Single no mast method - not wet trialed yet
I think i've checked this off my To-Do list over the winter. Believe I had to invest in a longer reef line, as the one supplied with the boat was only enuf to reef the clew. Maybe I used the old topping lift line... note, I do not use the std topping lift, chg'd to a Garhauer vang, so I was able to utilize the lift's boom-end block for the reef line system. Leader notes: I trailer-sail, so my system had to be fully contained to the boom to speed up rigging the boom to the mast (no mast or deck attachments), and also had to be worked from the cockpit, so the busy end of the line had to terminate near the end of the boom. If you keep your boat in a slip, then you can consider the 'Harken' style where you end up terminating the busy end down to the mast step then aft to the cockpit to a deck cleat. The route of the reef line is as follows: 1. Attach bitter end directly to the tack cringle (my tack 'cringle' is a web loop, not a grommet). Again, this is opposite of the 'Harken' method, where the bitter end is typically anchored at the clew cringle, then led forward 2. down to the gooseneck, to a home-rigged cheek block on the boom end, to allow in-boom routing. If you study the h240 boom gooseneck end fitting, it has many precast slots and holes to make rigging an axle and sheave pretty easy. Just be careful to route line away from any snaggers inside the boom, or just get rid of the snaggers while you're at it ... 3. Aft all the way thru boom and out via the topping lift block 4. up to and thru the clew reef cringle 5. down to and thru a std open-base cleat on the boom, so it ends up on the same side of boat as the main halyard cleat The line doesn't meander much, real friction point when reefing is only the clew cringle, and you have gravity working with you at that point. Shaking it out may be more problematic and could require going up to free a binding slug. It seems to work ok in my driveway - the only concern I recall is a bit of stress near the gooseneck where the slug stop won't allow the 1 or 2 reefed slugs all the way down but it was not much - think I was going to change from the slug stop method to an adjustable slot via a curved Al plate to help alleviate this (More To-Do). The operation is, stall the main, by heave to or motor, etc. Uncleat the reef line and the main halyard, working both at the same time if possible. Pull the reef line and keep mild tension on the halyard, until reef is set both tack and clew (tack will settle first), then tension reef line and cleat. Re-tension halyard and cleat. Go. Same time I did this, I changed my outhaul to an internal 2-1, and installed the vang tracks, since I had the boom disassembled. Have yet to test these revisions on the water. I hope to get out this weekend if the anti-sailing demons don't keep getting the best of me. Brian h240
