CS20 reefing possibilities

[JeffM]

The Beatrice Ann has luff sleeves and is equipped to reef around the masts as well as having the optional reefing step. So far, I haven't been too happy with sail shape with sails reefed around the mast, and I'm still looking for tips from Those Who Know. Meantime, I've been thinking about reefing step possibilities.

The way I measure it, reefing around the masts brings my sail area down from about 135ft2 to about 90ft2. Although the two reefing methods are usually discussed as if they were equivalent, reefing by furling the main and moving the mizzen to the reefing step only gets me about 60ft2. On the other hand, if I put the main in the reefing step I'd have 75ft2, halfway between the two usual ways of reefing. (Of course its more difficult to manage, necessitating unstepping main, unstepping mizzen, stepping mizzen in main step, then stepping main in reefing step.) I tried the arrangement sitting on the trailer just to see how it would work. I find the main sprit swings across the cockpit just 2ft forward of the aft bulkhead, and its lower than the mizzen would be. That's just adequate for comfortable steering, but leaves little safety margin: the end of the sprit is right at eye level. The main snotter would need to be re-rigged, but that's not hard. The sheet would need to be tied to the sprit about 2ft forward of the end, putting the block a little aft of the thwart but not spoiling sail shape too much on a reach.

Using the main in the reefing step has been discussed here before in passing. Has anyone actually tried it? What did you do with the snotter and sheet? How did the boat handle with the center of effort that much farther aft? Do you think it's worth doing?

[mustangermatt]

Can't answer the reef question per say. My 17 uses main and mizzen of equal area, increasing total area about 15-20%. This also results in the mizzen boom overhanging the transom about 2'. The center board is 3.5" aft of the designed location (ran that by Graham before I did it). The trim under sail is about as perfect as it gets with a few degrees of weather helm.

Short answer is I don't think you will notice that small a difference in trim, but I don't have the "reefing" step so I am only guessing based on my experience.