Roger Long wrote:
As a traditional sailor with most of my time behind gaffs and
bowsprits, I am more than familiar with sweating. It is amazing what
you can move that way.

As someone points out below, my halyards are internal and the fitting
locations are not optimum for old fashioned tug and grunt. Sweating
or the winch worked OK on the working jib but the 150 roller furling
genoa with the foam and double cloth layer in the leading edge seems
to need a lot of tension to set right.

Due to the loss mechanical advantage with the turning block, I
actually had to sweat on the tackle line. It's short but it still
worked well. When I get the mast off the boat and relocate a lot of
the stuff, I'll raise the cleats which will help. I'd go with a
triple block if I did this again and certainly if the boat was any
larger.

I agree that on a 30 foot or under boat, one with hank jib, or jibs a
standard leading edge, you can get by with sweating alone if the
halyards are external or exit high enough on the mast.

--

Roger Long


I'm glad to find somebody else who thinks this way.
I have pulled gaffs and sails up much larger than most cruisers by a
little mechanical advantage and some sweating.
The arangement you have is similar to running rigging on a raceing
yacht from the late 1900's , the yacht was class leader for more than
30 years so it cant be that bad an idea.