Antoine, it's called a "flattening reef" in English - exactly what you described.
I first got my main without a Cunningham crinkle but had one added a couple of years back - much easier to fine tune luff tension / draft and much quicker than the halyard on a winch. Tim Mojito C&C 35-3 Branford, CT > On Jan 25, 2015, at 11:44 PM, Antoine Rose via CnC-List > <cnc-list@cnc-list.com> wrote: > > Hi David, > > To answer your question, we need to go back a bit to the origin the > cunningham. Well, the main sail is up and properly tensioned, which mean that > the halyard point is close to the mast top block to use the full length of > your mast. Wind is light, not too much tension is needed on the halyard. As > wind increases, more is needed. Eventually, the halyard is fully tensioned > but the wind still get a bit stronger, but not enough to reef and, since > you're racing you don't want to give any water to that boat just beside > yours. As the wind increases, the sail draft moves back, increasing heeling > and reducing speed. Tensioning the cunningham does just that, bringing the > draft forward for two reasons: it increases the tensioning but also, because > the cunningham grommet is slightly aft of the sail, pull forward the main > foot. > > Having the grommet has another advantage. If you have a corresponding grommet > on the leach side, you can take a six inch reef (sorry, don't how it's called > in English, "ris de fond" in French). This very small reef does not reduce > substantially the size of the sail but removes much of the draft. A flatter > main points higher and reduce heeling. > > Antoine (C&C 30 Cousin) > >> Le 2015-01-25 à 18:32, David Paine via CnC-List a écrit : >> >> Hi All, >> >> I'm buying a new mainsail and I am going to ask a ridiculous-sounding >> question. Do you have a Cunningham grommet in your mainsail? I do not in >> my current sail but that is because Hood made the sail with a jack line (or >> lace line) which serves the purpose. My new sail definitely won't have a >> jack-line. Some adjust luff tension with the halyard, others use a separate >> Cunningham grommet with a many part tackle (or lead the Cunningham line to a >> winch) to set the luff tension. My sailmaker has an opinion but my question >> is, which do you use? The Cunningham is useless when reefed, of course. >> >> Cheers, >> >> David >> _______________________________________________ >> >> Email address: >> CnC-List@cnc-list.com >> To change your list preferences, including unsubscribing -- go to the bottom >> of page at: >> http://cnc-list.com/mailman/listinfo/cnc-list_cnc-list.com > > > _______________________________________________ > > Email address: > CnC-List@cnc-list.com > To change your list preferences, including unsubscribing -- go to the bottom > of page at: > http://cnc-list.com/mailman/listinfo/cnc-list_cnc-list.com > _______________________________________________ Email address: CnC-List@cnc-list.com To change your list preferences, including unsubscribing -- go to the bottom of page at: http://cnc-list.com/mailman/listinfo/cnc-list_cnc-list.com
