooring on a really calm day.

I was lucky. One of our club members snapped a couple of shots of my sweet boat (an N22 like yours) which show the sail shape (full sail) and I’ll include them.

Otherwise, best of the season and all that,

Ernie A. in Toronto

(attachments)

[Brooks]

Hi Ernie,

Your sail looks great! As good as mine

But my, my, you have a real thing about full battens. Here’s another viewpoint.

There were full battens on the Nonsuch 30 I bought about 10 years ago. I sailed it locally for a couple of years, down to Ocracoke NC and back in Oct 2009, to the Bahamas and back over 6 months in 2010-2011. During all that time I never once found the full battens a problem. Ever so often, one would get outside boom raising or lowering but that’s quickly correctable. Sail still in good shape when I sold. Ah, there WAS one big drawback - removing sail from boat - getting those full battens out was a royal pain. I think lower was well over 20 feet.

I sailed it double reefed in gale once - broad reach - thrilling, not alarming - I did love that 30 - always felt secure. BTW: Sail always dropped like a rock - regular track and bronze slugs. Raising was easy because someone had fitted it with a floor switch operated windlass which would blow a fuse if ANYTHING put an unusual load on halyard - like tangled reefing lines. Interesting because windlass instructions said DO NOT USE for halyards.

Early on with 30, I dd a stupid thing on one Chesapeake Bay Nonsuch Rendezvous and didn’t secure anchor properly. We began crossing Bay in mid 20 knot winds and anchor dropped down and started banging around. I’m single handing, no autopilot hooked up. So, I put boat on a broad reach, let sail out till it was luffing a bit, locked wheel and went forward and dealt with anchor. Boat behaved as though heaved to. Moving forward slowly, sail NOT flogging and upsetting captain.

That, to me is a BIG plus of full battens: 0 to very little flogging. Last year when sailing the 22 with the old sail in anything above 8 knots the sail would flog like crazy when raising sail or reefing. Really increases my anxiety levels.

I also talked with Mack sails about it and he said he’d outfitted identical charter boats (sloops) with identical sails except one had full battens, one partial. Four years later had to do significant repairs on the partial, virtually nothing on the full batten. Now they get almost continuous use and often by ignoramuses but you’d expect things to average out. He attributed the difference to lack of flogging,

It seems to me that full or partial, reefing should work the same - I don’t recall problems on the 30 but that was 10 years ago AND you don’t have to reef a 30 till winds above 20 kts so very little experience.

[system]

Something is preventing your boom from going back far enough.
Your photos don’t show the boom at the mast - if they did then I could guess if it was the boom not back far enough or if the sail just is too large.

The sail shape is much better than your first set of photos, but you should be able to winch the choker so the sail flattens and is off the boom.
If the foot of the sail is tight with the choker on, make sure to ease the topping lift, and you will be able to take up more of the choker.

Winching the first reef clew after you have winched in the choker puts a lot of strain on the reef line and boom and should not be necessary. You should always do the choker last. If you can’t then back to my first point - there is something prevening your boom from going back far enough. Send a photo of the forward end of your boom if you have one.

Tom
26C #28 North Star
Penetang

[Brooks]

Thanks very much Tom. Yes, I think that’s (boom moving far enough back) the main problem. My sail is very likely a clone of Ernie’s (and he says his reefed sail looks fine), so sail dimensions should be same and I don’t see why longer battens should be a factor in reefing.

With old sail, I could tighten choker until block on mast was as far as it could go and sail still hung over boom. With new sail, block is nowhere near that point. You say: “make sure to ease the topping lift”. I’ll have to ponder that. I was thinking it should go tighter to reduce cupping but I see what you mean about it restricting how far aft boom can go. If I lengthen topping lift, then increased choker tension may move end of boom back and up. I will not forget this for spring. In fact, I may delay taking boat out and try today - Thanks!

[system]

The sail seems to have a larger roach… not unusual these days and does improve light air performance in some cases. I’d be curious as to the actual vs standard design measurements. Might be one of the factors in adjusting the rigging to get an effective reef shape.

