FWIW, I agree with Antoine's description of using the Cunningham and Flattening Reef. These tweaks are used similarly on all mainsails, from dinghies to bigger keel boats.
Chuck Resolute 1990 C&C 34R Broad Creek, Magothy River, Md ----- Original Message ----- From: "Antoine Rose via CnC-List" <cnc-list@cnc-list.com> To: "David Paine" <paineda...@gmail.com>, cnc-list@cnc-list.com Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2015 11:44:33 PM Subject: Re: Stus-List Cunningham Hi David, To answer your question, we need to go back a bit to the origin the cunningham. Well, the main sail is up and properly tensioned, which mean that the halyard point is close to the mast top block to use the full length of your mast. Wind is light, not too much tension is needed on the halyard. As wind increases, more is needed. Eventually, the halyard is fully tensioned but the wind still get a bit stronger, but not enough to reef and, since you're racing you don't want to give any water to that boat just beside yours. As the wind increases, the sail draft moves back, increasing heeling and reducing speed. Tensioning the cunningham does just that, bringing the draft forward for two reasons: it increases the tensioning but also, because the cunningham grommet is slightly aft of the sail, pull forward the main foot. Having the grommet has another advantage. If you have a corresponding grommet on the leach side, you can take a six inch reef (sorry, don't how it's called in English, "ris de fond" in French). This very small reef does not reduce substantially the size of the sail but removes much of the draft. A flatter main points higher and reduce heeling. Antoine (C&C 30 Cousin) Le 2015-01-25 à 18:32, David Paine via CnC-List a écrit : > Hi All, > > I'm buying a new mainsail and I am going to ask a ridiculous-sounding > question. Do you have a Cunningham grommet in your mainsail? I do not in my > current sail but that is because Hood made the sail with a jack line (or lace > line) which serves the purpose. My new sail definitely won't have a > jack-line. Some adjust luff tension with the halyard, others use a separate > Cunningham grommet with a many part tackle (or lead the Cunningham line to a > winch) to set the luff tension. My sailmaker has an opinion but my question > is, which do you use? The Cunningham is useless when reefed, of course. > > Cheers, > > David > _______________________________________________ > > Email address: > CnC-List@cnc-list.com > To change your list preferences, including unsubscribing -- go to the bottom > of page at: > http://cnc-list.com/mailman/listinfo/cnc-list_cnc-list.com > _______________________________________________ Email address: CnC-List@cnc-list.com To change your list preferences, including unsubscribing -- go to the bottom of page at: http://cnc-list.com/mailman/listinfo/cnc-list_cnc-list.com
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