Boat Sailing in Fair Weather and Foul, 6th ed.

by A. J. Kenealy

HORSE FOR MAIN SHEET.

To shake a reef out in the mainsail, set up on the topping lift so that it may take the weight of the boom. Untie all the reef points. Cast off the lashing at the tack if the sail is laced to the boom, or come up the tack tackle if it is loose-footed. Then ease off the reef earring and hoist the sail, setting up the throat first. You can then ease up the topping lift and trim sheet.

A convenient method of bending and unbending a storm trysail is shown in Fig. X and Fig. E.

FIG. X.
FIG. E.

Fig. X represents the shape of the mast hoops, to each of which two iron hooks are fastened. The hoops are of the ordinary size, but about one-quarter of their length is sawn out and to the ends the iron hooks are riveted. Fig. E shows how the thimble toggles are seized to the luff of the sail at regular intervals. When it is necessary to set the trysail, adjust the jaws of the gaff to the mast, make fast the parral, hook on the throat and peak halyard blocks and mouse them. Hoist up slowly, slipping the thimbles over the hooks on the ends of the hoops as the sail goes up. The sheet must be hauled aft before the sail is hoisted, and should be slacked off handsomely to allow the sail to be properly set. Then all hands should clap on it and flatten it in.

If your boat is rigged as a cutter or yawl the foresail may have the tack made fast to the eyebolt to which the stay is set up. The luff of the sail is seized to galvanized iron hanks that run up and down on the stay. If the foresail has a reef band in it (as it should) a lacing is used between the reef and tack cringles. Don't bowse up the halyards too taut the first time you set the sail, and don't break your back flattening in the sheet. Give it a chance to stretch fairly. The same remark also applies to the jib, whether set on a stay or flying on its own luff, as it must necessarily do if your craft is equipped with a running bowsprit.

For the sake of lightness, blocks are frequently made too small. Manilla rope, of which both sheets and halyards should be made, has a habit of swelling when wet. It is generally rove on a dry day, and renders through blocks quite easily when in this condition. A rain squall will swell this rope to such an extent, and halyards will jam so hard, that sails will not come down when wanted, and disasters happen. The work of setting and taking in sail is made very laborious through small blocks and large sized halyards. It should be borne in mind that halyards ought to run through blocks as freely when wet as dry. Blocks should always be fitted with patent sheaves.

The running rigging of a mainsail consists of peak and throat halyards, topping lifts, main sheet and peak down-haul. To bend a mainsail, shackle the throat cringle to the eyebolt under the jaws of the gaff, stretch the head of the sail along the gaff, reeve the peak earring through the hole in the end of the gaff and haul it out, securing it in the manner shown in the illustration. The earring is represented with the turns passed loosely in order to give the amateur a clear and distinct view of the proper method. It will be seen that a a is the peak end of the gaff; b is a cheek block for the topsail sheet; c is a block for the peak down haul, used also as signal halyards, hooked to an eyebolt screwed into the end of the gaff, the hook of the block being moused; d is a hole in the gaff end through which the earring is passed. The earring is spliced into the cringle with a long eye splice. It is then passed through d round through the cringle e; through d again and through e again; then up over the gaff at i and k, down the other side and through e again, and so on up round the gaff four or five times; at the last, instead of going up over the gaff again, the earring is passed between the parts round the gaff as shown at f, round all the parts that were passed through d, as shown at m, and jammed by two half hitches m and h.