Bill, Welcome and thank you for the advice you are about to give. I have a fully battened mainsail witha hugh roach (Hunter 29.5). A sailmaker recommended cutting the battens down to 75% to help ease raising the main as a cheaper alternative to the Strong Track System, what do you think? What impact will this have on the shape of my sail and will it help in raising the sail?
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Sail hoisting difficulties and full battens
Jane, If the problem you are having with hoisting your main is that is too heavy then making the sail lighter will help. You can do this by cutting the battens down from the front or by cutting down the amount of roach. If you boat has more weather helm than you like, cutting down the roach will help. I don't really like the idea of 75% battens. They might not support the large roach properly. If the reason the sail is hard to hoist results from your slides getting stuck in the groove or track then you should look into either a slide upgrade such as Allslip Slides or Battslides, or go with a track system such as the Strong Track, which is a good value and works very well. Bill Colombo, Doyle SF
Jane, If the problem you are having with hoisting your main is that is too heavy then making the sail lighter will help. You can do this by cutting the battens down from the front or by cutting down the amount of roach. If you boat has more weather helm than you like, cutting down the roach will help. I don't really like the idea of 75% battens. They might not support the large roach properly. If the reason the sail is hard to hoist results from your slides getting stuck in the groove or track then you should look into either a slide upgrade such as Allslip Slides or Battslides, or go with a track system such as the Strong Track, which is a good value and works very well. Bill Colombo, Doyle SF
Check Other Things Before Cutting
There are several other things one could check, if you haven't already done so, before opting for drastic surgery or amputation. There are a number of posts in the archives about the difficulty of hoisting the full-battened main so these can be searched for. Since the Strong Track was mentioned you may have already done this in which case please disregard the following. Items that can contribute to high halyard loads include having the boom vang set so the boom is too low, possibly combined with the outhaul set up tight, and fighting the Dutchman flaking system if the sail has a load on it vice going directly into the wind. One relatively cheap fix that can be done without cuting the sail is to put a block on the head of the sail and fix the main halyard to the masthead. Visualize the halyard attached to the masthead, coming down to the block at the head of the sail, then back up to the masthead sheave and down to the deck and then aft. This will give a mechanical advantage to make seting sail easier. My neighbor did this on her Beneteau 44 and she said it works really well. Another idea, investigate the main halyard sheave(s) and consider changing them out with ones that have roller bearings. Then there is cleaning the track and lubing the sail slugs. Lots of posts in the archives on this subject. The roach is where a lot of the power comes from so cutting it down will reduce performance so I'd see this as a last ditch effort.
There are several other things one could check, if you haven't already done so, before opting for drastic surgery or amputation. There are a number of posts in the archives about the difficulty of hoisting the full-battened main so these can be searched for. Since the Strong Track was mentioned you may have already done this in which case please disregard the following. Items that can contribute to high halyard loads include having the boom vang set so the boom is too low, possibly combined with the outhaul set up tight, and fighting the Dutchman flaking system if the sail has a load on it vice going directly into the wind. One relatively cheap fix that can be done without cuting the sail is to put a block on the head of the sail and fix the main halyard to the masthead. Visualize the halyard attached to the masthead, coming down to the block at the head of the sail, then back up to the masthead sheave and down to the deck and then aft. This will give a mechanical advantage to make seting sail easier. My neighbor did this on her Beneteau 44 and she said it works really well. Another idea, investigate the main halyard sheave(s) and consider changing them out with ones that have roller bearings. Then there is cleaning the track and lubing the sail slugs. Lots of posts in the archives on this subject. The roach is where a lot of the power comes from so cutting it down will reduce performance so I'd see this as a last ditch effort.
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