mainsheet adjustment

[dch]

I have just bought a 36'' Beneteau. I previously owned a small daysailer. I sail mostly with my family but without much help. In the smaller boat I was used to handling the mainsheet relatively easily since it was right in front of me. Now, however the mainsheet is on the cabin top traveller and because the cockpit is so much larger I cannot reach it without letting go of the wheel, obviously something I do want to do. If I bring the line to me, it stretches across the cockpit and is cumbersome. After the line leaves the block at the traveler and goes to the base of the boom, would it be odd, through several more blocks, to bring it across the cabin top, drop down the side of the top, around to the starboard side, to the aft, and have a camcleat to hold the line in place directly to my right as I sail? I am just not sure if this is something that should be done for a singlehanded sailor or do I just deal with it?

[Jeff_H]

You bring up a pet peave of mine on a lot of newer boats. Between wheel steering planting you at the aft end of the cockpit and cabin top mounted travelers I find myself running the length of the cockpit in order to play the mainsheet. It drives me crazy and there are so many more blocks required on a mid-boom set up that you are really working a lot harder to overcome friction as well.

Anyway it is posible to run the mainsheet back to the cockpit by running the sheet outboard to the base of the shrouds and then aft along the deck. This set up is standard on the Beneteau 40.7''s except that the traveler is set up right in front of the wheel. In the racing package the 40.7 has a 2:1 mainsheet and so a winch is required. (I crew on a 40.7 doing mainsail trim.) I don''t know enough about your setup to know if you will need to add a winch back at the cockpit. You should be able to set up the mainsheet as double ended with one end at the wheel and the other adjustable at the cabin top.

Jeff

[anneellen]

If you don't have an autohelm, I would strongly suggest getting one. You can leave the helm to make a lot of adjustments as well as going below for a cold one or to the head..

[Giulietta]

Anneellen,

I bet that since 2003 they have both ran so much back and forth that they don't need it anymore...

One of the posters decided to change to gardening, the other one is a Nascar driver now....sorry...the thruth...

[sailingdog]

Anneellen-

You really need to check the dates of the threads...so you're not reviving ones that have been dead, in this case for over four years.