Cruising World – May 2018

HANDS-ON SAILOR

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boom traveler. This setup

doesn’t offer quite as much

sail-shaping control as a sheet

coming off the aft end of

the boom, but it’s a reason-

able trade-off for safety and

comfort while still offering

athwartship control of the

main. Placing the traveler

on the cabin top leaves room

in the cockpit for an ample Bi-

mini and dodger, and it keeps

the crew safe from the main-

sheet in an accidental jibe.

We found that most of

the mainsheets in this year’s

monohull fl eet were led to

fi xed blocks, usually two,

mounted on the coachroof,

forward of the companionway.

This design simplifi es the sail-

handling (and reduces some

expense) by eliminating the

traveler altogether, but this

simplicity comes at the cost

of sail-shaping control. These

boats rely on the boom vang

alone to control twist, but

they offer very little ability to

move the boom athwartships.

One nice exception was the

Bavaria Cruiser 34. While all

the other boats in this catego-

ry provide a single mainsheet,

and therefore no athwart-

ship control of the boom, the

Bavaria employs two separate

sheets, port and starboard,

dead-ended at the boom. With

this arrangement, the crew can

haul the boom to windward,

and vang it down to leeward. It

means more strings to pull on

during maneuvers, but it also

means better shape for

the main.

The Boréal 47, overall

2018 Boat of the Year winner,

deserves mention for one

innovative detail. In this

French-built aluminum boat,

the anchor chain is brought

aft from the bow roller to the

center of the boat for more

balanced weight placement.

The boat’s windlass is installed

at the base of the mast. Here’s

the nice trick: You can bring

the main halyard around the

windlass gypsy and use it as a

powered winch to hoist sail.

HEADSAILS: PLACING

THE CLEW

Looking farther forward in

the boats, we see that a trend

of bringing the shrouds out to

the hull, which became pop-

ular several years ago, has

become nearly ubiquitous in

2018. Typically, that occurs
      in concert with swept-back
      double or triple spreaders. The
      corresponding sail plan tends
      to be more mainsail-driven
      than genoa-driven, and all up-
      wind sails are sheeted inboard
      of the shrouds. On the whole,
      this arrangement contributes
      to higher pointing angles.
      The Dufour 520 and the
      Elan GT5 are two expressions
      of this rig. In each case, the

upper and lower shrouds ter-

minate at a single chainplate

at the hull, eliminating leaky

deck penetrations.

Setting the fore-and-aft

position of the fairlead for the

headsail sheet provides ideal

power from the sail on and off

the wind. On most boats, the

traditional solution still holds:

A pin sets the car in its place on

the genoa track. The downside

is that sailors are less likely to

go forward to change the set-

ting. Three boats that offered

adjustable control of the sheet

lead from the cockpit are the

Hallberg-Rassy 412, the Gun-

fl eet 43 and the Oyster 745.

Self-tacking headsails are

the simplest to use: Nobody

has to touch a sheet through

any tacking maneuvers. The

downside is the diffi culty

or inability to set sail shape

through different points of

sail, particularly off the wind.

The Stiletto Xc, Boréal 47,

Moody DS 54, Southerly 540

and the Hanse 588 all provide

self-tending jibs. The one on

the Discovery 58 provided

a simple detail that anyone

might want to add to the oth-

ers: an adjustable pinned stop

car in the sail track that allows

you to set the lead to wind-

ward or to back the headsail

when heaving-to. On our

test sail, the Boréal’s build-

er hove-to by setting up a

quick barberhauler led to a

chainplate to back that boat’s

self-tacking headsail.

WORK STATIONS AND

SOCIAL SPACES

Finally, a note on one

more trend we recognized.

Traditionally, the cockpits of

cruising sailboats served two

functions — sometimes in con-

cert, sometimes in confl ict —

as both the place to sail the

boat and the space for crew and

guests to lounge in. In recent

may 2018

cruisingworld.com

Clockwise from top left: A traveler mounted aft

of the helm on the Gunfl eet 43 keeps the main-

sheet clear of the crew and provides excellent

trim capability. A double mainsheet led to blocks

on either side of the Bavaria 34’s cabin top gives

the trimmer lots of options to control shape. A

traveler mounted forward of the companionway

on the Hallberg-Rassy 412 protects the crew in a

jibe, but offers less control of the mainsail.

TRAVELERS

TRIM TIP

Self-tacking headsails are

the simplest to use: No-

body has to touch a sheet

through any tacking ma-

neuvers. The downside is

the difficulty or inability

to set sail shape.

TIM MURPHY; JON WHITTLE (TOP LEFT)