MERLIN ROCKET FORUM

Topic : Reefing

Hello all

As a total beginner, not just to MRs, but to sailing, how do I reef, so as to get comfortable with handling the boat in anything other than a flat calm?

Thanks

Tom


Posted: 08/06/2005 16:53:06
By: Tom (1681)
Merlin sails dont have reef points....you could always roll the sail round the boom, but you'll probably be the only one to reef a Merlin!

Trick is to crew for another helm in strong winds a few times, get used to the feel of it. Its a useful learning experience in many other ways too.

Then when you go out yourself, make sure your crew isnt a novice too!


Posted: 08/06/2005 17:05:16
By: Mags
You could even try a mainsail off National 12


Posted: 08/06/2005 17:07:38
By: Miles
Or a Firefly sail, they're even lower.


Posted: 08/06/2005 17:14:43
By: NeilAncientG
All these alternatives will ruin the balance of the sail plan - the answer is to keep at it and keep the boat flat.


Posted: 08/06/2005 18:30:54
By: RichardT
Tom, you have quite an old boat and I don't know what your rigging plan is but on a modern (deck-stepped particularly) merlin you do 2 things to depower:

1) Rake the mast.
2) Flatten the sail.

You probably don't have the option of significantly raking the mast so you need to progressively flatten the sail. At this point it's down to the order in which you do things. The following will have a flattening effect on the sail but are probably not inclusive of everything and are in no particular order.

1) Tighten the outhaul - immediately flattens the bottom of the sail. This is probably the first thing you'll play with.
2) Tightening the shrouds - Bends the mast - sometimes called prebend (i think)
3) Tightening the kicker - Bends the mast and flattens the leech
4) Tighten the cunningham - Bends the mast

A good way of finding out what's what is to tip your boat on its side with the sail up and mess around with stuff to see what it does. This pdf on the N12 website is a good guide to the aforementioned strings and sails.

If any more knowledgeable heads feel that I'm talking b******s please correct me.

http://www.national12.org/downloads/tuning_guide_revised_2004_v1.pdf

Posted: 08/06/2005 20:53:41
By: Jon
You can try getting hold of a Firefly main, it will probably not be that devastating for the balance of the rig.  Any attempt to wrap the sail round the boom to reef is doomed IMHO as you will never get an acceptable way of attaching kicker and mainsheet & the sail shape will go to pot.  Without a raking rig your method of depowering is to yank on LOTS of kicker and cunningham, pull the outhaul tight and set the now flatter main at a slightly greater angle (your controls must work & be able to achieve this!). If you are a total beginner, just accept you will do a lot of swimming, we all have, and ideally get some instruction from someone more experienced either crewing or helming, go out in progressively stronger winds as you gain confidence and experience.


Posted: 09/06/2005 08:21:57
By: Andrew M
I agree that rolling up the sail doesn't work unless you can sort the kicking strap and mainsheet problems.  If your mainsheet is transom mounted, and your main is not loose-footed, then you can solve the kicking strap problem by rolling a sail bag into the sail as you roll it up, leaving the neck and ties showing.  You then have something to which to tie a temporary kicking strap.  Effective solution but loses the balance in the same way as a smaller sail would do.


Posted: 09/06/2005 09:00:18
By: been there, done that
...but the conditions in which you want to reef are those in which you need a lot of kicker on.  I reckon a Merlin kicker full on is about 200+kg of load and a sail bag tie simply won't do.


Posted: 09/06/2005 09:16:20
By: Andrew M
I entirely take the point, but I don't think that a boat with sail number 1681 is going to be putting 200kg load on anything.


Posted: 09/06/2005 14:42:11
By: been there, done that
Apart from the helm in his pants when the wind gets up...................


Posted: 09/06/2005 15:12:48
By: Jon
I beg to disagree - I had a very efficient winch on 1498 as did a lot of contemporary boats, gave an easy 10:1 advantage with lowish friction.  The Proctor D needed a lot of kicker to get the top to bend.


Posted: 09/06/2005 15:32:40
By: Andrew M
1728 has a winch/ratchet type system which can really wind up the tension when you pull the rope.  A lever  drops down and prevents the whole thing unwinding and to ease it off the lever is lifted with the rope used to pull the kicker up tight so quite easy to pull on and off.


Posted: 09/06/2005 15:54:27
By: Garry R
Thanks for all the feedback. Someone mentioned the idea of rolling some webbing or some such in with the main round the boom, but I was concerned about resilience, especially on any kind of run.

The mainsheet is transom-mounted, if that is of any use to anyone in further advice, and seems to have the same ratchet arrangement as described by Garry. When we first rigged the boat, I cranked the tension up too high, and the lug (what on earth do you call it) at the top of the kicker parted from the kicker. An inauspicious start, though happily now sorted.

We do hope to get some time out with experienced sailors, both as crew and helm, so that should help us, but many thanks for the tips on sail flattening. No, I don't think we can do a lot with the rake of the mast, but I've not really looked at the outhaul, so there might be some scope there.

Sod's Law naturally dictates that we'll do all this, and then in six months' time have to undo it all as we are frustrated by the boat's lack of power.

Thanks for all the advice

Tom


Posted: 10/06/2005 08:45:40
By: Tom
I have reefed a Merlin (much to on looking purists horror) when introducing my  children, as they were then, to sailing in a Merlin. Whilst this was an old boat by today's standards (Proctor MkXI) and had no  modern sail controls it worked .  The kit was simple wrap an old sail bag in the main which from memory we wrapped around the boom 3 times making sure that the drawstring dangled below the boom about a foot to connect to the kicker. Yes proper reefing strops are availbale but the sailbag gripped the sail perfectly and the stronger the wind the tigther it is held. From memory we never lost the kicker sailing down wind.  The tricky bit is putting some extra tucks in sail at the transom end of the boom on the first turn to lift it, otherwise it sags impossibly low.  I cannot remember how the outhaul worked but it did. What was interesting was that because of the high aspect sail plan only 2 or 3 turns of the boom made the boat very easy to control with a young light crew even with stronger winds.
It all worked out well, we never capsized (just as well although easy to right not easy to bail out ) the children always preferred sailing in the Merlin to our Mirror even if I did get some disparaging comments from the onlookers.


Posted: 10/06/2005 13:26:36
By: Charles Lawton

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