Head Sail Solution on Moorings Cat

[Mallardtool]

It seems to be a common problem with head sail on the moorings cat getting snagged and then back winded when tacking these boats. I had a more experienced Moorings capt once come aboard and rig the spare halyard to one of the stow lockers in front of the mast. This allowed the sail to get pulled forward and away from the mast mounted wench (and other rigging that was catching it). This allowed us to tack without needing to send someone up there to pull the sail across. But I wonder if I am missing something here and would like to accomplish it without needing to jerry rig the spare halyard into the locker (which gets secured by slamming the locker on it). Does anyone have experience with the running rig on these boats who might chime in?

[bacampbe]

We were on a Moorings 4000 (Leopard 40) in February. We had problems with the jib sheets snagging on the cleats and winch on the mast. After a lot of experimenting, we found it snagged less often if we backwinded the sail just a bit prior to tacking it. This made the sheet drag across the mast, but it was low on the mast beneath the hardware. If we didn't backwind, the sheet would flop around and like as not lasso something.

[zz4gta]

A friend of mine with a Lagoon 410 has a line rigged similar to the spare halyard solution. Not clamped by the lockers, but tied off to a padeye on deck. I wouldn't continue to crush a halyard into a locker door to get it to stay. Use spare (cheap) line or tie it off.