Fouled mainsheet

[Angela and Tom]

Hi Carl,

I know this smacks of blasphemy, but is this a CD design flaw??

A

I don't think so. Calling the risk of a line catching on the tiller fitting a design flaw is like calling the brake pedal of a car flawed when that Coke bottle rolls behind it. Neatness counts.

I think you're absolutely right (no question, neatness is paramount on a sailboat!), but a Coke bottle isn't integral to driving a car.

I've never really sailed on any other "big" boat but our Cape Dory and haven't seen how other tillers are engineered. It seems like the way the hinge(?) on the tiller resolves begs for sheets to catch and could be a cleaner design. Is this typical?

Fortunately, there are very few bugaboos on our wonderful boats and this doesn't make me love our boat any less!

A

[Dave Brandt]

I have also had a problem with the main sheet getting snagged on the tiller, but not in that much wind! I always neatly flake out the main sheet on one side of the tiller, but I like the idea of a sheet bag. It's all casual until the wind starts to blow.

The cockpit in the CD-25 is a bit cramped. I have the engine control in there as well and have a few kerfunkels with the tiller hanging up on the throttle control, always while docking.......

Dave

[s calder]

You can run the sheet down the companionway, or coil it in a neat little spiral, but if a single length of it happens to pass under that fitting, it gets wedged there and it ain't coming out (not fast enough any way) regardless of how neat it was. It doesn't have to have been a "nest" to get stuck under the fitting. One pass of the rope will do. And for those who advocate a sheet bag, what stops a small tangle from forming inside the bag (out of sight) and obstructing the sheet at the cam cleat just as you need to play out line? I think it is a design flaw that the fitting presents a "pinch point" just the thickness of a sheet immediately beneath where the sheet exits the block. I'm going to experiment with putting some sort of physical barrier down there like a flexible ball or something mounted onto the nut that tightens the tiller fitting onto the post...which is the offending culprit. Such an implement might eliminate the 1/2" gap between the deck and the fitting and prevent the sheet from entering this "pinch point". Hope this isn't the subject of my obituary.

[The Patriot]

You can ... coil [the mainsheet] in a neat little spiral, but if it ... happens to pass under that fitting, it gets wedged there ...

If you are using a sheet made of double braid and you actually _do_ "coil" it on the cockpit sole, then you definitely will have a problem when you attempt to let the mainsheet run. With double braid the standard coil used, for example, with 3-strand puts a half turn in the line with each coil. When the line is run out, as through a block, these half turns will make it impossible for the line to run smoothly, and it will hang or jam.

The recommended method (recommended, that is, by rope manufacturers and most sailing teachers) is to flake double braid into "figure eights" with each turn. In this manner the sheet will run smoothly. This procedure also applies to halyards. If done in this manner, the halyards can be let go and the sails will drop to the deck without issue (all else being equal: i.e., headed into the wind, etc).

I have been sailing a CD28 with the type of fitting in question on the rudder head for over 25 years without encountering this "design flaw." The sheets and lines that are in the cockpit are always "overhauled" (i.e., flaked as described above) and we have never had a problem.

[Neil Gordon]

You can run the sheet down the companionway, or coil it in a neat little spiral, ...

Actually, a larger spiral will be less likely to tangle. I coil my (3-strand) main sheet in large loops and generally toss it on the port side seat or the port side cockpit sole. It's only when I don't clean up the mess that it fouls either the tiller or the engine control. I don't see it as a design flaw... it's only when I don't clear the mess that I have a problem.

[Bob Owens]

Warren and other CD 27ers:
The PO of my boat had fitted it with a main sheet almost 80 feet long, which is actually what the manual specifies. This is WAY more sheet than I ever use, even winged out running dead before the wind. That huge hank of line in the rear of the cockpit aggravates the clutter you all are talking about in this thread. I have pushed my boom as far forward as possible and measured, and calculate that I can do everything imaginable in my boat with about 20 feet less main sheet. Am I missing something? Any body else gone with a much shorter sheet that CD specified?
Bob Owens

[Warren Kaplan]

A lot would depend on the mechanical advantage of your mainsheet tackle. Do you have double or triple blocks on each end to "wind" the mainsheet around. That can eat up a lot of length.

I replaced my traveler and have a Harken 3:1 advantage set up. You can see in the following picture that the boom is out on a reach and there is still plenty of mainsheet on the cockpit floor. But the mainsheet goes back and forth between the blocks on the boom and traveler many times. "Mr. Solo" is doing the steering so I can do the photo.

[Warren Kaplan]

I mentioned in the previous post that the traveler was 3:1 advantage. The mainsheet gear, I believe, is 4:1.

[Bob Owens]

Warren, Mine is the older arrangement: No traveler; the sheet goes from a becket on one deck block, up and through a two-part block on the boom bail, down through a block on the other side of the aft deck, then back up through the boom block and down and out the first deck block again. I think this is the equivalent of 4:1. Measuring the line involved with the boom pushed as far forward as I can manage, I never come up with more than about 50'. But it make me nervous to be so far shy of the CD manual spec., so I have not shortened the sheet, even though 75' is a lot of line to have in the cockpit. The hank of mainsheet in your photo looks much less than 75'.

[The Patriot]

... Mine is the older arrangement ... the sheet goes from a becket on one deck block ... and ... down through a block on the other side of the aft deck ...

This is the arrangement used on these boats until about 1979 or a little later. It is sometimes called a "Crosby Rig" and was popular on small yachts for many years. You won't see it often these days because the traveler provides more precise control.

If you push the main boom out until it's up against the aft lowers, and then leave about 2 or 3 feet of the sheet tail where it exits the main sheet control block on the aft deck, you will be fine. As an additional consideration, you may want to leave enough so that it's possible to resplice when you end-for-end the sheet.

[Carter Brey]

I know this smacks of blasphemy, but is this a CD design flaw??

Most definitely not. As I was leaving the anchorage after this summer's Oyster Bay July 4th Float-in, my mainsheet fouled on my pedestal and throttle. I waved merrily to George van Drasek as I tried to thread my way through the field of very expensive yachts while yanking discretely yet desperately on my stuck mainsheet.

Carter Brey
Sabre 28 MkII #532 "Delphine"
City Island, NY