Richard from Turbulence Rigging came by today. It seems like we are very close to a solution that is going to bring the reef lines back and keep the boat clean and up to its current level of finish. We have settled in on bringing the main halyard as well as the reef one leach and luff lines to the starboard winch, and the topping lift and reef two leach and luff lines to the port winch. This was a tough decision and took a lot of hashing over. In the end actually laying the lines out and walking through each of the various sail operations step by step guided the way.

The halyard is the obvious priority and we can easily bring it back now but we need to stow it forward at the mast so that reefing operations (which require both the halyard and the reef lines) can be accomplished without running back and forth. Thus to enable the halyard to live at the helm we need to bring the reefing lines back as well. We also want to be able to reef from the cockpit. Hideko is 5' something on a good day and climbing around on the boom in bad weather is not her fancy. So if I want to sleep when she is on night watch reef lines in the cockpit seem like a good idea.

The topping lift came into play when we examined our work flow. We don't really need a topping lift. The compression post does just fine holding the boom off of the solar panels sail up or down. That said I always engage it as a backup and it is possible that it could be used to bring the boom up a bit for sail shape. So if you are going to engage it and disengage it every time the sail goes up or down it might as well be in the cockpit.

The choice between single line reefing and double line reefing was made for me. The way the leach line sheaves are installed at the goose neck would make it quite an operation to reroute the lines up to the reef tacks. Adding individual luff lines doubles your line count but keeps the rig simpler. The leach lines make only one additional 90 degree turn at the mast to arrive at the winch station clutch. The luff lines have only a single 90 degree turn to make before they arrive at the winch station clutch. This configuration seems to be clean and unlikely to jam or create excessive tension in the lines.

That leaves us with three reefs to sort out. Well reef one is a no brainer, have to have that available because it is used so often. Reef two is used rarely and reef three we have never used (happy to say). Yet if you needed reef three you probably would enjoy staying in the cockpit.

In the end there is simply no way to do everything from the cockpit. If weather is deteriorating to the point where you need reef three you've got winds well over 35 knots and you're probably going to set the storm jib (and perhaps scrap the main all together). Also the reef three leach line is fine for pulling the clew back toward the end of the boom, but the run is so long that there is no way the sail will stay down on the boom in reef three conditions. You may be concerned about trusting your tack to a line on a block in reef three conditions. Point being you will probably strap the clew to the boom with some nylon webbing and clip in the tack of reef three anyway, not the mention you proximity due to the need for setting the storm jib.

So it seemed that leaving reef three at the mast made sense because you were going to have to handle a number of things up there if conditions got to that stage of development. You could always set the reef in from the cockpit and then go forward to secure things, but we were having line congestion issues as it was so leaving two lines at the mast was just what the rigging doctor ordered.

Our rope clutch pads are plenty large enough for three additional lines a side, four would be tight, and five might exceed the limit. Once settled on a layout we purchased a pair of Lewmar triple rope clutches. These are great units and from what I understand Lewmar has a patent on their mechanism. One rigger told me that Harken wont make rope clutches until they figure out a way to do it that is better than Lewmar's, or until the Lewmar patent runs out and they can make them that way. Whatever the facts may be we have had great luck with the Lewmar rope clutches that came from the Saint Francis factory and find them to be very easy on our lines.

The triple clutch units save space and look as if they will fit easily onto the pads in line with the main sheet clutch. On the down side the interior of the boat, which usually makes all backing plates and hardware easily accessible, has a thin fiberglass panel under the rope clutch pads. There is an area of about one square inch that you can look through. We will have to perform surgery here. The winch motors are in beautiful cherry boxes built into the ceiling, it sure would have been nice to have had open access to the rope clutch pads from within an enlarged version of this box.

At the mast we are going to install three pad eyes. One for the topping lift block on the port side, one for the double sheave block to handle the two reef 2 lines port center, and one to handle the two reef one lines starboard center. We already have the halyard pad eye setup.

Saint Francis mounted our reef tack clips with Spectra. I love this setup. I have also noticed a lot of racing boats replacing shackles and clips with Spectra and Dyneema. The synthetic lines are stronger than steel, don't corrode, stand up to UV fine nowadays with the right jacket and treatment and, best of all, they don't clank about. Harken sells a product they call Loops but one high tech Loop for attaching a block to an eye is over $100 US. Richard is going to make us custom loops for about 5% of that price with Dyneema.

Our current factory reef lines are 14mm single braid from what I can tell. We have to use 12mm lines for the new configuration due to the size of the Lewmar clutches (10mm - 12mm). We are going to upgrade all of the lines to 12mm Dyneema since we need to replace them anyway to make the longer run back to the cockpit.

We are using Harken Black Magic heavy duty 75mm Air Blocks at the mast. These blocks are very strong and very slippery. We have selected the strap head units to make it easy to attach them with the Dyneema lines. The blocks will be mounted just about the level of the coach roof. These blocks are 75mm and they will be guiding 12mm lines. Many rope makers suggest an 8:1 ratio between rope diameter and sheave size. Our configuration is 6.25:1. I have decided to live with this in particular because there are no 180 turns. Also Harken 75mm BMABs are only expensive until you see how much the 100mm blocks run!

The run from the mast to the winch stations is almost perfectly fair. Unfortunately the hatches in the cabin are just slightly in the way. If the hatches were install a little more out board you could just run the lines. We are going to have to install a pair of Harken big boat deck organizers to keep the hatch unobstructed. The quad organizers will handle the halyard, reef one luff, reef one leach and main sheet on the starboard side, and the topping lift, reef two luff, reef two leach and main sheet on the port side. There will only be a small deflection so additional line loading should be minimal.

The deck organize install will be delicate, much like the rope clutch install. To do the deck organizer correctly and to the standard of the yacht we are having two 1/8" polished stainless steel backing plates made. The inside of the cabin has leather covered ply beauty panels glued onto the fiberglass which we will have to cut back so that we can bed the plate on solid glass. We are also going to need to clean out all of the core between the organizer and the backing plate to avoid compression problems with the core.

We have been working on this project almost since the day we purchased the boat. We are confident in moving forward now only because we have figured everything out for ourselves, including how the lines will clear the compression post, what working load limits are appropriate, how the interior cosmetics will be affected and managed, and what configuration of lines will create the best solution. We have run across many helpful people along the way, in particular Budget rigging in Trinidad and Turbulence in Grenada. That said, surprisingly (although less so the longer we are in the boating world), we have never run across anyone who instilled us with confidence such that we could simply hand the job off and know that it would be done correctly and to our liking. With any luck, however, the installation will be done by next week.