reefing the 15

happy life skills foundation (hapilife@efn.org)
Fri, 18 Jun 1999 14:19:45 -0700 (PDT)

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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.

thanks!

Ken Silverman, p15 "Vegan Lorax"