Cleating the Sheets...

[Lake Superior Sailor]

I use winchers for my jib sheets and find they work well for me. I never cleat my sheets and found with bullseyes & clam cleats I had trouble releasing the sheets in heavy weather. Never afforded self tailers so I wouldn't know.I got an Ebay allowance what can I say....Dale

 

[caguy]

Well, I don't have a horse in this race, but I didn't find the same extent of problem. It's true, they don't self tail. I did find, however, when the winch was loaded up pretty good, I could take those extra wraps and have it tail enough to give me some reasonable help ie it held for me to move my hand around. I found the cleating the best advantage and abandoned the use of the fast cleats that were factory (dealer?) installed on the O'Day 27. I'd buy them again in a heartbeat. Cheap and in my experience, moderately useful.

I agree with RickD the winchers work pretty well. If I start the locking wrap at the inside of the wincher and then take a full wrap on the I can ajdust the sheets and draw them in quite a bit with out taking another bite.

 

[Joe]

hmmm... I'm getting deja vu on this wincher conversation....sorry about getting carried away..... again.

 

[Ward H]

Interesting thread on jib sheet control. Here is my question if I may.
My 110 jib sheet lines run through a deck block, out of reach of the cockpit, back to the winch, then to the horn cleat. I run the sheet through the cleat and tie a stopper knot to keep it within reach.
I would like to install the Harkin cam cleats mentioned here. Would I put a fairlead between the deck block and the winch to catch the stopper knot?

 

[Chris Patterson]

Well, you could do that Ward. As long as the line is reasonably fair between the winch and your block. I would doubt that there is a helluva lot of strain on a 17', but if you were in a blow, and had a lot of tension on that sheet, the fairlead would have to be very secure.

 

[caguy]

Interesting thread on jib sheet control. Here is my question if I may.
My 110 jib sheet lines run through a deck block, out of reach of the cockpit, back to the winch, then to the horn cleat. I run the sheet through the cleat and tie a stopper knot to keep it within reach.
I would like to install the Harkin cam cleats mentioned here. Would I put a fairlead between the deck block and the winch to catch the stopper knot?

I did something similar on my Mac 25. It allowed me to controm the sheets from the windward side fo the cockpit without having to lean over the lee side gunnel to cleat the sheets.