[Brooks]

Hi Thor,

I regret I don’t have the measurements. Ernie Abugov might.

But I did, just this afternoon, solve my reefing “problem”. Had a gorgeous day, 55 deg F, sunny, light wind blowing from dead ahead in my slip so raised sail and played around with reefing for an hour or two and finally noticed a key to whole thing.

Computer help desk people have a name for my particular kind of problem: They call it an I D ten T problem. Spelled another way: ID10T

I was setting halyard to a rough approximation of its final position after reefing and tightening luff via the tack reef line. I was careless and tack reef cringle ended up about 6" above where it should be. What I didn’t think of was that clew reef cringle was therefore also too high. It was only 6" or so but what a difference! I repositioned halyard so sail slug above tack reef cringle was within an inch or so of bottom of track and tightened halyard. Now, the 6" lower leech reef cringle pulls sail mostly aft instead of a lot of down.

I can now set clew reef and tighten choker to point no part of sail touches boom.

I’m now concerned about getting tack reefing setup so I don’t rip off sail track. My current “old fashioned” track is working just fine and wish to avoid spending a boat buck for a Strong track. I read a lot about this 10 years ago but don’t think it’s still available. Is there a place to find such info?

[user43]

Hello Brooks -

Atta boy !! You solved it. Yup, if the tack is “too high”, the clew will be “too high”. Sorry, but I don’t actually have the measurements of my sail. I just know that everything seems to jive (not gybe… ). But, I’d still keep experimenting with the length of the lash (even tho … if the sail is the size of “the design”, the lash shouldn’t be longer than if the sail was attached by means of shackle). But, hey … what the hell.

You do make a good point about full battens decreasing the amount of sail flogging. And, no sail benefits from flogging. To be fair, I think that all of us hate watching and/or listening to our $ail flog and we all do whatever we can to minimise this (like motoring as slowly as possible when raising or reefing the sail and getting the poor sucker up as quickly as possible. I use a Hilti drill and up she goes in 6 seconds.). I say this cuz, yes, you are correct, Brooks, I do not go for the idea of battens sitting against a solid wishbone when the sail is reefed. On a sloop, with a reefed main, full battens don’t impact on any hard surface but it’s different on a Nonsuch.

Does your sail have bronze slides ?? Mine does, on the original stainless track. I use McLube twice per season on the slides. Goes up quick and drops like a stone. And, it’s two years old and still stiff as a board. If it is not dropping quickly, perhaps there is some friction working on the halyard ? Personally, I wouldn’t spend the money on a Strong track.

Oh… and before I forget… I would be cautious about using a winch on a reefing line. One should not have to horse the line like that - it should be about fooling with the topping lift or the choker while you mess with the reefing line, at least, I think so.

Clearly, there is a world of difference betwen an N22 and an N30 (or even bigger). My little boat sails like a windsurfer (or a dinghy) but it also has a toaster oven and a microwave. These two units help it sail way better, don’t you think.
??!!

Have fun sailing in the winter - lucky stiff.

Ernie A. in Toronto (going WAY below freezing tonight and it’s snowing, albeit lightly - Rats.)

[Brooks]

“I use a Hilti drill and up she goes in 6 seconds.” Ooooh! I want one of those!
How do you tail the halyard while it’s cranking the winch?

I can see doing a little experimenting with length of lash but I think it’s now in ball park at least.

Not too worried about batten and sail wear. It’s not like sail is moving around a lot.

I intend to be very careful with winch. I’ll re-read Botts thots.

I HAD bronze slides - mailed them to Mack but got stainless. Webbed on. Sail goes up pretty easily except for last part. It drops very fast but leaves a bit sticking up that is small enough it can be ignored till boat is tied up. I use Elmer’s Slide All. Practical Sailor did a test many years ago and said it wasn’t quite as slick as McLube but lasted longer.

“but it also has a toaster oven and a microwave.” What are you using to run those. I’ve longed dreamed of a microwave to warm stuff up.

