Reefing Troubles C-25

[Jim Hartley]

I am having trouble installing a reefing system on a catalina 25. There already are existing reef points on the sail. I am having trouble with the cringle on the luff of the sail. When I try to pull in the reef, the reef point on the luff will not go past the brass stopper that keeps the palstic guides on luff from coming out of the mast. So therefore the sail stops about 10" before it can get to the boom. If I try to put the reef cringle below the brass stoppers then I cannot raise sail all the way when I try to shake out the reef. This is supposed to be the original sail that came with boat in 1985. But I do not know if the reef points are original. Does anybody know what the correct dimensions would be for the sail, reef points and mast? Can I get the info. from the manufactuter? Any info would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Jim Hartley. jrhartleymi@netscape.net

 

[John J]

C25 Reefing

We had the same issue with our 78' C25. I ended up tying it off to the cringle with a sail stop. It made life a lot easier when you wanted to shake out the reef.

 

[Jon W]

C25 Reefing Problem

I used two different solutions on a 1984 C25 tall rig when I occasionally had to reef the main. But I don’t know if your configuration is the same.First, the quick and dirty method. This method assumes that the reef point is pulled down with a reef line, and is not attached directly to the boom. After pulling the cringle down as far a possible, I would take the downhaul line on the sliding gooseneck and led it up to a cleat (for the main halyard?) on the side of the mast. The downhaul is not really needed when the reef line is tensioning the luff. This allowed me to raise the boom until it was fairly close to the luff’s reef point (just below the gate). You don't really need to do this, but it makes for a neater reef.Later I used a better solution. I fabricated and installed two curved aluminum plates, one on each side of the mast gate, leaving a gap the same width as the mast track. This allowed the sail slugs to slide up or down as far as necessary without spilling out of the gate, with no need for a track stop.Let me know if you want more detail.

 

[Michael McCann]

Reefing the main sail

Jim;My previous boat was a 1986 C25 T, and I did John W.'s second solution. I made 2 plates that converted the gate for feeding the sail slides into the luff groove into the luff groove. This allowed the slides to come down to the boom when the sail was furled, and while reefed. I personally did not like the boom moving up and down, so I kept mine fixed. On the larger boats the lowest slide is on a rope between the bottom cringles which allows the reefing cringle to reach the boom. It is hard ot envision, but makes sense when you see it. This arrangement has been in a discussion here recently. The reef points are in the right location on your sail, the sailmaker doesn't have any idea how the sail will be bent on, and wouldn't put the reef points in a different location. They are installed to remove a certain percentage of sail area when reefed. I have always made modifications to the factory reefing system because of the reason you mention.Michael

 

[Bill Holcomb]

Mast Gate For Easy Reefing

Hi Jim,Here is the address for a couple of photos on the C25/C250 National Association's website that show the mast gate that I have on my '85 C25. The gate covers the wide space in the mast slot and allows the slugs to freely move up and down the slot for easy reefing.http://www.best.com/~c25c250/restricted/snkslot.htmlBill Holcomb - C25 Snickerdoodle #4839