Mainsail reefing....
I took the liberty of providing this link to the harken site so you'll get an idea of a typical mainsail reefing set up. http://www.harken.com/rigtips/reefing.php Please note that none of these systems uses a reefing horn. That's the little horn shaped fixture you are trying to hook your luff reefing cringle to. If you want to use the horn instead of simply running a tack line, install a strap through the cringle that you can hook to the horn without removing the sail gate. On my mainsail the sailmaker installed a 9 inch length of webbing with stainless steel rings sewn into each end. One end hooks onto the horn, the other ring end stops the strap from slipping throught the cringle. This strap is long enough to go over the folded part of the sail. If you study the illustrations you's see that the tack reef line pulls the corner down and forward. A reef horn will not do this. You will also note that the clew reef line pulls the rear corner of the sail down and back. This tension on the new foot of the sail must exist for the sail to maintain a flat shape. The folds, or slabs, will not affect the shape of the sail, if you have proper foot tension. The intermediate cringles are there simply to help clean up the folds. Many sailors use colored reef ties so they won't forget to pull them out before shaking out the reef. If you leave them in and release the tack and clew... yikes! Sail damage possible. Now, back the the illustrations. My set up is much simpler than those pictured. As stated before, I have the strap through the reef cringle that allows me to hook on to the horn without removing any slugs. The clew line does not run back to the cockpit, it terminates near the front of the boom where I have a jam/horn cleat. You can use any type of cleat you like as long as the reef line is run through a few eyestraps to keep it in place when not being used. So the sequence to reef is first lower the halyard to a preset position (mark a line on the halyard for reference), go to the mast and hook the strap over the reefing horn, then pull in the clew line till the foot of the sail is tight and flat, then cleat off. Back in the cockpit, I reset tension on the halyard. If you're going to leave the sail reefed for some time you can tie off the slabs with sail ties through the intermediate cringles. (again, don't for get to take 'em out before releasing the reef.) Otherwise I wouldn't worry about it. You never see the race boats tying off the slabs. Shaking out the reef is just the opposite. OH BTW regarding your other reefing problem. You can not roller reef effectively without a "luff pad" sewn in to the sail.... The sail is too baggy. Don't mess with mast rake unless you have weather helm problems. Increasing forestay tension is not the same as adjusting rake. Look it up in a sailing book. Your comment on the loos guage tells me you may not understand how to tune your rig....here's a link that will help. When you get there scroll down to "tuning tips" on the left hand menu. http://www.cncphotoalbum.com/index1.htm Have a blast.
) I installed single-line jiffy reefing this weekend for my first reef poin and gave it a try, but I find it's still a little balky. FWIW, I go ahead and run my outhaul to the leech cringle, and use shock cords through the intermediate reef points just in case my primary reefing lines fail.
