Main Sail Handling - Drop your main sail in heavy winds with increased safety.
On Cool Change we do have a fully battened mainsail with a Lazy Jack system. One of the issues we have encountered when surprised by strong winds (e.g. 30+ knots) especially at night is the difficulty to drop the sail completely in those conditions. Usually turning the boat into the wind and releasing the main halyard drops the sail nicely into the boom bag via the lazy jacks. However, when confronted with strong winds, we often find that the sail drops only partially and the top bit of it is still up to about the first spreader flogging heavily. While we are blessed with easy access due to our deck saloon rooftop to manually pull down the last part of the sail, in heavy seas, with a flogging sail this can be quite a perilous exercise.
The Solution:
To overcome this we have attached a line (6mm) at the top of the mainsail going down in a straight line to the second reef point (when the sail is up). Now, when we drop the main sail and it does not come down all the way we simply pull on this line which by then should be about at the mast base and can be used to not only pull down the rest of the mainsail but also to secure it to the mast base to avoid the wind from blowing it up and out of the boom bag.
Alternatively, if one does not want to go forward at all, one can instead of fastening one end to the second reef point, lead the line all the way down to the mast base and via blocks back to the cockpit. This way you can pull it down from the security of the cockpit. However, be aware that you will get quite some line length with this configuration and there is more chance of it flying off and getting tangled with the sail or other lines if you do not have somebody bringing it in quickly as you lower the sail.
The Solution:
To overcome this we have attached a line (6mm) at the top of the mainsail going down in a straight line to the second reef point (when the sail is up). Now, when we drop the main sail and it does not come down all the way we simply pull on this line which by then should be about at the mast base and can be used to not only pull down the rest of the mainsail but also to secure it to the mast base to avoid the wind from blowing it up and out of the boom bag.
Alternatively, if one does not want to go forward at all, one can instead of fastening one end to the second reef point, lead the line all the way down to the mast base and via blocks back to the cockpit. This way you can pull it down from the security of the cockpit. However, be aware that you will get quite some line length with this configuration and there is more chance of it flying off and getting tangled with the sail or other lines if you do not have somebody bringing it in quickly as you lower the sail.
