Trouble Putting Up Our Mainsail

[sante]

We took our Beneteau 321 out into the ocean again today and had a blast. She handled the 2 to 4 foot seas brilliantly. Our problem continues to be with out main sail. We are really struggling putting it up and wondering if you have any suggestions. We were finally able to get it up with one person standing at the mast pulling on the lines while the other person pulled from the cockpit. The reefing lines were also difficult to get in place. I sprayed the shackles and winches with McLube but we are beginning to wonder if we need to change the rigging. This is how our sail looks when it is up.




Any thoughts?

 

[cymeyer]

Hugh, I presume your boat is pointed directly into the wind when you try to raise the mainsail?

 

[DougM]

Lines fouled in Mast?

I would suggest looking at the way your halyards are led inside the mast. From your picture it appears that you have a conventional mainsail and not the furling main.

I have found that with the conventional main there is a remote possiblity that your main halyard is twisted around one of the other lines inside the mast. I ran into this and found that the main halyard was wrapped around the line to the boom topping lift. The simple temporary fix for this one was to ease the boom topping lift so that the main halyard was not binding on it.
The lines can be re routed without taking the mast down, but its tricky to do it.

Another possibilty is that the halyard has jumped off the sheave at the masthead and is caught between the sheave and the masthead casting, and/or the sheave is simply not turning.

The good news is that if you can get up the mast in a bosun's chair, the fix should not be that difficult in either case.