How long should genoa sheets be

My Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 40 came with running rigging lines that all seemed needlessly long. The extra line adds to the difficulty of housekeeping, and in rough going sometimes creates a mess under foot that creates what I would call a hazard. After a few years, I cut all lines to their longest useful length.

I have two friends with similar-sized boats, and they have many feet of extra line that ends up piled on the cabintop. Also would you comment on the need for stopper knots? I have been a rigger for almost 15 years now and find that present state of a rig is often held in reverence. It is just assumed that the previous owner or rigger knew more than we do now.

There is no reason to leave things needlessly long. Rather than wrap the genoa sheet around the port winch and cleat it off 'down there' - run the genoa sheet once around the port winch and pull the rest of the sheet up to the starboard winch and put a few wraps there and cleat off or hold on if playing is needed.

If you really need to crank in hard on the sheet, simply tail the line in one hand, stand up, pull on the line crossing over the cockpit and tail the line through the winch.

Never going down to the low, wet, tippy side of the boat. For port tack, reverse directions Jul 2, 53 Thanks; That makes sense. Not too short. Right know I have 50'6" side. No wonder I have extra line lying around in the cockpit.

Worse comes to worse -- I could cut each of the 50' 6" lines shorter. Hershey said:. No wonder I have extra line lying around in the cockpit I put the 50' 3" line and attached it in the center on the clew.

This seems to be more then enough. On my mooring I tried it with a whisker pole almost all the way out 11' and had a few feet to spare after wrapping around the winch.

All we need now is some good weather here in the Hudson Valley. Here in eastern MA, we're expecting big heat this Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday; good time to be on the water. Too bad Marblehead's race week will be over; it was fun watching the Js out by Half Way rock, the Rhodes 19s by Satan's and the wet athletic my stomach aches just watching them hike Lasers at harbormouth yesterday. It was windy and wet in the AM closed my capri's seahood to keep cabin dry , more settled and sunny in the PM.

Sounds like you've got the jib sheets good to go. It's comfortable but some of your deck hardware might not take it. Adamastor Member. Then go to your local yacht-swindlery and get some Genny sheets about the same as the calculated spec.

Your sheets should obviously be long enough to fit the winch with the sail hard home on the opposite side- any longer and you'll have a snakenest from hell in the cockpit. The MOST inportant thing though is the size of your self-tailers if you have them: too thick a sheet and you'll b gger the tailer up, and too thin and it won't grip!

CliveG Well-known member. Last edited: 2 Aug VicS Well-known member. Joined 13 Jul Messages 46, I think mine, on a smaller boat, are 10mm I dont think I would like them as small as 8mm on a boat that size The question about length was asked a few weeks ago.

A search might find the previous question but in any case IIRC there is a guide to lengths and diameters on Jimmy Greene's website. Remember though that a sheet that is too short cannot be lengthened but one that's abit too long can be shortened. Genoa sheets Further to VicS idea of tieing the sheet ends together.

I have sailed a fair bit with just one long sheet with ends ties at the jib clew. This means you can use a lot shorter sheet, You just need the length of the circuit cokpit around the cabin and inner forestay plus a few metres.

In fact you might find a similar rope in the boat. With practice, continuous sheets are spiffy, especially if you sail single or short handed, but I would not go that route if you're sailing close to a fully crewed boat, especially if the crew members are not regulars. Not sure if this will help, but on J's we used to size them so they were just long enough so that when the jib was fully sheeted the knot in the lazy sheet end was at the weather jib lead block when the pole was fully hoisted on the high ring with the jib sheet running over it.

Using this approach the required length depends on whether your pole uses a bridle or connects directly to the ring in the middle. Later I think we got away from running the jib sheet over the pole and started using shorter sheets - ones just long enough to have enough tail 12"" perhaps on the lazy sheet to allow you to get some tension on it before releasing the jib in a tack.

It sounds like there is no reason to have insanely long sheets. I'll just start trimming them down until we get to a point where we just have a reasonable amount of tail when the pole is up.

Boats with spin pole, lazy sheet in front of the bridle, need longer sheets than boats with asymetrics. On my 24' boat, that would give me a sheet of Take your genoa lead, and move it to the farthest aft position. Attach your spin pole to the mast, raise the inboard end all the way, pull on topping lift until pole is horizontal. Get a long piece of rope, tie it to your genoa lead, run forward outside the shrouds, over the pole, in front of the topper, and back down the other side of the boat, outside shrouds, through genoa lead, up to winch, put one or two wraps on winch.

Measure the length of this line, that is the length your jib sheets need to be. I dont get this. Are you guys saying you run your jib sheets over the spinnaker pole, or just allowing them to run outside the pole downhaul? My sheets just go from the genoa car, around the pole downhaul block and back to the other winch, plus 2 meters, times two sheets.

If you end-for-end pole, you want the sheets to go over the topper. If you dip, this part isn't neccessary. The other exception is boats that store the pole on the boom, generally sheets just need to reach around the downhaul.

It's so bleedin obvious tolachi. BJMoose is right Then do what professor booty or TD says. Great topic A 10 year old could figure it out for chis' sake.