In this very enlarged picture of my sail, you can see the kind of “dogbones” Tom’s referring to. Each is a pair of stainless rings attached to either side of a piece of webbing run through the reefing point.
If you look at the upper one, you’ll see the fwd second reef line tied off to it. If you look at the lower, you’ll see the ring and a bit of the webbing; the fwd first reef line runs on the opposite side.
The red-flecked white line running to the upper reef point looks like it’d be pulling the sail down badly, but that’s only because it had a lot of slack when this picture was taken. When pulled tight, it runs down parallel and close to the sail track.
I agree with Tom that blocks aren’t really needed at the fwd reef points. I have to think about the trade-offs of whether you run the lines as I did vs. looping them back under the sail slide. I don’t think it’s crucial, but Tom may have a point.
On the aft reefing points, the lines necessarily have to run from one side to the other. Some people run them through the reef cringles, some lash blocks to the cringles and run the lines through those. The former group doesn’t like blocks, believing they chafe the sail. The latter group doesn’t like cringles, believing they put more friction on the reefing line.
– Bob
