Luff rope and outhaul / cunningham

Benzibar's picture
Submitted by Benzibar on Mon, 08/17/2015 - 14:16

Forums:

Hi all,

I've just inherited a beautiful 1975 gaff-rigged Mirror. I'm pretty comfortable with the majority of the rigging, but there are two items I'm not sure about:

1. The luff rope. From what I can see in other forums and from google, the popular approach here is to spiral it around the mast, passing it through the eyelets on the sail as I go. The question I have here is, how and where do I secure the luff rope, is it to the mast or the boom, or both? And what is the best knot to use for this.
2. What's the best way to secure the tack of the sail? I don't have any sort of downhaul system rigged (though I do have a vang). Should I just tie this to the boom or should I rig some sort of downhaul / Cunningham system?

Thanks in advance for your help :)

62816inBerlin's picture

62816inBerlin

Mon, 08/17/2015 - 14:34

I lace my main to the mast only and have what I believe is the most conventional downhaul system: a single line through the eye, down to a sheave on the gooseneck and led back to a clamp or jam-cleat on the boom. It can be seen fairly clearly in the top right-hand corner of the picture here:

This gives me adequate control, but then I don't race and don't need to ultra-fine-tune my rig.

Cheers,
Gernot H

Benzibar's picture

Benzibar

Mon, 08/17/2015 - 16:23

That picture is very helpful Gernot, thanks a lot!