How much can you winch the halyard?

[adm]

Well, I beg to differ too
Bolt rope is meant to be streched and to protect sail from streching its luff by halyard. It should be stiched to head and tack which are/should be reinforced with at least few layers of heavy dacron or tape. Gromet for shackle is usually no quite inline due to practical reasons that it can not to be too close to edge of the sail. The "corner reinforcements should take the "skewed" load. Luff is also reinforced to take some load but not too much. If you cut rope at one point and let it ride free inside sleeve the luff will be taking strech without any protection and making things worse.
If your bolt rope is 7 inches too short that means that you sail is worn out and luff is streched too much - and the rest of the sail is probably out of shape too. I am not saying that bolt rope did not shrunk but more likely it is streched. It may be much less then the strech of the sail. I would first try to keep the stiches and strech the rope. It is for this purpose. If your sail are really worn out and "normal tension" will not do, than cut original stiches and have rope sewn back deeper in sleeve by few inches and add some dacron reinforcement, but do not leave it loose inside sleeve. This will ruin your sail further. If you sail is gone it probably does not matter now but when you get new sail do not hesitate to use bolt rope the way it is intended. Few people on this board reported doing so without any problems.
The normal tension is sufficient to leave out any wrinkles. Of couse do not overstrech luff. If this can be achieved with 50 lbs it is OK too. It is common sense.
I really do not buy advice to cut boltrope and leave it loose. It may improve the look of the sail but it is shure way to ruin it much faster.
It also look to me that there is some cost cutting in sail department. The bolt rope should be continuous from head to clew and have more then just the short single stich at the "corners". I do not want to open this can of worms.

[ALX357]

well its ok we differ, maybe some others could weigh in with added leverage on this .... as for can of worms, kind of late, if you add that - at the end of a long chow down to the bottom of the can.

[Chip Hindes]

On a Mac, it makes no sense to speak of tension on the bolt rope at all, it is not there to take tension. It is not connected to the tack nor head directly, and it is only held in the sleeve at the two ends by stitches. You can see that if the bolt rope were designed to take tension directly, the halyard shackle would have to be INSIDE the mast to be inline with the boltrope. Same for the tack at the gooseneck. Obviously the boltrope is not directly inline with the tension between the halyard / head and the tack. The sail luff behind the mast takes that tension and is reinforced with several layers along that span. The absence of that direct tension on the boltrope lets the sail stretch comparitively more. Especially if you are over-winching it on a regular basis.

It doesn't matter that the boltrope is not directly in line with the attachment grommets, because for all practical purposes, on a 26' long luff, the fact the grommets are out of line by a few inches is mechanically irrelevant. You can't stretch the luff without stretching the boltrope, and the boltrope, being shorter than the sail by design, is taking most of the tension.

You say the sail is stretching more than the boltrope because it's being overtensioned. I say the boltrope is shrinking more than the sail because it's being undertensioned. If you cut the stitching holding the boltrope in place, the sailcloth itself is taking the tension, and it's not designed to do so.

Every sailing manual I have and two sailing courses I've taken stress the importance of adequate halyard tension. The Mac owners' manual pictures the truckers' hitch as a method for getting it by hand. Milking the halyard as described by adm works as well. With halyards led aft, I use the winch.

My sail is five years old and I've been stretching it with the winch, in your words "overtensioning" every time I raise it. With the boltrope intact and unbutchered, I have no problem winching it tight enough to remove the wrinkles. It does take a pretty good crank on the winch to get it there, as it always has. There's no sign that it's getting any more difficult than it ever has been.

Macs are no different than any other sailboat when it comes to the necessity for adequate halyard tension.

If you can provide a reference that what you say is correct, please do so.

[Tom Spohn]

Kaz,
Take another look at Moe's picture. The end of the bolt rope is not reinforced with extra dacron and the stitching is minimal. We never had this issue on our X, but the sail on our M was acting up withing a few months after we bought her. At this point in time it was clear the sail was not worn out. We cut the stitches as recommended by BWY and were amazed at the better sail shape. We did not damage the sail in any way and it continued to work properly without stretching or damaging the luff. Many people here in the Pac. NW do this simple modification, and in talking to owners at rendezvous, etc. I have yet to run into anybody who was having problems or was sorry they cut the rope stitching. As far as that goes I have yet to read a negative review on this board by someone who has cut the rope.

I'd be curious to know what kind of luck you are having with your M?

