How attach reefing lines

[Kick]

How do you attach reefing lines to your main? Do you simply use a bowline, or is it possible to use a snap shackle or other way to get her rigged quickly and securely?

[denby]

Kick,

Pass the line though the sail and tie stopper knots on both sides of the sail so they don't fall off. What size boat do you have?

[US27inKS]

Denby, I think he's talking about jiffy reefing lines, or a single line reefing system.

Kick, I typed "single line reefing" into a google search, then clicked on images. There are pages of drawings and pictures of every configuration of reefing line you can think of.

[labatt]

With my loose footed main, I run the reefing line from the end of the boom sheave, up to the reef cringle and back down to the boom, where I tie a bowline around the boom. This gives me a solid platform to crank in hard and get the tension I need.

[Faster]

Originally Posted by labatt

With my loose footed main, I run the reefing line from the end of the boom sheave, up to the reef cringle and back down to the boom, where I tie a bowline around the boom. This gives me a solid platform to crank in hard and get the tension I need.

Second this plan... If the sail is not loose footed, then do the same but use a padeye or fitting on the boom for the end of the reef line. Avoid extra hardware like shackles - just something else to whack you in the head when it comes adrift....

[sailingdog]

Third this plan... and defintely agree no shackles should be used unless you like getting flailed with them. Also, using a snap shackle means that the reefing line might accidentally be released under sail.. If that happens and you've got the reefing nettles tied in... you're probably going to tear your sail really badly. Reefing lines are not lines you want to be "quick-release" EVER.

Originally Posted by Faster

Second this plan... If the sail is not loose footed, then do the same but use a padeye or fitting on the boom for the end of the reef line. Avoid extra hardware like shackles - just something else to whack you in the head when it comes adrift....

[Rockter]

The man is right, in a stiff breeze you will get flailed with them, probably up the eyes or teeth. When you are reefing, there will be a stiff breeze, or worse.

Just tie them with that best-of-the-best knot... cue fanfare of trumpets in B.... the bowline.

[sailingdog]

Denby is talking about the nettles, not the reefing lines themselves.

Originally Posted by denby

Kick,

Pass the line though the sail and tie stopper knots on both sides of the sail so they don't fall off. What size boat do you have?

[Bene505]

That was actually my posting that started the thread. I was using Kick's computer and didn't realize the post had his name on it until it was too late.

This is for our Beneteau 50, not loose footed. We had it reefed last month and tied a bowline directly to the eye in the sail (kringle?).

Now that I think of it, there's no place to tie off the end of the reefing line, except sliding eyes of sorts that's in the track at the bottom of the sail. We could have used them last month.

[Vasco]

Pass the line up, through the cringle in the sail, and down the other side. Make it fast to the eye at bottom of the boom with a figure 8 knot or bowline. I take it you're talking about the reefing line at the leech and not single line reefing with another line at the luff.