I was talking with a beginner sailor from Melbourne, Australia, who has just moved up from a Catalina 30 to a Catalina 34. His concern was mastering the jib sail trim controls. He told me he has been following another C30 and trying to mimic his fairlead adjustments. My first thought, to myself, was if I followed Phil Mickelson around the golf course maybe I could become a better golfer!!
Anyway, he indicated he felt he had mastered the mainsail controls, which is nice, but the mainsail is not the engine of a masthead rig sailboat - the jib is. I mentioned to him that there are a number of jib controls and they are the sheets, halyard, fairleads movement forward & aft, fairleads tracks inboard & outboard and headstay sag, I really don't like these conversation because of the number of jib sail trim controls and ALL the the jib controls have to work together. For example, as older sailors will remember, with the four barrel carburetor, you can't only adjust 2 barrels and expect peak performance. So, I asked him which sail trim control he'd like to discuss. I was afraid he'd select the fairleads and that's exactly what he did. The fairleads are the most important jib sail trim control because they adjust EVERYTHING. The everything being draft depth, draft position, twist and angle of attack.
The first thing I notice when I went on a boat was the condition of the pin type fairleads. If they were frozen in place I then checked the outhaul and most times that didn't work either. What that meant was both were like the broken clock and right twice per day. The were right for one point of sail and wind condition and wrong for all others. Pin type fairleads are a problem because they are difficult to adjust under load and sailors (and humans) will do what's easy and not what's hard - it's just human nature. I prefer the Garhauer adjustable fairlead system. There are other but when I lived in So Ca I sold and installed Garhauer products.
My book THE SAIL TRIM USERS GUIDE devotes 8 pages to the jib sail trim controls and if you were to highlight the chapter all the pages would be yellow!! He decided to buy my book and SAIL Trim Chart together with the FREE Quick Reference and all the stuff was in the mail the next day.
Additionally, I was sad to hear from him about the difficult time the folks in Melbourne and all of Australia are have dealing with Covid.
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Anyway, he indicated he felt he had mastered the mainsail controls, which is nice, but the mainsail is not the engine of a masthead rig sailboat - the jib is. I mentioned to him that there are a number of jib controls and they are the sheets, halyard, fairleads movement forward & aft, fairleads tracks inboard & outboard and headstay sag, I really don't like these conversation because of the number of jib sail trim controls and ALL the the jib controls have to work together. For example, as older sailors will remember, with the four barrel carburetor, you can't only adjust 2 barrels and expect peak performance. So, I asked him which sail trim control he'd like to discuss. I was afraid he'd select the fairleads and that's exactly what he did. The fairleads are the most important jib sail trim control because they adjust EVERYTHING. The everything being draft depth, draft position, twist and angle of attack.
The first thing I notice when I went on a boat was the condition of the pin type fairleads. If they were frozen in place I then checked the outhaul and most times that didn't work either. What that meant was both were like the broken clock and right twice per day. The were right for one point of sail and wind condition and wrong for all others. Pin type fairleads are a problem because they are difficult to adjust under load and sailors (and humans) will do what's easy and not what's hard - it's just human nature. I prefer the Garhauer adjustable fairlead system. There are other but when I lived in So Ca I sold and installed Garhauer products.
My book THE SAIL TRIM USERS GUIDE devotes 8 pages to the jib sail trim controls and if you were to highlight the chapter all the pages would be yellow!! He decided to buy my book and SAIL Trim Chart together with the FREE Quick Reference and all the stuff was in the mail the next day.
Additionally, I was sad to hear from him about the difficult time the folks in Melbourne and all of Australia are have dealing with Covid.
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