I'll have to say this: I wish I had not cheaped out and had gotten ball bearing sheaves for the mast head all the way around, instead of just the mainsail halyard. This past weekend I noticed I hoisted the mainsail to 99% of its full height without even grabbing the winch handle. This, after 2 months in the water since we applied dry lube to the track, even.
(Alas, we have not hoisted our spinnaker yet, as this year is apparently the Year Of The Newbie Guests On Board, and I've spent the whole spring simply teaching people safety and how to handle jib sheets while I am stuck at the wheel. We'll move on to Sailing 102: Steering a Sailboat soon, I hope, so I am freed from the wheel to teach advanced lessons!) About the twisting of the mainsheet between blocks -- ours does this but I assumed it was because of the prior owner rope we are still using. Are there formulations of rope that work well as main sheet line and don't twist under stress? David Persephone, 1988 TR #6480 On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 5:30 PM, Phil Agur <[email protected]> wrote: > One of the things I did on Wing Tip very quickly was convert all the plain > bearing blocks to ball bearing blocks. It made a huge difference in how > quickly I could get things done on the boat. >
