What condition is your main sheet traveler car in? Do the sheaves look like the picture below, chipped and cracked? After twenty, thirty, or forty years they can get brittle and weak. You don’t want them to break while you’re out on the water. The car wouldn’t come off the bar but there would be metal riding on metal, not a good thing.
Continue reading “Two Ways to Rebuild Your Main Sheet Traveler Car”
Do you still tie your headsail sheets on with bowline knots or cow hitches? Do you have separate single-length sheets for each headsail? Do you procrastinate when you should make a headsail change because it’s a hassle to tie or reeve the new sheets?
Continue reading “DIY Soft Shackles for Quick and Easy Headsail Changes”
When planning the replacement of my wire/rope halyards with all line halyards so that I could lead them aft to the cockpit, I decided to use all 8mm (.314″) rope. Along with cockpit convenience for single-handing, I wanted easier line handling and less stretch, especially for hardening the luffs since I don’t have halyard winches. The cost is not much more than the standard 1/4″.
Continue reading “Install Oversize Masthead Sheaves for More Halyard Choices”
In order for any mainsail reefing system to work correctly with a mast that has a slug opening for bending on the mainsail, there should be a way to prevent the sail slugs from falling out of the opening when you reef the sail. If they fall out, somebody has to guide them back in when you let the reef out and hoist the mainsail back to full size.
The idea for this little solution came to me as I was making the crib board storage solution. The width of the vinyl channel that I fabricated for that project makes for a tension fit with a winch handle.
The $tingy Sailor 