Tim, according to my Sailmaker's Apprentice book, wishbones on big rigs (as opposed to sailboards and dinghies) have a lifting line fore and a topping lift aft. And they usually use conventional slab reefing (I guess you just tie up reefing nettles to hold the foot together); the sail can full into a 'basket' of lazyjack lines slung deep below the wishbone. They run outhaul and reefing lines inside the wishbones--seems like there would be some friction, but probably not too bad. The pictures I've seen of these closer up make it appear that the fore end of the wishbone is suspended out in space in front of the mast, held up only by the lifting line. I'd really like to be one of these as they're sailing to find out more, though...
I'm guessing that you'd untie any reefs or gussets/sailties, raise the wishbone fore and aft, hoist the mainsail, and use a Cunningham and outhaul to adjust shape. It seems like a nice way to allow good shaping on either tack regardless of whether winds were light or heavy, and I'd love to not have to worry about ducking under a heavy boom during a tack. Dave Shaddock -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2008 10:58 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: catalina27-talk: Re: catalina27-OT- Wylie Cats sorry about all the OT posts...it is winter, and I'm procrastinating, putting off a whole weekend of grading. I was talking to x-catalina27 owner Carl about these Wyliecats at KWRW. They placed first and third and the main competition was with Chesapeake sailor Bob Fleck and his S2 7.9 "Horizon," ...Bob is an extremely successful and dedicated performance handicap sailor and "Horizon" has brought home a huge amount of prize hardware, so it wasn't as if the Wylies were racing in a slacker fleet. Anyone know anything about the Wyliecats? Biggest questions are: -does the wishbone have its own hoisting hadware, i.e., do you hoist the wishbone then the main? -how in heck do you reef these? I know they reef late, the carbon mast bends in a puff to depower, but at 35 these have got to be looking for a way to depower. here's a shot of them going DW...pretty interesting interpretations of the two (very different( mains... once more, sorry about being OT. tf
