Can Double Mainsheet act as a traveller?

[Ian McColgin]

Ahoy Toolarts,

Everything's a trade-off. Some years back I rerigged a Rhodes 40' sloop from an ill-advised midboom traveler on the bridgedeck mainsheet to endboom double ended.

The traveler was a real pain to anyone in the typically small cockpit when tacking. The sheet tended to foul and damage the dodger. It was rigged with a modern complex bi-cam system allowing choise of 3:1 and 6:1, but the 3:1 was too hard to pull in all but the lightest conditions and in many normal conditions 6:1 was too slow. Just plain messy. And it really didn't improve the sail that much anyway as it's still a narrow boat so attempting to take the twist out by the sheet did not do all that much.

Firstly, a boat like this was originally designed to have a heavy solid boom. That's about half your vang right there. Any boom on a biggish boat should be supported anyway. I like quarter lifts worked with lazy-jacks - locally here called LazyIans but I did not invent this - to keep that boom safely up. With a heavy boom this becomes an important safety issue, not just a convenience.

I think if you play with one of those gybe control units - essentially a double sided midboom guy with a bit of drag around the center block under the boom - you'll get all the sail shape flattening you can stand in winds higher than just boom weight can provide. The lowish aspect of these rigs seems to like a bit more twist than you'd want in a high aspect fully-battened blade main.

For safe versitile sail control with managable stresses and loading and cost-effective strong and simple rigging, it's hard for this boat to beat end-boom double-ended sheeting.

G'luck

Ian