Low profile genoa lead cars.

[zz4gta]

I had my 150% flying on saturday in light winds and kept having the problem of getting a ridding turn. I'm using old harken stand-up lead blocks on my 1" T-track at the farthest positions forward of the winch. I still think the lead blocks are too tall, or the winch is too low, and a ridding turn is the result.

Most of the lead blocks i'm finding don't look any shorter so I'm a little confused about how to fix the problem. I'd really like to avoid raising or tilting the winches if posible. Thanks.

[US27inKS]

I had this exact same problem on my boat. After much fretting and a hundred ideas, someone gave me the solution. I mounted one of these Harken - Bullseye Fairlead Shop.Sailnet.com - sailing resources, shopping, sail, blogs a few inches in front of each winch. I just played with the position on each winch until I got a good feed angle to the winch. Make sure you bolt it through the deck with fender washers on the back side. It works like a charm, and I can take 3 turns on the winch and pull it through as fast as I want with no riding turns.

[Faster]

Adding another lead block at the aft end of your track might be just enough to lower the angle to the point where you no longer get overrides. Simply lead the sheets through both blocks. When you change headsails, adjust theforward block as usual, the lead to the winch will be the same regardless of the sail that's up.

We had a similar problem with our jib leads when the small sail was up.. we added a block at the toerail outboard of the winch to improve the lead angle.

A good block will have less drag than a padeye, and be less likely to trap a kinked sheet (especially when feeding out to the other side)

[US27inKS]

Originally Posted by Faster

A good block will have less drag than a padeye, and be less likely to trap a kinked sheet (especially when feeding out to the other side)

My boat doesn't have a toe rail that I can attach anything to. I tried a pair of snatch blocks attached to stanchions, but the drag was pretty high from the big angles it had to turn out of the lead blocks. Fortunately the angle through the fairlead is very small and the drag is unnoticable. As far as trapping a kinked line, it only has happened a couple of times, and a flick of the sheet frees it.

I was ready to spend a couple hundred bucks on low lead jib cars, but I suspect they wouldn't work as well as this under $10 fix.

[sailingdog]

Was your boat originally rigged for racing? If so, the person may have the genny sheet fairleads setup for cross-sheeting, where you go from the genoa fairlead across the cockpit to the high-side winch. This is often done on racing boats so that a single person can handle the boat. It was the case with a Cal 25 I was out sailing on last week. The new owners, inherited the boat and kept getting overriding turns on the winches until they started cross sheeting the genoa sheets. Give it a shot..

Originally Posted by zz4gta

I had my 150% flying on saturday in light winds and kept having the problem of getting a ridding turn. I'm using old harken stand-up lead blocks on my 1" T-track at the farthest positions forward of the winch. I still think the lead blocks are too tall, or the winch is too low, and a ridding turn is the result.

Most of the lead blocks i'm finding don't look any shorter so I'm a little confused about how to fix the problem. I'd really like to avoid raising or tilting the winches if posible. Thanks.

[zz4gta]

Originally Posted by sailingdog

Was your boat originally rigged for racing? If so, the person may have the genny sheet fairleads setup for cross-sheeting, where you go from the genoa fairlead across the cockpit to the high-side winch. This is often done on racing boats so that a single person can handle the boat. It was the case with a Cal 25 I was out sailing on last week. The new owners, inherited the boat and kept getting overriding turns on the winches until they started cross sheeting the genoa sheets. Give it a shot..

I never got to speak to the previous owner, so I don't know much about the history of the boat. Can the fairlead block handle the load of turning the sheet 90* to the high side winch? I think I'll give it a try next time out. Thanks.