Headsail Reefing

Roller furling headsails have the distinct advantage of limitless reefing. If you feel that your headsail is a bit over-canvased, simply pull in on the furling line to reduce the amount of sail area exposed. 

The goal of reefing is to produce a smaller sail that is nearly flat, that way any excess wind is spilled off and does not overpower the smaller sail. Roller furling does make the sail smaller, but baggy instead of flat. Foam luffs can help reduce the amount of bagginess, but it will still occur to some extent. While a smaller baggy sail may be more powered than an unfurled flat sail, the truth remains that the sail can simply be furled up even more, making the exposed sail that much smaller. While roller furling can't produce the best sail shape when partially furled, it does have the distinct advantage of being able to always make the sail smaller.

Hank on sails are known for their reliability and excellent sail shape. There are much fewer moving parts involved in setting a hank on sail as compared to all the mechanisms needed for a roller furling sail. The problem is sail makers don't have a method in place to reef your headsails.

When I talked with my sail maker about this, his suggestion was to purchase a smaller jib. This means that I would have to perform a headsail change during reefing conditions. This might be the standard operating procedure on board racing sailboats where there are plenty of crew to help execute a speedy headsail change and a limitless budget to buy all of these sails, but I don't have either of these faculties on my boat. I needed a way to reef my hank on sails that could be quickly carried out alone and not break the bank!

Yes, I had a juniper bush growing in my bow. It died because I forgot to water it for a few weeks (and maybe the salt spray).

The old staysail that came with the boat had a reef point in it, and this gave me the idea to have reef points added to my current headsails. I talked it over with my sailmaker and they decided to give it a try. They told me that most people with hank on sails are racers and the rings add too much weight to the sail, which is why they don't typically put reefs in headsails. I told them I would be fine with a bit of extra weight in the sail and they went to work installing the reef points in the sails!

The standard way to reef a hank on headsail is to:

Lower the sail into the deck
Attach the reef tack point to the deck
Attach the sheets to the reef clew point
Raise the reefed sail and adjust the sheet leads as needed

The problem with this in my opinion is when I lower the headsail, the boat becomes unbalanced. This will make the boat head into the wind as it has lost all lee helm from the headsail. The other issue is I would have to crawl all the way out onto the forepeak to switch the tack point during rough seas. I know I should reef before it gets bad, but at some point, I'm going to be caught off guard and need to do it in sloppy weather.

I have installed a downhaul system for the headsails so that I can lower them all the way from the mast in a controlled manner, never setting foot further forward in heavy weather. Why not rig something else up that will keep me at the mast where my halyards are when I need to put in a reef? I did just that.

Photo courtesy of Anastasia Forrestal

I attached a 7mm piece of polyester covered dyneema to the deck tack point, up through the reef tack loop, back through the deck tack point, and then aft towards the mast. This lets me stand in front of the mast, lower the halyard while pulling in on the tack line (through a 2:1 pulley system). Once the tack is drawn down, I can cleat it off on a spring cleat and attach the reefed sheet lines to the reefed clew.

Once the tack and clew are attached, I can easily crank on the halyard to tension the luff again, producing a very flat reefed headsail. 

With the sail up and loaded, the foot will blow in the wind like a skirt. Simply rolling it up will get it out of the way and make it compact for the reefing lines to hold in place.

I also like to tie the clews together to help keep them from flopping around. A flying clew plate can cause a serious amount of pain!

The reef lines are simple to make. I took 1/4 inch 3 strand nylon and passed it through the reef holes, tying double fisherman knots on either side to keep them in place. The ends of the lines are crown knotted and backspliced to keep it from unraveling. Since these lines will be rubbing on the sails, it is imperative that the ends be fuzzy and not melted into hard points!

On a side note, I am using a snap shackle during the dockside test fitting of this sail. Never use a snap shackle in stormy conditions! If that shackle were to open up by accident, the sail is going to turn into a flag, balance will be lost, and it will be really hard to attach another sheet in its place. Always use a sheet that is tied securely with a bowline or a larkshead knot for any reefed sails.

Name Brand vs Econo Brand

When you look at the prices for ropes, you may be shocked at how much some brands want for their line. Why pay several dollars per foot when you can buy the same size line from another brand for pennies?

There is actually a difference! I'm in the process of making rope fenders and I need a lot of line that will wrap the whole fender up in a nice package. This line will be under no tension and is purely decorative. I was paying $1.25 per foot for 1/2" Three Strand from New England Ropes and thought this was going to be too expensive to wrap the fenders. I decided to go with an Econo Brand of line where each foot only cost me $0.50 per foot. When you are talking 600 foot spools, that's a difference of $450 per spool!

