Snubber

Anchor snubbers are a very important, yet over looked part of ground tackle. Ground tackle, in its simplest form, is the equipment needed to attach the boat to the bottom in a secure manner. 

Most people think of this being anchor and rode. When the rode is rope, this can be the extent of the gear required.  

The rope will offer elasticity in the system, reducing the shock of the boat rising and falling back during rough anchoring conditions.  

When all chain rode is used, as it is preferred due to the increased weight and reduced risk of chafe, more equipment must be included to make the ground tackle system work properly. 

All chain rode offers no direct elasticity, as the chain will not stretch when pulled. It does offer some indirect elasticity, thanks to catenary, which is the parabolic curve that forms in the chain as it travels from your bow roller to the anchor. As the boat pulls back from a large wave pushing on the vessel, the chain will be pulled back under tension. This force them needs to lift the chain up, reducing the catenary as the chain becomes a straight bar. Once the wave passes, the chain will fall once again and catenary will develop again, losing the potential battery for the next shock.  

If the force exceeds the stored elasticity in the catenary chain, a strong lurch of incredible force will develop as the boat is snapped by the taught rode. All of this force can dislodge the anchor, causing it to drag, and damage the deck gear.  

Chain stoppers are easily bent by this amount of load, and risk ripping or if the deck if overloaded. If no chain stopper is present, all of this load is transferred to the windlass gypsy, running the risk of damaging the gypsy and the gearing inside. 

If the bow roller is open, the chain can also fall out of the roller and cause serious damage as it saws on other parts of the boat. If the roller is captive,the chain will not be able to escape, but the forces on the roller are still extremely high!  

The solution to the chains downfall is to use a nylon snubber. The nylon snubber offers the elasticity of nylon rode while the strength and weight of chain is still present everywhere else. The last section, connecting the rode to the boat is then completed in nylon rope.  

The nylon snubber is attached to the chain rode and to the bow cleats, which are very strong and ate designed to take such abuse.  

If the catenary chain is drawn taught, the snubber will still protect all the deck gear while offering elasticity and avoiding the shock load. This also helps ensure the anchor is not lurched and un-set. 

Bow roller design is also unimportant, as the snubbers takes over the last connection to the bow. Open rollers are no longer at risk of losing the chain. Captive rollers are no longer at risk of being bent.  This is all thanks to the nylon snubber.  

As the boat swings around, the nylon snubber pulls on the rode and transfers the force to the cleats. The section of chain between the windlass, chain stopper, and roller, are all slack since all the tension is diverted to the lines of the snubber. 

When it comes to snubbers, I have seen many different styles, but I prefer the simplest for a few reasons that I will go over.  

Connecting the snubber to the chain can be done by chain hook or by knot. Chain hooks are uncredited convenient, simply slip it on the chain as it runs out and cleat the other end. The chain is instantly captured at the end of the snubber. The problem is the hook can easily slip of the chain, rendering the snubber ineffective.  Some companies, like Mantus, have come up with chain hooks that can not easily slip off to negate this problem. The fact that they came up with a better chain hook means that chain hooks were slipping off enough to need improving.  

I prefer to tie a knot at the end of my snubber. A good knot will not slip off of the chain like a chain hook, and will hold securely until untied. I prefer a magnus hitch for my snubber since I use both tails, but a rolling hitches would also work.  

One last advantage to tying the snubber is you result with two tails. A chain hook only has one tail. This means that a chain hook snubber will pull the boat towards the side the snubber is run through. If it runs through the port chock, the boat will be pulled so that the port side is facing the wind and seas. This also means that all the force is directed onto that one chock and cleat. 

When tied, there are two tails, meaning two snubber lines! The lines can be set equally so that the resulting pull is even and the boat faces the weather bow on. This also reduces the force on each snubber line by half, as the load is now shared between both lines. 

On a final note, snubbers should be made of Three Stand Nylon, not double braid nylon. Double braid is not as elastic as three stand, and in a situation where elasticity is desired, choosing the least elastic option would be silly.  

My snubber is 3/4 inch three strand nylon tied with a magnus hitch and secured with both bow cleats, forming a bridle to the chain rode. This may seem like overkill, but it holds us through all sorts of weather and is easy to untie when we are ready to leave.  

