On Fri, 22 Aug 2008 20:49:01 -0700 (PDT), Mark
wrote:

America's Cup boats have right and left handed jib winches so the lead
is perfect to the fairlead. My boat has jib winches of the same
handedness and there's chafe on the port side coaming when trimming
smaller jibsfixed by a second fairlead car aft.

I don't think so. I've sailed on several America's Cup boats, 6 to be
precise, and they all had conventional clockwise turning winches, both
port and starboard. It would confuse the heck out of the trimmers
otherwise, trying to remember which way to wrap the jib sheet.

On Aug 23, 5:08*am, Wayne.B wrote:
On Fri, 22 Aug 2008 20:49:01 -0700 (PDT), Mark
wrote:

America's Cup boats have right and left handed jib winches so the lead
is perfect to the fairlead. *My boat has jib winches of the same
handedness and there's chafe on the port side coaming when trimming
smaller jibsfixed by a second fairlead car aft.

I don't think so. *I've sailed on several America's Cup boats, 6 to be
precise, and they all had conventional clockwise turning winches, both
port and starboard. *It would confuse the heck out of the trimmers
otherwise, trying to remember which way to wrap the jib sheet.

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I've only sailed on 3, but they were America's cup class boats, not 12-
Meters. Definitely had left and right handed jib winches, no room on
coaming for a "wrong-handed" winch because of winch diameter and the
fairlead was so close to the winch.