Loose luff on main sail questions

[MarkSF]

I'm going off memory now, but I think the lacing line goes all the way to the head of the sail.

I'm pretty sure it's the original sail - it has the Bristol logo on it.

Faster, thanks for the graphic, that's exactly how it looks.

So thanks for the explanation George - my understanding now is that my issue is that the line is way too loose. When the sail is fully raised, there is still lots of looseness in the lacing line. I should adjust it so it is tensioned when the halyard is fully raised.

George I'll be around on the boat this weekend and will send you a pm in a moment.

The good news is that she sailed very well last weekend in this state so it can only get better!

[ccriders]

I had a sail like that only the lacing was only on the bottom half of the luff. The lacing line was always hooking on something and impeding the hoist which is really annoying when single handing. Luckily that old sail blew out during storm and I replaced it with slides mounted directly to gromets in in the sail. Never had a problem reefing as only a few slides were involved. But that was on a 22' Sailmaster.
John

[MarkSF]

Don't want to rely too much on my memory, it might only go half way up the luff. Really need to take a look.

[Faster]

Originally Posted by MarkSF

Don't want to rely too much on my memory, it might only go half way up the luff. Really need to take a look.

It likely only goes to just above the deepest reef... I think your fix right now is to shorten the acting length of the 'lacing' aka jackline. Make it slightly shorter than you think proper and let the halyard tension take out the last bit of slack.

[nemier]

So MarkSF,
How did this turn out?

[RichH]

What you have is called a reefing jack-line so that slugs can line-up on top of one another (slug touching slug) when the sail is partly lowered as when reefing. Usually the reefing jackline only spans the distance between the tack and the first reef.

That the bottom of the main was loose at the bottom 1/4 of sail means that the jackline is too tight and needs to be eased. How to set up such a jackline: Loosen the jackline (at the bottom or 'tack end'), Raise the sail full up, then add ~1" of stretch to the halyard for every 10 ft. of luff length, THEN pull tight on the jackline and secure it (knot it, lash it OR make a new eyespice, etc.). - thats it! When the jackline is adjusted correctly, when the sail is properly raised (there will be no 'sloppiness' in the jackline) so that the slugs are firmly attached to the jackline and the jackline is firmly attached to the sail ... all 'tight'.

Also see: How to properly raise a woven dacron mainsail ... How to properly RAISE a woven dacron mainsail - SailboatOwners.com

[MarkSF]

Originally Posted by nemier

So MarkSF,
How did this turn out?

All I needed to do I think was tie the end of the jackline around the horn on the boom. The problem was that the end was not tied to anything.