Practical Boat Owner – August 2019

I

decided it was time to do something

about the trauchle of getting my

mainsail up. So long as the wind is

dead on the nose, the sail runs up

freely, only needing to be winched

for that last tautening. If the wind’s in the

south, it’s easy; I can hoist the mainsail

in the berth, then sail out backwards,

which is a good skill to practise, and

looks impressive to tourists.

If the wind isn’t in the south, all may not

be lost. Motor out into the convenient bay

just outside the marina, turn her head to

wind, leave the motor just ticking over and

go forward to haul the sail up... a theory

which works very nicely in lighter winds.

A Force 3 or up, though, and mainsail

hauling starts to get much messier. You

get it a third of the way, the wind takes

what you’ve got, and you begin turning.

At this point you have two options.

Method 1: you can leap back, rev the

engine to give steerage and put her back

to head to wind, then scurry forward

again, hoist a bit more until her nose goes

off again, leap back to the tiller... it may

take three or even four shots of leaping

back and forward to get the sail up, and

by the end of it you feel like you’ve done a

mile-long beat already.

Method 2 is to let the

boat go in a circle,

gritting your teeth as

the boom crashes

over, and hoist again

as her nose comes

round into the wind... more sail to catch,

the circle is quicker this time and the

boom crash louder. But the third time of

nose into wind usually gets the last of the

sail up and winched home.

The circling method is effective, but I’m

sure the gybes involved aren’t good for

Karima’s gooseneck, it does look terribly

messy from shore and it’s

defi nitely embarrassing in front

of visiting boats who’ve been at

sea so long that they have

washing on the backstay. So, in

general, I prefer the leaping-

about method. But I’ve thought

for a while there must be an

easier way so, one calm day, I

rigged up a spare block, and ran

the halyard through it, back

through the sheave on the

coachroof and into the cockpit.

The idea was to hold the tiller with my

knees while hoisting the main from the

cockpit. My fi rst shot at using it wasn’t

entirely successful. It was a lovely day

with a gentle Force 2-3, good

experimental conditions, but actually in

practice I’d have been far quicker just

nipping forward and hauling it up. The

mast-foot pulley wasn’t aligned with where

the halyard came down and the halyard

itself is thicker than the lines for which the

coachroof sheaves were designed, giving

me so much friction in the system that the

sail was much, much harder to pull up.

Also, it was diffi cult to simultaneously

pull and stand far back enough in the

cockpit to keep the tiller between my

knees. I did manage it, but when I went

forrard to do the last foot, I was

astonished at how much easier it was

from the mast.

Still, I’d got the main up without either

leaping about or the boom crashing over,

so I felt I was on the right lines. My second

attempt had the pulley in the right place,

but the halyard still going though the

sheaves, and it was a breezier day, Force

3 gusting 4. The sail felt harder to pull this

time, and the stronger wind meant I really

needed to be at the tiller. I did have a crew

aboard, so we resorted to conventional

methods; I steered, she hauled.

My third try was in the berth, in the

fl attest of calms. I changed the mast-foot

block from an old Tufnol one to a more

recent object that I

found in my carrier

bag of assorted

blocks. I took the

halyard out of the

sheaves, remembered

to uncleat mainsheet and kicker, and tried

hauling – only to realise that while I’d been

messing about a slight breeze had sprung

up, from the north.

Ah well. A slight breeze meant I could go

sailing after all, so I did, and the new

uphaul worked beautifully. Now I need to

try it in a Force 3.

Tinker sailor

One of the joys of boat-owning is the infi nite

low-tech tinkering to get things just right

Marsali Taylor sails an Offshore 8M, Karima S. She’s a

dinghy instructor and author of The Shetland Sailing

Mysteries starring liveaboard sleuth, Cass Lynch.

Living with the sea

Marsali Taylor

MAIN The mainsail going up

INSET RIGHT Tinkering with

the blocks

‘A Force 3 or up and

mainsail hauling starts

to get much messier’

Marsali Taylor