Reefing horns

[Ru88ell]

Am I doing something wrong? I find that the webbing loops keep slipping off the reefing horns. This is more likely when I'm being cautious and reefing before raising - it's less likely to happen when I'm putting in a reef on the water.

What I did to overcome this was to add a length of rope to the kicker loop on the tabernacle, then, when I wanted to reef I'd tie it to the webbing loop and the problem went away.

[Dennis]

Hello Russell

You are lucky, I don't even have webbing loops, just the cringles on the sail. I also found that if you raised the sail ready reefed, the sail would slip off the horn.

My solution: a length of 8mm rope tied to the underside of the gooseneck, it passes up one side of the (luff) sail through the reefing cringle down the other side, under the reefing horn and then forward along the boom and is tied off at a (reefing) cleat.

This makes reefing both easy and secure.

1. lower sail sufficiently.

2. haul in this (luff) reefing line until the sail is tight to the boom and make fast to the aft reefing cleat on the boom.

3. haul in the (leach) reefing line etc.

4. reef foot of sail.

I have two reefing cleats on each side of the boom. I only do this for the first reef in the mainsail, I use the second reef very rarely so I put up with the inconvenience for that.

[Ru88ell]

I sailed from Southampton to Cherbourg and back over the weekend in a 24' Cornish Yawl. On the return leg it was blowing over 20kts at 2am, pitch dark, mid channel and increasing. We needed to reef - and I was dreading it. I didn't need to dread though, as it was done in seconds. I headed up a bit, let out the mainsheet and the owner pulled two lines and it was done. When we wanted to shake the reef out later it was just as easy.

In simple terms he had what Dennis describes. The leech reef pennant tied to the boom, up through the cringle and back through the block, along the boom and via two blocks to a clutch on the roof. The luff was the same, but obviously didn't run along the boom. I shall definitely change mine to something similar.

[Dennis]

I sailed to from Southampton to Cherbourg and back over the weekend in a 24' Cornish Yawl. On the return leg it was blowing over 20kts at 2am, pitch dark, mid channel and increasing.

Hello Russell

Sounds like you are living life to the full! (Envious).

I have posted a couple of photos of my (crude) reefing arrangements in "Mary Ann Modifications".

To do the job properly I need to replace the reefing horn with a cheek block. I will have to sort out how to do it, the block needs to be well forward to be effective.