It would be great if one had a shock load bungy cord in the main sheet line were a heavy gust would simply stretch the cord and let the wind fall off the Main.
Maybe Santa will invent this.
Dave
mastreb wrote:I'm a bit late to the advice party, but another good thing to do when the wind is highly variable is to sail with the mainsheet in-hand, and sheet it out any time the boat heels because of a puff. I'll often times leave it uncleated and just keep it tensioned with my arm when the winds are changing a lot. Really helps to keep speed up, the boat on course, and heel under control.
I've actually been thinking about a "Spring cleat" for the mainsheet that would keep the sheet under specific tension rather than actually being cleated to do this automatically.
I just need to replace the line on my flying mainsheet cleat:
With a shock cord bungee! Easy peasy lemon breezy.
This will provide the same sail position management as a mainsheet and same operation, but allow the spring range of the shock cord to deal with the puffs. I'll try it and report back.
Off the original topic a bit, but picked up a used hank on storm jib and started playing with it today. Still figuring out how to best set it up, but so far liking it very well.
