Tell tales for a furling main

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We have a new Catalina 350 with a furling main (mast, not boom). We have spent the summer getting comfortable with how to trim this sail. This winter we thought we would add tell tales to the sail on the leech. 1. Do you think that tell tales on the leech of a furling main provide any insite and therefore are worthwhile? 2. If so, where exactly do we place the tell tales?
 
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Opps

This should have appeared under the sail trim forum, anyone know how to move this over to that forum? thanks
 
K

Ken

Tell Tales

I put tell tales on the main of my Catalina and what a difference it made. I only thought I had had the main trimmed properly (not). I attached the tales just above the batten pockets on my main. Since I assume you do not have battens with the furler I would try attaching them an equal distance from one another using 4 tales. I hope this will help with your trim, it sure did on mine.
 
May 17, 2004
2,111
Other Catalina 30 Tucson, AZ
Tell Tales For Furling Main

Galesville: The sail trim forum has been suspended but has come to you!! If you would like to see the sail trim forum reappear, just drop sailboatowners.com a note. Telltales are very important because they tell you exactly what sail trim adjustemnt needs to made to your main and jib. I don't know how sailors adjust their sails without them. I can't. Another problem is correctly reading them once you install them. I devoted over 7 pages to this subject in my book "The Sail Trim Users Guide" to reading them. On the mainsail - place one at the top, one in the middle and one at the bottom. Do the same thing with the jib. Buy a set at West Marine and they have placement instructions. If you really want to get trick, attach 2 telltales (one on each side) at about the middle of the main. While your at it , install one each on the outside shrouds. For down wind sailing, install one backstay. For telltale material on the shrouds I use the stuff that ties up tomatoe plants!!
 
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