Until then, we know our ground tackle is well set. 

Barber Haul Effectiveness

While on a broad reach, the staysail is eased and the clew hooks back towards the staysail tracks on the deck. At the same time, the leech twists and spills the air out of the top of the sail. This all leads to decreased efficiency in the sail and less speed through the water.

By simply rigging a barber hauler, all of these problems can be corrected.  

The barber hauler pulls the clew out towards the rail, and removes twist from the leech of the sail. Now the sail can be properly set to use the air on a broad reach in the most efficient way possible. 

When the winds are light, this added efficiency means you can continue moving at a reasonable pace instead of seeing the iron genoa! In our case, we were moving at 2.5kn under main and staysail. This may seem way too slow for most, which is what motivated us to rig the barber hauler. Once the barber hauler was set up, we began moving at 3.5kn. Still slow by most standards, but we were still moving under just sail with out the use of a motor.  

When it is blowing harder, we don't set up the barber hauler because we are moving fast enough and we don't feel the need to improve the sails efficiency.  

Reefing Tack Line

​Most mainsail reefing involves a tack hook and clew line to secure the reefed foot of the sail. Reef hooks are very secure and strong and offer little risk of allowing the sail to slip off.

The way they work is you slip the tack cringle over the hook and then haul in on the halyard to secure it. This works well on small light sails, but heavy sail cloth and/or high winds can make it nearly impossible to reach the hook. For this reason, tack straps have become a wonderful solution, aiding the sailor in securing the tack. A webbing strap with a ring hangs down and can easily be hooked onto the rams horn. Once secured, the halyard is hauled in and the sail is raised. This secures the tack in its reefed position.

While tack hooks are a standard, they do have a significant problem: they are hooks!

A flaked mainsail can easily lie under the tack hook, and if raised quickly, it can be pierced by the hook. This will create a puncture in the luff if you stop instantly, or a large tear if you raise the sail before you realize what is going on.

I personally pierced my old sail three times on my old tack hook. The last thing I wanted in my new laminate mainsail were luff punctures, so the hook had to go! This led to my current and very sail friendly tack setup, a tack line.

I used a length of dyneema (regular, not heat set SK75) for my tack line, and another length tied to the reefing tack points on the sail. The length of dyneema is tied to the goose neck on a strong attachment point with a bowline ready to connect to the sail.

On the sail, I tied a very fancy series of knots to the reefing tack points. The first set of knots is an interlocking double fishermans knot. This keeps loops from coming apart when the tack is loaded. The tails are then further knotted into the loops to ensure that these knots will never come undone!

I did not make grommets for these locations because grommets bulk up the loop considerably and I was concerned that they would be overly stressed passing through the tack ring and decided to simply tie a strong knot and keep the bulk of line passing through the ring reduced.

I tie the tack line tail to the loop via a sheet bend with a slip. If you do not include a slip, you will be hard pressed to untie the bend knot after a stormy sail. The slip gives you the ability to pull the knot apart if you are unable to untie it in a timely manner.

The sheet bend has a tendency to slip out, which is why considerable care should be taken to make sure that it becomes fully tightened as the sail is raised. If you see the knot slipping, simply tighten it a bit more and continue raising the sail. It will become incredibly tight as the winch pulls the sail into position and will not come untied under any situation!

Shaking the reef out literally becomes a matter of shaking the knot out, and raising the sail all the way.

This method makes reefing hardware very safe for your sails and provides a very secure method to attach your reefed tack point.

Barber Hauler

When sailing downwind, you will ease your headsail sheets to let them catch more wind. The sail will tend to twist when eased too far, losing efficiency and costing you speed through the water. This is where the Barber Hauler comes into play, controling twist while keeping the headsail eased.

Barber haulers are simply sheet leads that are set closer to the beam of the hull than your regular jib sheet tracks. This allows you to sheet the sail to the toe rail rather than far inboard.

If you are sailing downwind in light to moderate airs, attaching a snatch block to the toe rail close to where the clew of the sail is will do wonders. This gives the sail a strong downward pull which will eliminate twist from the sail while putting less tension on the foot of the sail. The end result is a very full sail with minimal twist that will fill with air and send you rocketing downwind.

