D
Don Guillette
Mates: This is regarding a recent thread.I received the attached message from a friend of mine. He is a Washington state sailor named Skip Meisch,who thinks nothing of sailing 30 or 40 miles to a race, mostly winning the event and then sailing back home - all in the same day!!!Anyway, his knowledge of C22's is obviously better than mine. My thought was to forget the downhaul and go with the cunningham. I should have checked with him before I opined.Don,The advice you got about the Class rules and the mastbanding is accurate. But if they are not sailing in a onedesign class, almost anything goes.Personally, I prefer a 4:1 or better cunningham. That iswhat I have. I set the boom down haul to limit the fullhoist so that the headboard will not hang-up on thebackstay. If I expect light winds, I set the boom down haula little lower so the roach will not always hang up on thebackstay. Then I use the cunning ham for draft control. I'llusually set the halyard tension for the down wind run anduse the cunningham for upwind control. That way I don't haveto adjust halyard tension after hoisting.The problem I see with using a cunningham directly on theboom is that the gooseneck has a lot more drag on the mastslot than the sail slugs do. So a higher purchase would beneeded just to overcome the extra drag. Pulling down on theboom will also pull down on the foot, thus requiring evenmore purchase. A cunningham is simple and does what isneeded.As for reefing:At my cunning ham cringle, I have a loop of line permanentlyattached. The top cunningham double block is attached tothat line with a carabineer. I have another loop of linecoming from the sail slug just above my reef tack. After Ireef, I move the cunningham carabineer to the higher reefcarabineer loop. I do the same with the outhaul. It is alsoattached with a carabineer and can be moved to a loop ofline at the reef clew. Now I can flatten the reefed mainreal good.I have my 22 set up with virtually all the controls you willfind on the bigger boats. I use them as your charts suggest.The only exception is the traveler which is very short andall the way back on the transom. It offers very littletraveler control. So the vang has to be used more.Skip