Foot Blocks

[John Lynch]

First extended sailing on our 1981 27 this Mem. Day week-end in the Pamlico Sound! She did well in sustained 20 knot winds. My question: Prevailing SW wind and wind driven current allowed us to go wing and wing and surf to an amazing 7.6 knots of hull speed!! Would foot blocks allow more control and better stability for fine tuning on wing

 

[David Foster]

What's a foot block?

Pardon my ignorance, John, but I thought maybe there is another name I would know.David

 

[David Murcott]

Do You Mean a Snatch Block

If you mean putting a snatch block on the toe rail...Yes. Doing that will move the angle out farther and allow a better shape in the sail because you won't be pulling the sail inboard as much. The only problem is how to run the sheet through it. My boat doesn't have a walk-thru gate, just one long safety rail. You would have to drop the safety line to have a clear run from your winch to the block, or have two sets of sheets, one for the inboard fairlead, one for the snatch block rig and that is a lot of line to get tangled

 

[David Foster]

Rigging for wing and wing

Our jib fairlead blocks have snap shackles attaching on the toe rail. That means we can move them arround to accomodate different sails or set-ups. It also gives a good outside position for running wing and wing. (The sheeting angle is too wide for close hauled tacking, but that's hard to do on our shoal draft keel anyway.) We have no problem running the sheet from the block on the toerail to the winch on the cockpit coaming. We just undo the stopper knot, and rethread.For the main, we have a rope boom vang with a snap shakle on the bottom block where it attaches to a bail at the bottom of the mast. So we can detach the bottom of the vang, and relocate it to the toe rail, giving us a preventer for the boom/main. This keeps it from flogging in the waves, and prevents an accidental gybe.Our other running set-up is with the asymetrical chute wing and wing with the main. The chute sheet runs to a snatch block snap shackled to the aft end of the toe rail.DavidLady Lillie '77 h27

 

[Guest]

Foot blocks are mounted on the aft coaming equidistant between the winch & the stern, perpendicular to the winch. They allow spinnaker sheets to be run while allowing for genoa sheets to remain in there snap shackles when you are done running down wind. Schaeffer marine list them as foot blocks so that is what I called them. Sorry for any confusion.