Walt wrote:
Maybe I'm somewhat lacking in immagination, but I don't see how a
homebrew reefing system could cause the boom to break.

It's not imagination, you're just not paranoid enough

But (slightly) more seriously, the reefing line is going to
simultaneously put a lot of compresson & some bending moment on the
boom. Combine that with the vang and/or mid-boom sheeting, weakness in
the boom introduced by drilling holes t mount the reefing gear, and
Presto! But i may be scratching pretty hard to find trouble here.

... If the odd
sailplan generates odd forces, my hunch is that they'd manifest
themselves as a boat that's difficult to control long before being large
enough to break things, although the wrong sail plan could cause enough
lee helm to over-stress the rudder.

Agreed. Shucks, some boats are hard to control under optimal circumstances.



Then your insurance company might ask some embarrassing questions about
why you have reef points, and all the other XYZ 15s they insure do not...


More likely they're going to ask why you were out in those conditions
when all the other XYZ 15s had gone in.

OK I withdraw that point of debate. Insurance isn't going to be a major
issue for small boats anyway (or at least, it shouldn't be).


Learning how to depower a rig
can be as important and useful a skill as learning how to get max power.


Absolutely. Once the wind gets above a certain point anybody can get
all the power they can handle out of the rig. The trick is to only
generate as much as you can handle.

It might be more sensible to get a heavy-air mainsail made, flatter with
no roach & no battens, possibly a shorter luff; instead of installing
reef points.

After all this, I'm beginning to suspect that the original post was a
troll anyway.

Fresh Breezes- Doug King