[adm]

Tom,

It is possible that OEM sailmaker had bolt rope too short to begin with and did not follow on this mistake. If you had problem with relatively new sail - fixing it is logical. I still recommend to restich bolt rope back in new position leaving few inches of luff shorted to allow for rope to strech a little - no matter what. If you know how to make sail stiching by hand the better. Reinforcement is optional if you do not feel like it.


Me Mine,

You just caught them red handed. 12 inches or so is way, way too much. I feel sorry that you had to correct their mistakes. I think you made good choice and ended up with better sails after all that trouble.


Sail making is more art then science and experienced sailmaker will know how to factor in strech based on materials used for particular sail and its intended use. Even that some "alteration" to new warderobe is normal. And the best craftsman can screw up work too.

I have been around sailing for some time. My first sails were made from cotton as I remember. Then come dacron. My teachers taucht me to take care of sails and pamper them where it counts and use them properly. I am from country where sailing was a quite expensive and you tried to avoid self created problems.
I am trying to post only when I feel that I have something to contribute or share my general experience. In this particular topic it struck me that just cutting bolt rope will create problems soner then later. Everybody needs to use own judgement.
I do now have any boat at the moment but let me use this analogy. Fact that I can not get pregnat did not prevent me from having opinion about abortion.

[delevi]

Well, I cut the mother loose. Before, I had much tension on the rope at the tack, as well as a curl. It was becoming clear that it shrunk. After cutting the stitching near the tack, per Moe's diagram, the rope came up about 6 inches into the sleeve of the luff. I haven't seen any damage. I sailed the boat twice and sail shape appeared to be good. Unfortunately, this time of year, we have little wind, which is when I experienced problems with sail shape/luffing. The sail won't get a true test until about February or March when the winds pick up again. The stitiching is only near the head and tack, now only at the head. It doesn't appear that re-stitching the rope would be necessary, since the slides, head and tack attachment take most of the tension. The rope just seemed to limit the amount of tension I could create on the luff. Hopefully, this is correct and I won't ruin the sail. Once I get some sailing in heavier air, I may consider re-stitching the boltrope, but I'm not sure if that's necessary.

[ALX357]

one more thought on the "shrinkage" of the boltrope... maybe it does not shrink at all ( being synthetic, after all ), but remains the same length, or stretches only a little after a time in use, while the sail stretches much more relative to the boltrope, causing the boltrope to only appear shrunken. This acutally makes more sense to me now, especially after several members here pointed out the unlikelihood of it shrinking.

hey cool, that was good for 6 more posts .... soon at this rate i'll make "Commander."

[baldbaby2000]

Now I'm kind of scared to cut the stitching on the bolt rope. My sail is put away so I can't look at it now, but I'm guessing this stitching on the bottom of the bolt rope is near the tack. Thus by tensioning the halyard, one is limited by how much the bolt rope can stretch. But if a Cunningham is added, that grommet will be above the stitching and when Cunningham tension is applied, the bolt rope can slide relative to the Cunningham grommet, allowing for the draft to move forward and the sail to flatten. My conclusion: if you're not willing to cut the stitching, a Mac should have a Cunningham. Make sense anyone?

By the way, my sail is only a season old and from day 1 I've thought it was too full. Has anyone added a Cunningham to a 26M? BWY talks about it on their 26M but I don't see any photos.

BB

[Moe]

My conclusion: if you're not willing to cut the stitching, a Mac should have a Cunningham. Make sense anyone?

FWIW, I'd add a cunningham before cutting the stitching. I think I'd put a cheek block on the boom and lead it back to a cleat I could reach in the cockpit.

[RandyMoon]

Well, I cut the mother loose. Before, I had much tension on the rope at the tack, as well as a curl. It was becoming clear that it shrunk. After cutting the stitching near the tack, per Moe's diagram, the rope came up about 6 inches into the sleeve of the luff. I haven't seen any damage. I sailed the boat twice and sail shape appeared to be good. Unfortunately, this time of year, we have little wind, which is when I experienced problems with sail shape/luffing. The sail won't get a true test until about February or March when the winds pick up again. The stitiching is only near the head and tack, now only at the head. It doesn't appear that re-stitching the rope would be necessary, since the slides, head and tack attachment take most of the tension. The rope just seemed to limit the amount of tension I could create on the luff. Hopefully, this is correct and I won't ruin the sail. Once I get some sailing in heavier air, I may consider re-stitching the boltrope, but I'm not sure if that's necessary.

So Delevi, your post above was last November. What is your opinion now that you have 2006 sailing experiences. Did cutting the rope help? Did you stitch it back?