Making your own reef points

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Re: Making your own reef points

Postby Watson » Sun Jan 15, 2023 2:21 pm

Is a topping lift required to jiffy reef, either on the set up before going out or while hove to? Thanks
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Re: Making your own reef points

Postby GreenLake » Mon Jan 16, 2023 6:35 pm

A topping lift is not required. And operating one just slows you down.

On my boat, I lower the halyard first. In principle that goes to a fixed position, but in practice I always seem to need to tighten it a bit. Next, I pull on the part of the reefline for the aft, to raise the boom to the reef point. Because mine is a single line, I maintain tension on that part then pull on the other part to bring the reefpoint to the boom at the gooseneck. Finally, I cleat the reef line and re-tighten the halyard if needed.

None of those steps need a topping lift. Yes the boom will sag for a bit, but the aft reefline will raise it again.

If you have a reefhook, the process goes in the opposite order, you fix the forward reefpoint in the hook and tighten the halyard. Then you use the reefline to raise the boom (and of course, it also puts outward tension on the new foot of the sail).

If you had two separate reeflines for fore and aft, you probably do the aft one last. In my case that doesn't work, because it's the forward part that is cleated. (One of the reasons I'm not recommending that setup, although I've learned to make it work).
~ green ~ lake ~ ~
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