A question please

[sinnettc]

Sublime,

I have 3 cringles on the luff of my main - one at the tack, one about 8 inches higher for the cunningham, and the reef point about 3 feet from the tack. When using the cunningham I do usually get a bit of a "bubble" between the boom & the cringle. When I reef the sail packs down between the boom and upper cringle. Since I have a stiff bolt-rope main converted to slugs I generally end up with a fairlly large bubble/bulge on one side. I haven't noticed that it affects the way the boat sails.

On the leech of my original main I had a similar set up - clew cringle, a flattening reef cringle, and the reefing cringle about 3 feet up. My current sail skips the flattening reef - with the capri 22 tall rig (22 foot boat, 30' deck stepped mast!) the margin between needing to flatten and needing to reef is too small to bother with.

Here's a picture that shows my cunningham and reef.

 

[Bill Roosa]

I've never seen a cunningham used while a reef is in. the reason is the sailmakers know that you reefed due to higher wind speeds and so made the sail above the reef flatter. Since it is already flatter you really don't need a cunningham to flatten it further.

 

[sinnettc]

Here are some pictures of my main reefed before the beer can race tonight. Should have left it in as the wind came back up with a vengeance!

Port @ mast:

Starboard at mast:

Clew:

As you can see, the sail bags out on the port side. That's primarily because it's fairly new and still pretty stiff. It sails fine like that, though.