Posted by Laurence Monkhouse on March 13, 2003 at 09:15:07 from 62.252.32.6 user Laurence_.
In Reply to: Re: The design of the Swallow. posted by John Nichols on March 12, 2003 at 20:07:14:
Having owned boats with travellers and now a boat with a central mainsheet I hate them both - awkward and in the way.
I have always found that the simplest (and cheapest) solution works best. The mainsheet is fixed to the port side of the transom, goes over a block on the boom and to a second block attached to the starboard side of the transom, and thence to the helmsman. This was perfectly easy to handle on my 22 footer with about 300 square feet of main, and it works perfectly on my AR type 12 foot HEBE.
I agree that AR's illustrations seem to suggest a single mainsheet from the boom straight to the helmsman's hand, and agree that this would be extremely difficult if not imp[ossible to handle, especially in a big semi-working type boat like SWALLOW.
I haven'y yet thought of a way to use my preferred system with a boat with a silly modern rig with a boom which stops far short of the transom. Otherwise I commend it for almost anything under 3 tons.