Pulling boat shortly - if wind is good, temps are low or it’s raining. And winds are unpleasantly high often this time of year. I usually pull mid Dec.

Dreaming of next season when I can finally cruise a bit.

[system]

I have changed the tack fittings for my reef lines so that when I reef the tack point is always at the bottom of the reefed sail pack.

All I did was put a block at each of the tack reef points. I used a stainless ring and web to attach the block and ran the reef line up and down the same side of the sail via the block. First reef on port and second on starboard as that is where the lines go on my 26.
With the block in place and the reef lines running in a vertical loop the tack of the sail easily pulls right down to adjacent the tack shackle point at the foot of the sail.
Now the force of the reefed tack is in the same position as when the sail is hoisted with out a reef. As well the block is easy to tension and sets to the same place every time.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy as my Grand Daughter says…

[Brooks]

Hi Thor,

I’m VERY interested in your entire layout. My sail came with straps (webbing?) through all reef cringles and a stainless ring webbed to each end of strap so it seems I can duplicate this easily.

It works to pull strap and one ring to one side - rings are larger than cringle. So sounds like I could just attach a small block to one ring and have the beginnings of your system. So you tie off end of reef line at base of mast and other end goes up through block on sail, then down to block on mast base and then to cockpit? Where do you tie off end of reef line?

"block is easy to tension and sets to the same place every time. " Why does it set to same place? Do you just pull until you feel it hit the base of track and cleat off? Seems like when you then tighten halyard, the tack reef would be pulled up a bit so you could tighten luff a bit more by cranking on the tack reef.

"Now the force of the reefed tack is in the same position as when the sail is hoisted with out a reef. " I’d say almost. Correct me if I’m wrong but without a reef, main tack is attached directly to mast so strain along foot is to that point. ( I realize sail slugs above tack feel definite strain from sail material pulling them away from mast.) When reefed, the reef tack cringle is between sail slug above and reef line connections to mast base. When choker tension is increased, that slug is feeling some strain pulling it away from mast. A very good reason to have the halyard really tight. Also why people have seen track pull away when reefed? But other than a band around mast with some way to attach reef cringle to it, I see no way to avoid this situation. Maybe if you anticipated hours of reefed sailing, rigging something around mast and through cringle might be worth it?

Someone mentioned a gallery of pictures - I’m not seeing it. Is your stuff there?

And thanks so much. Oh, what blocks did you use?

[user43]

Just to muddy the waters …

My Mack sail came with the same handy-dandy rings that yours did, Brooks.

But, I cheated. I just ran the both tack reef lines up, through the ring and back down the same side but without a block. I was lazy and cheap. My 1st reef (tack and clew) live on the port side and my 2nd reef (tack and clew) live on the starboard side.

It works just fine - I can hand pull both tack lines tack until “it don’t go no more”.

Ernie A. in Toronto

[David_Young]

We run the tack lines on our 30 the same way Ernie does. Works fine. Not really a need for blocks on the dog bone tack straps in my estimation. One year I rigged blocks to the clew reef cringles but took them off almost immediately - too much flopping around and chafe. By raising the topping lift, I can usually get pretty good reef clew positions by hand and only need the winch for the final few feet.

David Young
Bay Cat, 30U #402
Traverse City / Suttons Bay, MI

[user43]

David, I agree. A lot of the success in getting the clew reef cringle as close to the “attachment points” on the boom is achieved by lifting the boom via the topping lift.

You reside in a lovely part of Michigan - How’s the weather around beautiful traverse City ?? Betcha it’s freezing, like here.

Ernie A. in Toronto

[David_Young]

Ernie, We like it here but winter set in early this year. There was snow in the air when we hauled our boat on October 15th and has been pretty wintry since. One of our local newscasters said the other day that there were only 4 days in November when we had more than 1 hour of sunshine. I thought it had been a bit gloomy but didn’t realize it had been that bad. Hope things are brighter up your way, even if cold. Dave

[user43]

Things are, honestly, the same here. A rotten November (and not the best October).

Take care and best of the season.

Ernie A. in Toronto