The differences are greatly apparent! The more costly New England Ropes has tighter wrapped yarns, stronger lays, and resists unraveling. The Econo Brand has much larger yarns which are hardly wrapped and will unlay if the ends are not taped tightly. 

The tighter yarns also translate into better chafe resistance which directly affects the longevity of a line on board your yacht. The simple act of tying many half hitches has led the Econo Brand rope to pull apart. The line is riddled with little blebs where the yarns are pulling out of the lays from tying so many knots. If this were a working line on the boat, those blebs would be quickly chafed open, leading to premature chafe failure. 

Imagine your docklines, chafing on the chocks as the boat bobs around the slip, or the anchor rode dragging on the bottom of the sea floor. These actions would wreak havoc on a cheap rope, causing yarns to pull out and break. In these working situations, the consequences are much greater. Your boat could break free of the pier and begin to drift, causing damage to your vessel and those around it. If the anchor rode were to chafe through and snap, you will begin to drift through the water with the added cost of buying a new anchor!

If you are buying rope for your boat, don't let price dictate your decision. Do buy quality ropes that will protect your vessel as they provide a long and reliable service life!

Halyard Safety

In the event of a Man Over Board emergency, you will want to have as many tools to aid in recovery of the crew member as possible. Once the person is alongside the vessel, it can be a distinct challenge to pull the person back on deck. This is where the halyard comes into play.

You want to have at least one halyard that is long enough to reach the water to allow for crew retrieval. On board Wisdom, all the halyards are long enough to reach into the water alongside of the boat. 

The reason I have all the halyards able to reach the water is simple: What if you are using the retrieval halyard when someone falls over? Freeing the halyard simply adds one more step to the retrieval process. For this reason, all my halyards are long enough to reach the water so that any free halyard will work during the emergency situation.

When purchasing new halyards, be sure to add enough length for them to reach the water.

Lines Left at Mast

The alternative to leading lines aft to the cockpit is to leave the lines at the mast. This means that you need to go up to the mast to raise or lower the sails, set or shake a reef, tension the Cunningham, or adjust the topping lift.

Once again, we should look at the pros and cons of lines left at the mast

The pros:

You can see what you are doing while working on the sails
Fewer turns in the lines
If something jams, you are there to fix it and can see what happened
There is less spaghetti in the cockpit
It keeps the halyards and downhauls separated from the sheets
Dedicated winches
You can buy shorter lines

The cons:

You have to go forward to the mast
You need more winches

While going forward to the mast is inconvenient, it isn't the end of the world. When I sail alone, I lock the wheel and then go forward; when sailing with Maddie, she stays at the helm while I go forward. 

Once you are up there, you can see exactly what you are doing on the sails while raising, lowering, or reefing.You are there, looking right up your mast to see how everything is going. If a batten gets hooked on the rigging, or a line gets kinked and jammed, you are there and able to fix the problem.

The lines left at the mast also means that you will have a winch for each halyard. This does equate to more cost, but you can control the luff tension of each sail at any time. The advantage of having the halyards stay at the mast is that the halyards stay at the mast and do not join all the other lines and sheets that are dumped in the cockpit. This helps to keep the number of lines that have to terminate in the cockpit down.

The final advantages of leaving the lines at the mast is the reduced resistance and the need to buy shorter lines. The halyards come down straight with no bends or turns as it reaches the winch. Since the journey to the winch is shorter, you don't need to buy the extra feet of line to reach the cockpit. This makes it cheaper to replace the running rigging when the time comes.

Lines led aft and lines kept at the mast all have their ideal situations. Lines led aft shines on coastal cruisers that will be used in protected waters and on short trips. Lines left at the mast are found on bluewater cruisers because it has fewer places for failure to show up. 

Do you prefer your lines led aft or left at the mast?

Lines Led Aft

There is a trend these days to lead all lines aft to the cockpit. I think we should look at the pros and cons of leading lines to the cockpit vs keeping them at the mast.

The Pros are:

You never need to leave the cockpit
You need less winches

Never needing to leave the cockpit is nice! I sailed on a ketch with roller main and mizzen, and was so excited to tell Maddie that I was able to reef all the sails without stepping foot out of the cockpit and it was completed really fast! 

