reefing venture17

[littledevil]

hello. i have never reefed but have some book knowledge about it. when i have checked my rigging last time i ve noticed that the the bolts inside the turnbuckles was slightly bent due to extreme force. they are good quality parts so i guess there was times for me to reef which i ignored. no roller furling and the original system made for the boom, which you can turn the boom to roll some of the mainsail doesnt exist. they just welded a metal piece to slide the boom in to his groove on the mast. so question is how to reef?
is it possible to roll some of the jib manually to the front stay to gat the area smaller?
roll some sail on the boom before hoisting the mainsail
or
while the mainsail hoisted, remove the boom from the mast by hitting it with an object with and upward motion so it can free from its groove(sometimes it gets pretty stuck so i use rubber hammer) then roll some sail and put it back in its place.
am i getting it right? thanks
by the way sail doent have reefing points. if i can install some without damaging it i can look into that either.

[JoeVacs]

I would either put some reef points in the sail or make ( or have made ) a new goose neck that would allow you to spin the boom for reefing that way. I don't think I would want to do some of the things you said while on the water with the wind blowing. Especially if it was blowing enough to need a reef.

[technicalman]

3 years ago while out of Ventura i sailed my Venture 17 in a heavy blow. (I don't know how strong the winds were, but water was splashing up to and a little over the rail.) before i went sailing i noticed that the bolts to my turnbuckles were bent a little. I didn't see any cracks or corrosion so i decided the shrouds were ok.

once i got past the breakwater things got ugly. i think i had sailed about 10 minutes when my port shroud let go at the bend in the burnbuckle. The mast was in the water almost instantly. it happenned so fast. Luckily, none of us were hurt and I had just installed my outboard motor. we scooped everthing out of the water and motored back in to the dock.

When i looked at the broken turnbuckle, i coudl see that it had been corroding for some time but it was not visible until it broke. Don't wait that long. replace those turnbuckles and make sure your other hardware is good.

[Pete]

I would think your best bet would be to add reef points to the sail. Maybe someone here can explain how to do this, As I would like to know also.

[JoeVacs]

I would think your best bet would be to add reef points to the sail. Maybe someone here can explain how to do this, As I would like to know also.

All you need for reef points on your mainsail is 4 stainless grommets about 2 feet from the foot. heres a picture.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25826781@N07/3644108042/

See the little holes in the mainsail. That's the reef points

[parrothead]

That's a great photo, but I would like to suggest that there's more to adding reef points than just putting grommets in the sail. As you can see in the photo, there's additional sail cloth where the grommets are installed -- little squares at the mid-sail points, and significant reinforcement at the reef clew. I'd expect there to be the same at the reef tack, since once you've reefed, the sail is essentially loosed footed - so the new tack & clew need to be up to the stress imposed. The mid-sail points are just there for lines that keep the reefed part of the sail somewhat neat - they should not be subject to any major stresses.
I had a 2nd [intermediate] set of reef points added to my by a sail loft. They sewed on a lot of material to beef up the tack & clew.

[JoeVacs]

Parrothead, you are correct. I stand humbly in your shadow.

[technicalman]

There's this book i'm reading too. It doesn't cost too much and you may find it useful if you plan on doing your own sail work.

It's called "Sailmakers Apprentice"

http://www.bluewaterweb.com/NauticalBoo ... opicID=116

There's a Ditty Bag exercise in the early chapters that walks you through all the different stitches you need to know to work on sails. Been a lot of fun so far.

Sailrite has the kit that goes with the book:

http://www.sailrite.com/Ditty-Bag-Kit_2

[littledevil]

gooseneck work seems more detailed than i would like to get involved. reef points are good idea but as some of you guys suggested there has to be some work done prior to grommets so sails wont get shredded. i have checked the link and wooow...best ;ooking v-17 i ve ever seen. nice job.