badmotorfinger said:
Extra line is a 'barber hauler' for holding the sail out whilst sailing down wind. I use a occy strap to achieve similar. Ideally you want something easy to release if the wind suddenly gusts and you are in danger of burying nose and going turtle.
Not sure what you mean with second question. Do you mean you just pass the main-sheet line through the eyelet? If so you will be putting more friction in system and also exposing sail to more wear as the rope rubs past.
Appreciate the response BMF and have some googling to do on the barber hauler... My poor old dad laments having never teaching me sailing when I was younger and though I am making up for lost time, there is still a whole lot to learn! I also survived Forster btw, albeit spending a fortnight up there without touching Wallis Lake.
With respect to the second question, let me try it this way.... The mainsail rope (as best I now understand) should be rigged as follows with the S-hook attached to the sail.
Now I've been simply feeding through the first pulley and double-hitching to the sail, which has done the job admirably, left just one line bashing my head, and caused no concern for wear given the metal eye in the sail at the point of attachment. To be clear, this cuts out the need for the RHS S-pulley as it ties to the sail directly.
So the ability to dissemble/assemble on the water I understand, but is there any other reason for looping the mainsail rope back? I may be missing something but not sure how this would add any other friction to the the system/setup overall. Appreciating the benefit of the stup, I will move to this , but have I been missing something?