356 reeding questions

[Jimongee]

I have a 2002 356 with the in-boom reef system. We are currently sailing the Great Lakes. I am having so much difficulty trying to use this system. The lines continue to cause such high resistance on lifting the main. When dropping the main we end up having yards of extra reef lines hanging down on the helm. We have completely removed all reef lines from the boom and rigged them a 2nd time to make sure all was correct unrestricted and correctly routed. Still a very disappointing cumbersome system. Any advice or reefing alternatives for this 356 model would be very helpful.
Jim n Kathy
SV SamiDog

 

[Bob 04 H260]

I'm not sure I understand. With in-boom reefing why do you have reef lines ? the sail rolls in to the boom, right ? what do these extra lines do ?

What you are describing sounds like slab reefing using a single line. Maybe a few pictures would help to understand the problem.

Bob

 

[Jimongee]

356 reefing question revision

To clarify my previous post for those who thought I had an in boom main furl...the 356 model has a complicated in boom main sail reefing system. it does not have any in boom or in mast furled main system.
Jim n Kathy
SV SamiDog

 

[chuckwayne]

Re: 356 reefing question revision

Jimongee,
What you have is the standard single line slab reefing system with a single line for each of 2 reefs. There's not much you can do to clean up the lines except take up the slack manually and then release it before raising the main. It's a common system on boats that don't have in-mast or in-boom reefing/furling

 

[Bob 04 H260]

Jim, you could add small blocks where the reefing lines goes through the sail it will make it easier to raise and reef. Harken makes some nice plastic ones designed to be attached with a piece of line. Unless you add a stackpac type of containment system (checkout Sailrite.com or http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kax8fVwFniU ) there is not much you can do with the extra spaghetti except gather it up as the sail comes down as chuckwayne suggested. The only other consideration would be to just use a reefing line on the leach of the sail and have someone go forward to the mast to secure the reef cringle there with a hook on the gooseneck each time you need to reef.

good luck, Bob