The Hunter 25

[ron tw]

Glenn, Thank you for spending time with us. I am a NEW sailor who chose the Hunter 25 (2008) as my first boat. What an experience it has been! I am an American who has lived overseas for the last 18 years and have finally decided to break down and learn my dream. Unfortunatly in Taiwan there is not much of a sailing community here.... My question refers to winches, the boat came with a Lewmar 6 winch. I would like to upgrade to a self-tailing wench but there doesn't seem anything thing that fits? The winds are quite strong here in-fact I spend 90% of my sailing reefed.

Any suggestions?
Ron

 

[ghen]

Ron,

The self tailing winches on the market are pretty massive for the 25. Why don't you have a smaller headsail made that has the clew far enough in front of the mast that a block fitted on the clew will not hit the mast. That was a long sentence. You run a 2:1 jib sheet and that cuts the load in half. Tie one end of the jib sheet to the bottom of the sheet block, go up the the block on the clew, then back to the sheet block as a normal single jib sheet does. The loss of area will not hurt you in the heavy breezes and the load on the sheet is cut in half. That should cost less than adding self tailing winches.