The other advantage is there are less winches needed to manage the vessel. On board Wisdom, we have 6 winches in the cockpit, 3 winches at the mast, and 1 winch on the boom. That's 10 winches to work all the lines involved in running the boat! If I needed to replace them, it would certainly be an expensive endeavor!

On sailboats with the lines led aft, they can run on much fewer winches. In theory, all the halyards and mainsheet could be managed by a single winch! This is because they work on a bank of clutches that lead to a single winch. Clutches are much less expensive as compared to a two speed self tailing winch! Clutches hold the lines in place, allowing you to take it off the winch to then put another line on the winch. This frees up the winch, allowing it to work all the lines led to it one at a time!

I have a friend who is up in years and still able to cruise singlehanded because his winch on the cockpit combing is electric. For the cost of one electric winch, he can easily manage his entire vessel! He doesn't have to climb up on deck in the dark during a storm to bring the sails in. Instead he stands behind the dodger and pushes a button to trim, set, or reduce his sails.

The Cons are:

Cockpit spaghetti
Increased line resistance
More deck hardware and turning blocks
Additional length of all lines
Upward stress on deck
Trouble shooting jams

 A creative way to organize the cockpit spaghetti

When all the lines are led into the cockpit, all the tail ends of the lines end up in the cockpit. This can lead to what is known as Spaghetti. On a very simple sloop rig, you would have:

Main Halyard
Jib Halyard
Vang
Spinnaker Halyard
Mainsheet
Outhaul
Cunningham
Jib Furling Line
Reefing Tack Line
Reefing Clew Line

Imagine all of these lines led to a single winch through a massive clutch bank, then dumping into the cockpit! This is why they sell organization bags along with many other systems to try and tame the mess that forms in the cockpit. If you do not manage these lines well, knots and kinks can form which would then impair the operation of all of these lines! My older friend who cruises is very methodical and keeps his lines in pristine organization! He never lets a mess develop so he never has to worry about a mess impairing his ability to control his vessel. If you are not organized like that, this could quickly become a problem!

Increased resistance is another problem with leading the lines aft. Each turn the line makes adds resistance to the system. When you think about the turns involved to run a halyard, or worse, an outhaul; resistance quickly escalates! A line that could be easily manhandled now needs a winch due to all the turn induced resistance!

In addition to the resistance, you need to have all of the hardware to cause these turns. All of these turning blocks and shivs need to be maintained, which adds to the work involved in keeping a cruising boat operational. There is already enough work and cost involved in keeping a sailboat in working order, why add more to the equation?

In order to reach the cockpit, each and every line needs the distance from the area of work to the cockpit added to it. When the lines cost several dollars per foot, adding several yards of rope to each line can become a very expensive addition. This makes the cost of replacing the running rigging significantly higher. In our example of 10 lines led aft, if the distance from the cockpit to the mast were 10 feet and the lines cost $1 per foot, that would be an additional $100 added to the cost of the running rigging.

All of these lines pull upwards at their turning blocks near the mast. Deck stepped boats have the force of the mast pushing down to help counteract this upward pull, but keel stepped boats do not. Properly engineered keel stepped boats will have a turnbuckle mounted inside the cabin attaching the deck to the mast. This fitting will help transfer some of the upward pull on the deck to the mast. If this fitting were to part, the deck would be ripped up by the force of the turning blocks. If you do have one of these fittings, be sure to inspect it regularly.

The last issue with leading lines aft is in the case of trouble shooting. If a line gets stuck, there are many potential offenders that could have caused the problem. The line could be stuck in the clutch, or stuck in any of the many turning blocks on the deck, as well as the normal locations for a jam located on the mast. When trying to trouble shoot, you need someone in the cockpit at the winch to pull or slack the line and another person up at the mast to figure out what went wrong. 

Some boat manufactures don't like the look of all the lines running aft on the deck and have encased the lines in a fiberglass tunnel. While this clears the decks for lounging, it makes them much harder to inspect and maintain the lines. If a jam occurs inside the tunnel, an extra level of complexity just got added to the problem.

I personally feel that lines led to the cockpit are wonderful on coastal cruisers with in-mast furling and make sailing much easier as all the lines are within close reach. They work great for coastal sailors who will be doing day trips and maybe a weekend sail. For longer voyages, I feel that it presents more instances for failures to occur and makes fixing the gear failures more complex. With all the winches I have in my cockpit, I have sometimes wanted an extra winch to pull on the random line that needs to be pulled. Imagine having a situation like this with a very limited number of winches. 

How do you feel about the modern trend of all the lines being led to the cockpit?