Cal 29 Rigging

[sleonhard]

does anybody have any photos or drawings for rigging the boom
I am not familiar with the set up it looks like the boom is suppose to roll ??

[ndutton]

Sorry, no pictures but due to my advanced age I'm familiar with the system.

Back before slab (jiffy) reefing or mid boom travelers were invented, mainsail reefing was accomplished by either the conventional lashing of the main to the boom via a row of reef points or by rolling the main around the boom like toilet paper but in reverse. It required end boom sheeting and vangs were problematic. Truth is, it didn't work very well which explains the immediate popularity of slab reefing when it came out.

I'm guessing your boat is early 70's vintage? I lied about the picture. Does the gooseneck look something like this?

[sleonhard]

yes almost identical
has a button that you push in on the bottom
a square fitting to turn i guess
and yes its a 1971
additionally there is a travail-er on the stern for the boom
I have been unable to find any pictures or information on how it should be set up
I will take some photos of what I have here and post them tomorrow
Len

[ndutton]

It's pretty simple to set up. Don't attach anything to the boom except at the outboard end. Two tangs should be present there, one for the mainsheet and the other for the topping lift. They should both rotate freely. It's preferable for the luff of the sail to attach to the mast by means of a bolt rope in the groove rather than slugs or cars. The unused luff departs from the mast as the sail is rolled.

Other than that you'll need a hand crank that fits the gooseneck. Note that this is not for furling the sail but rather a reefing system.

What racers would do is pack towels near the middle half of the boom as the sail rolls up. They made the reefed sail shape much better.

edit:
With this system you can forget about lazy jacks and a boom vang. There's a reason it quickly fell out of favor.

[sleonhard]

Well it doesnt have a hand crank
The goose neck doesnt turn and if its an outdated system
I will resort to slab reefing and lazy jacks and not spend the time fixing something that doest work well
I will still post a shot of the main sheet the car and traveler set up
maybe you have seen it before
Thanks
Len

[ndutton]

I guarantee I've seen it before. I worked for Jensen Marine in the early 70's, possibly where your boat was built. I say possibly because we had an East coast facility too. Like I said, I'm as old as dirt.

[JOHN COOKSON]

One Hand For The Boat; One Hand For You

I can step up to the mast and slab reef the main on my 27 footer in ~45 seconds. It's for the most part a one handed operation. I've used roller reefing before. Didn't like it. IMO a well thought out slab reefing system is the way to go.

TRUE GRIT

[sastanley]

I am not as old as Neil, but I did some sailing on boats as a kid with roller boom reefing.

Even if my boat was currently set up for it, I'd abandon it and do slab reefing. Today's hardware (cheap cheek blocks) and even moderate tech line for slab reefing is far superior in my opinion. Hopefully your mainsail has some reef points in it..that may help determine what you boat is set up for.

In my case slab reefing really makes sense since my main halyard is at the mast and my clew purchase is near the goosneck..I can really do it singlehanded, with the halyard in one hand and the tack in the other, than yank on the clew, but having someone on the tiller & the mainsheet helps to stabilize the boat.

On boats with everything run aft on deck (halyard, reef lines, mid boom sheeting, etc..) you need someone at the mast to do the tack horn part, and another person in the 'pit' doing all the lines, & maybe a 3rd on the mainsheet. Mid-boom sheeting and wheels cluttering up crew manouvers (sp?) haven't always been improvments. (oops, sorry, off the soap box...how'd that rant sneak in there..)

[ArtJ]

I assume you guys are calling "slab Reefing " what I have always reffered to
as "Jiffy Reefing? Or is there some technical difference?

My Tartan 34C originally came with Roller Reefing for the Main, but i
installed Jiffy Reefing instead and have never looked back.
Jiffy Reefing consists a Cheek block on the aft area of the boom and a hook
near the gooseneck. Then you can tie up the " bunt " in the middle as desired.

Regards

Art

[JOHN COOKSON]

I assume you guys are calling "slab Reefing " what I have always reffered to
as "Jiffy Reefing? Or is there some technical difference?
Art

Slab reefing (rather than roller reefing) is a type of reefing where the sail is dropped to the boom rather than wrapped around it.
Jiffy reefing is the rigging or set up that makes it easier. One could slab reef without any pre set up rigging in place - but who wants to do that?

TRUE GRIT

Edit: It should also be easy to shake the reef out and use more mainsail when the time comes.

[sastanley]

Art, as John confirmed, 100% correct. And your set up is the same as mine and other slab reefers.

As a guy that formally worked in a sailmaker's loft, I recommend that you don't bother with the ties in the middle....and if you do, use a brightly colored sail tie and only tie it thru one or two tie points that helps get the pile of sail out of your face in the cockpit. Often once reefed, you can pull a small flake into the sail against the boom to hold the unused part of the sail in place without bothering with the extra work of tying up the floppy sail.

At the sail loft, I almost repaired more tie points than worn out batten pockets back in the day, because people would forget to untie the gathering lines before the strong lines that actually held the clew & tack.

A brightly colored sail tie is easier to notice and remind you to (tie it last) and untie it first, and those little bunt lines in the tie points when not reefed are unsightly, IMO, and they make a mess of the sail and (dirt) and actually do affect wind flow over the sail.

[sleonhard]

Not sure what to do here

the set up I have seen on other cals doesn't have the traveller set up like this ndutton have you seen this I'm sure its not set up right
I have looked on the internet but haven't been able to find anything
I will check out the main sail soon to see what reefing was being used but I will forget about roller reefing

Len

Dromo was by on the weekend and a couple of friends and we got the mast up first time doing that is a lot of fun and sailboats dont back up very well prop wash and all thankfully doing it this early there wasnt a lot of people to witness the event

[sastanley]

Len, I have some comments and some ideas about what I think. Now, we're getting somewhere..great pics.

Boom - The black track on the side of the boom indicates you are probably set up for slab reefing..there should be a cheek block that rides on that with a pin stop of some sort. It is kinda like a jib lead..once you have it set for your sail, you'll probably never adjust it again. This also allows additional blocks in the event your mainsail has more than one set of reefs patches sewn in it.

Traveler - The two white sheaves on the traveler car indicate it was originally designed for a 2:1 purchase on each side of the traveler, for adjustment, but you'd need cam cleats somewhere near the end of the traveler (similar to the one bolted in the middle of the boat) to facilitate adjustment. Not sure what the purpose is for that odd cam cleat & dead eye in the middle of the traveler

Mainsheet - The mainsheet block at the bottom needs a becket on the top so that the loop which is currently dead-ended at the top of the boom on that shackle can come down and be dead-ended at the bottom block..this will give you 4:1 instead of 3:1 on the purchase. Do you have any more blocks that look like the one on the bottom of the mainsheet but have an additional fitting to accommodate the line?? A becket is usually just a little extension of the block above the two sheaves with a plastic ferrule & a pin to hold the loop that was spliced into the end of line.

We might need to get fellow Afourian "Ajax" in on this thread..he's just purchased a new main and has been re-rigging a bunch of stuff as well. He has some good pictures of his new traveler set up, etc.. it might help.

[ndutton]

The PO had his hands in the traveler modification. Originally it was mounted lower on the seat top without the stainless brackets. It looks to me that the function is the same.

I worked there starting in 1973, two years after yours was built. At that time we used the Nicro-Fico X track traveler, different than yours. I don't think you need to do anything other than avoid using the gooseneck crank which is frozen anyway. It should work fine as-is.

[sleonhard]

Does This Look Better

enough of winter lets go sailing