Stern sheeting

[nhalstead]

Several years ago I retired from travelling competition as a result of my arthritic hands and wrists. The two things that really set it off are sailing (in a breeze anyway) and driving. I still race at Club level and have tried all sorts of things to reduce the loading on the mainsheet which is what seems to kick the problems off.

As I've got older so the hand/wrist problem has, as you might expect, got worse - so I'm still thinking about how to reduce that mainsheet loading...

I figure that a stern sheeting arrangement might fit the bill since the leverage is that much better from the end of the boom than it is from the middle. Is there anyone out there who has tried stern sheeting and if so how did you rig it and what were the issues?

Thanks in advance for any responses!

Norman

[SolidAir]

I haven't tried rear sheeting in a Supernova, but I can't think of a reason why it wouldn't work. You could fit a rear strop and either sheet from the stern (facing backwards in tacks and gybes) or lead the sheet back along the boom to the centre, and down to a block. An alternative, if you haven't tried it, is continuing with central sheeting but using a central floating strop rather than leading the mainsheet to a fixed block. Because the final block is elevated, the pull on the mainsheet is more horizontal and therefore easier (ie a lower load), and also it doesn't pull the boom down as much when sheeting in.

Alex
1280

[nhalstead]

Many thanks Alex. I've been using the floating block for several years and it does certainly help. I even tried having 2 ratchets in the system but although that reduced the loads well it wouldn't release quickly enough and it was only a question of time before it caused some sort of embarassing incident!

I really don't much fancy the idea of stern sheeting, but it's better than not being able to sail at all. That's why I was wondering if anyone had any experience of it and if it had the required effect. I think it would have to be something akin to the Laser system, but I don't want to go drilling holes when there's some reason why it's not going to work.

Norman