Mainsheet

[Broke sailor SV Marcell]

Hi everyone. The time came to move my new Hunter 27 from Deltaville to Colonial Beach. There were swells of about 2 feet, the wind coming from behind us so I just went along on jib and motor alone doing about 5-6 knots. When I got to the mouth a the Potomac we turned and then had the wind on a beam reach. So I decided it might be time to deploy the Main and see what our speed would do. We deployed it and started running into problems with the sheet catching everything on the Binacle. I was occuppied trying to keep the sheet from ripping off the new GPS from it's mount. So once deployed we turned away from the wind and everything was good for about 5 minutes. The wind picked up and all of a sudden I was being overpowered, cruising at 8 knots per the GPS with no engine. So we decided to point into the wind and retract the main. (Roller furled) Same problem again with the sheet. So we got it in and then we saw this handle laying on the floor. What's that? We realized the sheet had wrapped around the engine throttle and ripped it off! I am not sure if I am doing something wrong or is this a design problem. So we ended up pulling into the Marina at Coan River for repairs.Any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

[Mark]

Welcome to the world of beta testing

What is your hull number? I don't think there are too many of these out yet. Sounds like earlier reefing would help. Where was the gps mounted?Try to post what you learn here on HOW. That will help build the knowledge base and provide someone these answer even if there isn't an obvious solution today.

 

[Broke sailor SV Marcell]

Hull Number 1. The GPS is mounted on the Binnacle on that tube that loops around and foward of the binnacle. There is about a 3 inch clearance between the sheet and that station so when I was working with te sheet pointing into the wind it was looping over everything on the binnacle. I do not know if tightening on the sheet would have helped.

 

[Rick D]

One Thought

On another boat with a mainsheet location like yours, I used a stainless cable pendant (like your lifeline) to bring the top block way down and help keep the rope purchase from snagging on everything. It helped quite a bit. Other than that, more hours on the water and practice will put an end to this. Every boat had its quirks and we all learn to work around them. Rick D.PS: Other than that, sounds like an exciting sail!

 

[Broke sailor SV Marcell]

Can you elaborate on your fix? I don't get the picture.

 

[Alan]

Broke Sailor

Sailing on a beam reach and doing 8 knots is not really being overpowered. This is your fastest point of sail. All you needed to do was go to vang sheeting which would stabalize the mail and give you slightly less power. Using the main sheet and traveler to adjust angle of attack and vang for flattening and pulling the draft forward.

 

[Rick D]

Elaboration

I had a chandlery make up a piece of pendant which I attached to the boom mainsheet bail. Then the block, that used to be attached to that bail, attaches to the bottom of the pendant. The objective is to get that block low enough to be within inches of the cleating block when the boom is all the way taught. That way the only thing near the pedestal is the pendant and it is less likely to snag on something. Hope this helps, Rick D.

 

[Rick Sylvester]

As far as your snagging problem goes

it's simply an issue of not keeping slack out of the mainsheet. Don't head up unless your crew is prepared to get the sheets in at the same time. If there's no slack you won't snag. It's that simple.Heavily flogging sails and sheets will not only damage stuff and injure crew, it's the quickest way I know to compromise the longevity of your sails.Hope this helps.