Mainsheet Manipulations

Sail - Evaluate - Adjust -Do It Again! 

After taking Scout sailing 4 times...I decided that the boom was quite a bit longer than this particular sail requires. I was going to leave it alone..until it showed that it could cause a difficulty.  So tonight we did a little surgery.

Swivel Snap Shackle to alleviate Twisting Line

The difficulty became apparent the other day. I was sailing and had excessive friction in the mainsheet. Looking aft..it became apparent that the two legs of the mainsheet that go to the boom from the port and starboard sides of the transom, were twisting up like a cinnamon twist. Even though the block on the boom was a swivel block...they refused to untwist. The twist was actually working itself into the line and the line was not able to relieve itself...so the twisted line then was manifesting into the two legs wrapping around one another. After some thought I decided to try installing a swivel at the attachment point where the mainsheet attaches to the transom, hoping that doing so would allow the twists in the line to work themselves out. The mainsheet had just been tied there with a bowline to a stationary pad-eye. I had a swivel snap shackle handy so, even though the job did not require a snap shackle, I used it to save some $$.  The outcome was great ...not one twist in the line last time out and mainsheet ran much more freely.

Section of Boom Cut off - it's Substantial

The issue with the boom came about on the previous sail when the mainsheet twisted. The end of the boom was so far off the end of the boat , that for me to reach out there to try to fix the issue...was way too far. In the smooth waters of my home lake, no problem.....but I don't want to be leaning that far over the back of the boat in the ocean swells if I need to get to the mainsheet attachment point. So....I took a deep breathe and cut off the excess.



 I had to make a new attachment bolt for the tang that the mainsheet and topping lift attach to as I epoxied that 4" bolt into the boom to make sure it did not come loose when the boom spun for furling. Even heating it with a propane torch would not release the old bolt...and I stripped the threads trying to force it out of the old piece of boom. At least I know that if I epoxy the new one in the same way it's not coming out. So I did!

Rotating Tang installed on new boom end..
mainsheet and topping lift attached. This system
has worked well to allow the boom to rotate freely
when furling/reefing the sail. 

This change will also add more downward pull to the mainsheet angle and I think that will be a good thing.