Reefing Systems for a Gunter Rigged BR20

[Graham W]

From what I remember, the whole boat was rolling about heavily in the squall and the boom was sheeted in and only moving a bit relative to the boat.  Despite the mainsail being collapsed on top of the boom and contained within the double topping lift, the leech was flapping about wildly while I tried to find the correct cringle to hook the outhaul on to.  That was the most dangerous moment.  To top it all my knot holding the main halyard to the reefing point on the yard then came undone.  My crewmate looked unimpressed!

Two changes that I've made to the reefing system (not having to touch the outhaul hook on the clew and installing Clamcleat Q-Loks on the yard halyard retainers) would have made this all much less risky.  Not having the topping lift so high (unadjusted, it now drops the boom below the horizontal) probably would have helped too.

[MarkF]

That presents a very clear image of the problem. So much for my cunning plan to fix the boom! I'll be interested to hear how your system works on the water.

Do the Q-loks touch the main mast at all? I'm wondering if they'll be usable with a carbon mast.

Out of curiosity, does anyone tend to clip on to the boat in bad conditions to reduce the risk of going over when conducting tricky operations like reefing (with ballast, of course)?

[Graham W]

As the active Q-Lok is hauled up against the entrance to the masthead dumb sheave, which I think is a wooden plug into the carbon (photo of my old one below), it should be fine.

I have the wherewithal to harness myself to the boat but in practice never do.  I'm hoping that in future it won't even be sensible to do so, as I'll only be sitting or kneeling inside the cockpit!