Page 1 of 1

F32 reefing

Posted: Wed Jun 12, 2019 6:21 pm
by Grimsby_Alan
I’ll try to post a photo. My question is.......
At my reefing points on the sail there are two much smaller grommets slightly below and to either side of the line hole. Can anyone tell me what theses are for??

Re: F32 reefing

Posted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 6:02 am
by andygc
They look like the holes for the leech line. It's normal to bring the leech line out to a small jamming cleat which would be mounted between those two holes. But they wouldn't usually go right through the sail and you don't appear to have a leech line.

Re: F32 reefing

Posted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 6:32 am
by Grimsby_Alan
I do have a leech line. These holes are toward the luff. There are a pair of them right below each reef crinkle.

Re: F32 reefing

Posted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 10:41 am
by JohnReinagel
Alan, do you have a picture of the same area further away so we can see more context? I do not think those are for a leech line as they would be at the leach of the sail running perpendicular to those grommets, I don't see a leach near that area in the pic either. No offense intended Andygc. Loose footed sails (not certain you have that or not) will often have a grommets that you would gather the reefed portion of the sail with line to tidy it up over the boom, not around the boom. However, the grommets you show are not in line with the reef cringle as they often are for the purpose I mentioned. Maybe a wider view will give better context.

Re: F32 reefing

Posted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 1:01 pm
by jdpandlp
I have the same holes in my sails on a 39 Express. I run bungee cord through them to act as a retainer to keep the reefing hook from the single line reef system from coming out.

Re: F32 reefing

Posted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 3:02 pm
by JohnReinagel
Yes, I bet you are correct. I actually need then on my sail to stop the hook and block from falling out as well as stop it from spinning causing a twist the the reef line. It's quite annoying.

Re: F32 reefing

Posted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 7:50 pm
by Grimsby_Alan
I had to severely crop the photo to get it to upload. As I mentioned earlier these are at the luff in line with the reef cringles. There are four of the large grommets spaced up the luff and each has the two smaller ones below. I did not get any hooks from the previous owner. The reefing lines were run up and through the large grommets then back down to the mast base and on back to the cockpit.

Re: F32 reefing

Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2019 5:53 am
by andygc
Absolutely no offence taken. I'm sorry, but it is difficult to see what part of the sail that is. You should not need to crop photos, but you do need to resize them (reduce the resolution). There are instructions about that on the forum.

Re: F32 reefing

Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2019 11:02 am
by JohnReinagel
Alan, I can't imaging how much friction was created by the lines running like that. My guess is the system would not have been very useable without the block in the mix. As I think about that set up, let's focus on the first reef line. If it exits the forward end of the boom on the startboard side, runs up the sail and through the grommet back down to the forward end of the boom, the line would need to run into the boom on the port side and then back. Is that how it was run? With a reef hook on a block the line is always on the same side with the exception or running through the reef cringle grommet on the leech just before it's tied to the boom.

Re: F32 reefing

Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2019 3:53 pm
by Grimsby_Alan
Yes John, that’s exactly how it was done. There is a lot of strain at the luff cringle . That’s why I sought help here, it seemed to me that something was amiss in my setup. I makes way more sense with the hook and block.