{"id":4849,"date":"2026-08-01T02:15:29","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T02:15:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gwiz.au\/passion_wp\/?p=4849"},"modified":"2026-08-01T02:17:01","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T02:17:01","slug":"back-to-reefing-weather","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gwiz.au\/passion_wp\/?p=4849","title":{"rendered":"Back to reefing weather"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Wednesday was a return to gusty westerly winds and a return to a reefed mainsail and the No 1 jib. The rest of the brave fleet sailed with full mainsails which made for interesting comparisons.
Downwind while the wind was blowing 19 knots we pulled away from the fleet but as soon as the breeze died to 7 knots we slowed and when the fresh breeze returned the fleet ran down to us.
We managed to round the downwind mark behind the First 40, Alibi, and had a good tussle with them up the next windard legs to just round the windward mark in front,
On the next downwind leg we held the lead but on turning for the last windard leg home they rounded better and regained the lead. We were slowly slipping behind Alibi and did not notice the fast finishing Amanti who picked the last two shifts brilliantly to take second fastest.
Our biggest issue going to windard was that we did not have the foot of the reefed sail pulled out flat and so lost a lot of the advantage of the reefed main.
Other possibilities were that we had the vang on too tight not letting the main free in the gusts, possibly the jib was not sheeted tightly enough and possibly we were not watchfull enough for the wind shifts.
I bear the blame for much of this. I had stabbed my hand on the ring holding the tiller extension to the tiller and was bleeding all over myself and the boat. I have fixed that fitting now but should have done so long ago and then I might have paid more attention to the wind angles.
On the jib sheeting issue it is again my fault. Dudley Dix would have installed larger winches and while they are larger than on Passion X they could be larger given the age of the crew. No offence meant guys we are all getting older.
Now the vang could have been eased. I did look up a few times and thought the leech was too tight for the conditions but said nothing.
While taking the blame for all these issued I might as well add the reefing system to the list. The first reef point has a block on the sail with the reef line coming out of the top of the boom and then down to the mast base. The luff tension is the only thing holding the reef point up out of the boom. Other reefing systems have a lead on the mast which stops the reefing line pulling the tack reef point down too far. We have already damaged the block by pulling it into the boom and I should have modified the system sooner.
The standard single line reefing system shown on the North Sails guide has a fairlead on the mast so that once the angle of the reef line is flat enough the foot clew can be wound in without the tack ending up clashing with the boom. https:\/\/www.northsails.com\/en-au\/blogs\/north-sails-blog\/slab-reefing-systems-tips-for-reefing-north-sails<\/p>\n\n\n\n


I did have in stock some mast fairleads supplied by Allyacht spars for a previous mast so I set out to replicate the North Sails diagram as much as possible.
On a sunny, windless Friday I hoisted the main on the mooring and set about marking the positions for the fairleads. Each fairlead is attached to the mast with four quarter inch stainlees metal threads. In this area the mast is sleeved so the depth of aluminium is significant and the holding power should be more than adequate.
It took all afternoon to drill and tap the holes but with care no drill bits were destroyed and no taps broken. The hardest job was getting enough pressure on the drill to get a good bight on the aluminium as the fitting are chest high.
In all the reefing systems I have seen the reef line enters the mast fairlead at a very sharp angle and while the leads are well rounded it might be better to try to fit a block onto the fairleads so I have some experimenting to do. In the meantime the reefing should be much more effective.

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Starboard reef showing block on the sail just clearing the boom. Perhaps we need to try a smaller friction ring on the sail and a block on the mast?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Port side reef for the second reef looks neater than the starboard side. I just need to check it is not pulling on the sail slug but it did look very neat and the clew was pulled out well.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wednesday was a return to gusty westerly winds and a return to a reefed mainsail and the No 1 jib. The rest of the brave fleet sailed with full mainsails which made for interesting comparisons.Downwind while the wind was blowing 19 knots we pulled away from the fleet but as soon as the breeze died […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gwiz.au\/passion_wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4849"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gwiz.au\/passion_wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gwiz.au\/passion_wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gwiz.au\/passion_wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gwiz.au\/passion_wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4849"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.gwiz.au\/passion_wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4857,"href":"http:\/\/www.gwiz.au\/passion_wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4849\/revisions\/4857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gwiz.au\/passion_wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gwiz.au\/passion_wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gwiz.au\/passion_wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}