RE: reefing the 15

Eric Johnson (etj@nwlink.com)
Fri, 18 Jun 1999 14:47:10 -0700


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West Wight Potter Website at URL
http://www.lesbois.com/wwpotter/
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: happy life skills foundation [mailto:hapilife@efn.org]
> Sent: Friday, June 18, 1999 2:20 PM
> To: wwpotter@tscnet.com
> Subject: reefing the 15
>
>
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> West Wight Potter Website at URL
> http://www.lesbois.com/wwpotter/
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> went out 3rd night in a row last night with a friend who is somewhat
> physically handicapped. wind was BLOWING. the lake was maxxed out: 3-4 ft
> waves with whitecaps. lots of wind. while at dockside introducing my
> friend to the boat (balance et al) decided to reef the main while in the
> slip, easier than out on the water. i'm not sure how you're supposed to
> reef this sail. there are 3 reef lines thru the sail at the same height as
> the fore and aft grommets. i loosened the halyard (first i had brought the
> sail all the way up; wind was in my favor, the boom and sail were luffing
> over the dock, nice!) and brought the sail down so i could hook the
> reefing hook into the grommet. then i flaked the drooping part of the sail
> over the boom and tied the three reef lines around the boom. this left me
> with a bunch of sail aft kinda drooping around. i ended up attaching a
> line thru the aft grommet and tying it around the boom too. then i pulled
> in tight on the sail outhaul to take up the slack. then i hoisted the
> halyard again some and the whole thing went way up (i had untied the
> downhaul in front). the sail ended up kinda high up there.
>
> nothing bad happened. we seemed underpowered in the onshore breeze. it was
> a long task to close haul out of there. when i got enough distance from
> shore i hove to and untied everything and let the whole sail out and
> things were better.
>
> nothing bad happened. but i feel that i have a whole lot to learn about
> reefing on the potter. is there any literature i can get? i feel i missed
> something.
>
> let me know if there is anything i can procure to improve my reefing
> skills on the potter.

You had it mostly right. Here's what I would do different.

The grommet at the luff and the one at the leech are the most important. The
one at the luff you had right - it goes to the reefing hook. The one at the
leech will usually have a jiffy reefing line already running through it -
the line typically starts at a padeye near the aft end of the boom, runs
through this grommet, down to a cheek block on the other side of the boom,
and forward to a cleat. Tighten this line, and the grommet (and therefore
the clew of the reefed sail) is brought down to the boom. The time to rig
this line is when you bend on the sail- not when you need to reef! Of
course, I often neglect to rig that line until I NEED it...

The other points along the body of the sail (typically three) should have a
short piece of line fastened in the middle to them, such that 6" or so of
line hangs out on each side. Once you have the tack and clew secured and the
halyard retied, use these lines to tidy up the part of the sail that was
taken out of service. DO NOT wrap them around the boom - you can put some
weird stresses on the sail that way, so loose-footed sails like those on our
potters don't wrap around the boom. Its not very often you get to use a reef
(shoelace!) knot for reefing, so thats the know i recommend.