When I had my new main made last year I had what the sailmaker called "dog bones" added to each reafing eye. He also added a web handle above each eye to provide a quick, easy, and secure place to grab the luff while setting the reaf. The dog bone is some nylon webbing that runs through the eye and has a ring on each side. The length can be set by the sail maker to account for the stack height.
Either ring on the dog bone can be hooked on the reaf horn and then its "opposing ring" pulles against the eye. I like connecting my 4:1 cunningham to this ring, this way I can quickly set the reaf and get an 8:1 purchase by pulling on the cunningham. I get the forward tension Andy was talking about and the use of the cunningham to which you refered. My cunningham is anchored to the mast plate. But in your case as long as you have a properly backed turning block I think you should be fine. Remember the halyard tension goes through a similar turning block on the deck right? I almost forgot...my cunningham only uses a hook so setting a snap shackle is unnecessary. Josh Muckley S/ V Sea Hawk 1989 C&C 37+ Solomons, MD On Jan 2, 2014 2:38 PM, "David Knecht" <davidakne...@gmail.com> wrote: > I have three reef points on my main, and I want to set things up to make > it easier to reef when the weather turns nasty (a fairly frequent > occurrence here). I have two reefing lines led to the cockpit from the > leech so that part is easy to do with the autopilot on. I am thinking to > set things up so that I don’t have to leave the cockpit any more often than > necessary and so the luff is the trickier one. What I played with last > summer was attaching the Cunningham to the reefing ring on the sail with a > block on a snap shackle. It acted as a Cunningham normally, but when I > needed to reef, I could just pull down the Cunningham instead of hooking > the ring on the boom horns. This would mimic a double line reefing system > without having to rig an extra line. If I needed a second reef, I could > move the snap shackle/blockt to the next reefing ring quickly. Anyone see > a reason for not doing this? I can’t see that the cunningham and reef line > can’t be dual purpose. My concern is whether you can get enough tension on > the Cunniingham to get the luff tight when you crank on the halyard without > putting too much force on the blocks that the Cunningham runs through on > the deck. Dave > > > David Knecht > Aries > 1990 C&C 34+ > New London, CT > > > > _______________________________________________ > This List is provided by the C&C Photo Album > http://www.cncphotoalbum.com > CnC-List@cnc-list.com > >
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