Heavy Weather Sailing - How to Make Sail Reefing Faster

Do you know the #1 way to make mainsail jiffy reefing even faster on your cruising sailboat? Here are valuable sailing tips guaranteed to keep your sailboat crew safer when they need to perform this heavy weather sailing job?

Small sailboats often carry limited sailing crew. In heavy weather sailing, this leaves one person at the sailboat tiller and another reefing the mainsail alone.

Preapre your sails for reefing before you cast off lines to go sailing. Mark your mainsail halyard ahead of time to show the settings for the first and second luff reefing points.This takes the guesswork out of how far to lower the mainsail halyard.

Do this at the dock in light wind during the early morning or late afternoon. Bring a friend along to help you out. You will need a permanent ink marker or sticky-back ripstop nylon tape.

1. Raise the mainsail all the way to the top of the sailboat mast.

2. Lower the mainsail halyard until your first reef tack gets to the proper position at the sailboat boom. Cleat off the halyard.

3. Mark the halyard where it touches the sailboat mast cleat. Make a single, thick circle with your permanent marker or ripstop nylon tape. Make your circle easy to see during the day, night or in foul weather.

4. Lower the mainsail halyard until your second reef tack gets to the boom; cleat off the halyard. Make two thick circles where the halyard just touches the cleat. If your mainsail has a third set of reef points, repeat the procedure and use three thick circles.

Put Your Jiffy Reefing System into Action

When it’s time to reef the mainsail, lower the halyard to the desired reef point indicated by your circles. Cleat off the halyard at that point. Haul down on the reef tack line, raise the mainsail and set proper luff tension. Then go to the end of the boom and set the mainsail clew reef.

Make jiffy reefing easier for all hands aboard your cruising or racing sailboat. Keep your sailing crew safer, dryer and happier the next time the wind and seas pipe up--wherever in the world you choose to sail!