The reason snatch blocks are ideal for this set up is they can easily be removed from the sheet should you change to an upwind course. Removing the barber hauler is as simple as opening the snatch block and removing the sheet. If winds are very light, this can be done with the sheet under load (as long as you can safely hold the sheet under tension). If the winds are stronger, it is idea to jibe onto the opposite tack and remove the barber hauler now that the sheet has become the lazy sheet.

Next time you are sailing downwind, consider using a barber hauler to control headsail twist and enjoy the added speed through the water while on your run.

Halyard Service

Our main halyard takes a lot of abuse! Since we sail everywhere, it lives its life with the mainsail raised all the way to the sheave.

The sheave rubs on the halyard covering in one of three locations:

1. Next to the shackle (full sail)
2. Midway on the halyard (1st reef)
3. Further on the halyard (2nd reef)

I don't spend that much time in the first or second reef, so most of the wear occurs near the shackle. Over the past 2 years, the polyester fibers have chafed and parted where they rest on the edges of the sheave. My choices are: 

1. Let it continue to chafe until the halyard breaks and I have the pleasure of running a new halyard inside the mast.
2. Replace the whole halyard
3. Cut off the worn section and re-splice the end
4. Repair the cover
5. Service the cover

Obviously, I am opposed to ignoring the chafe, so option 1 is lunacy to me.

Replacing the whole halyard is a pricey endeavor, being nearly 180 feet in length, a new halyard would cost around $380! That's a lot of money for a single halyard that is only 2 years old and a little worn in one spot.

Cutting off the worn section and re-splicing the shackle onto the end is a valid alternative, but over time, I will end up with a short halyard. A splice consumes a lot of rope and I like having this length of halyard so that the line can reach into the water for emergency recovery. This would work in a pinch, but not over the long term.

Repairing the cover is a valid option, this would fix the chafed cover and continue to protect the core. The problem with repairing the cover is that this area of halyard is exposed to a lot of chafe and it will wear out again in roughly the same amount of time.

The last option is to service the halyard in a very strong cordage which will repair the chafed area and protect it from further chafe in the future. When the service becomes severely chafed, I can easily remove it and re-service the area with no adverse effects to the underlying core. Best of all, serviced line is very resistant to chafe, making this repair even stronger than it originally was.

The first step is to asses the extent of the chafe. If the chafe is only affecting the cover, repairing is acceptable; if the chafe is affecting the core, consider replacing that section of line (cut off and re-splice). 

My chafe occurred where the sides of the cover rubbed on the sides of the sheave and where the halyard exits the mast. 

The parted strands in the cover are pulled away from the affected area and cut off further back. This reduces the risk of further chafe from these ends on the core. The core is visible through some gaps in the cover.

For service, I chose to use 2.7mm dyneema applied directly over the remaining cover and core. Service was started by hand until enough was in place to start using the serving mallet.

The ends of service are the weakest portions of the covering, so it is a good idea to place the beginning far away from the location of chafe. This way, the stronger service applied with the serving mallet is in the harshest location of wear and chafe. 

Once the service has been started, I lash the shackle to a strong point that will not rotate and continue to apply service from there.

The service applied with the serving mallet is much stronger, harder, and more uniform than the service applied by hand. After several turns of the serving mallet, the halyard will be covered and protected. 

To finish the service, you need to bury the tail in the service. I service the line to the very end and then unwind the last 5 wraps and re-wrap them around my finger over the line. 

I pass the tail through the space between my finger and the halyard and pull the end tight using a marlin spike hitch. The end is then cut off where it exits the service and the tail edge is fuzzed to avoid chafing anything else.

Now the halyard can be set back up with new protection against chafe!

Living aboard made this project much easier. I was able to feed the halyard through the salon hatch and secure it to the companionway grab rail. When I was finished, I simply pulled the halyard back out through the hatch and re-attached it to the mainsail. If I had to take the halyard off, I would have needed to run a messenger line up to hold the place of the halyard and then replace the halyard after the service was completed. This is not incredibly difficult to do (it's how I replace halyards all the time) but it does add an extra step to the project which was avoidable by having a long halyard and living aboard!