MacGregorSailors.com

the one on the right in the last pic looks like a boom connection

Don't know what the one on the left is, but the shiny metal part is a fairlead for looping a line around, maybe some sort of bumper holding gizmo.

I bought my first used boat couple of years ago (still considered newbie). I wanted to get some extra help identifying the boat, what parts went where. I hired a local sailboat repair expert that does house-calls to drop by my house and do an eval. Well worth the money for 2 hours worth of work from someone who knows what he's doing.

At one point I asked what this bag of leather harnesses was for. I had guessed, since it was a smaller dinghy, that perhaps it was for fastening to a cable and doing performance hiking, leaning over the hull on your toes. He glanced through my gear, rolled his eyes and said, "this is all horse tack gear. has nothing to do with your boat at all".

Oh.

Thanks. Here's your money

That would be a Cunningham hook for hooking mainsail in to keep it down on the boom to control sail shape, used most often when you reef your main to create a new Tack for the main

http://www.spinnaker-sailing.com/lesson ... index.html

sailboatmike wrote:That would be a Cunningham hook for hooking mainsail in to keep it down on the boom to control sail shape, used most often when you reef your main to create a new Tack for the main

http://www.spinnaker-sailing.com/lesson ... index.html

I suggest: THIS IS A REEF HOOK - It is where you hook the "reef cringle" (of the tack corner) of the mainsail when your are reefing the mainsail.

Mac's did not come from factory with a special cunningham hook on the gooseneck, or a special cunningham cringle in the standard mainsail.

This may stir up a hornets nest of conversation - but ...

- a cunningham is:
a line that goes from the gooseneck area (where this reef hook is situated in the photo) to a special cringle just above the regular tack cringle. The control end of this line can also be led aft for easy operation.

- a cunningham is used to:
pull down on the mainsails lower luff, used together with the main halyard tension to adjust the "draft position" of the sail fore and aft (but does have a small affect on the "draft depth", while the outhaul mostly adjusts "draft depth" but also has an affect on the "draft position" slightly).

* on many boats it's easier to adjust a cunningham "on the fly" than adjusting halyard tension - to change draft postion.

ps;
I have a cunningham line on our Mac from this reef hook to a sail slug cringle - it works ok, but very small amount of gain in sail shape. Mostly for MacTweekers

Interesting. My X has it - and I always have assumed it's a reef hook.

Yep, I'm pretty sure it's a reef hook (which came standard), not a Cunningham hook.