It is hard, sometimes, to imagine what a previous owner was thinking when they made a modification to an older boat.  Gemini cats have been around a while so their strengths are well known.  The previous owner of our Shearwater choose to remove the perfectly reasonable boom and install a new boom with built in furling.  It is hard to imagine anyone who has sailed a boat this size performing such a modification.  When this boat was modified, the owner attempted to preserve as much sail area as possible by installing the boom at the same relative position.

A foolish mistake.  The original boom mounted on top of the installation location (the goose neck).  The ProFurl in boom furling is a great product for a larger boat - or even for this boat if the original factory system weren't so capable.  The furling boom installation, however, wasn't as good.  Look closely at the photo above.  The boom solidly hits the bimini (installed backwards in this photo as delivered).  As a result, the bimini is damaged and tacking is very difficult unless the main sheet is relaxed so the boom can lift above the bimini and aft end of the coach room.  After a few sails, we fixed that and raised the boom. 

We also changed the organizer blocks on the coach roof so the furling line ran free and made a few minor adjustments that now, we believe, have the main furling working the way it was designed.  It does furl under any weather conditions using the primary winch with the control line led back to the cockpit. Any amount of reefing is possible as long as you are facing nearly into the wind. The reefing boom is OK, but I miss my old main with the Harken batten cars that one person could drop in about 2 seconds in any wind.  The Harken system met my sailing standards:  Every component was visible, it could be inspected underway, and it failed safe. 

The ProFurl system concerns me because of the technique used to recover or reef the sail.  When I reef down my jib, I'm depending on a relatively small line to keep the jib de-powered.  If that line fails, I suddenly have a 140 jib deployed with no easy way to get it down.  The same size line now controls the main furling.  If the main furling line fails, I can't figure out any way to get the main down and - worse - if you have it reefed for heavy weather, there doesn't seem to be any way to keep the reef in place.  Stay tuned.

Jib Sheets

Everyone with a sailboat that has a jib (that is most of us) has, at one time or another, had the jib sheets hang up on a shroud.  Our first sail on our Gemini, the sheet hung up on every tack.  This was annoying.  I learned this little trick years ago on a previous monohull, the Shearwater I.  Rather than using two sheets, a port and starboard, I use one line twice as long and tie it to the clew with a clove hitch, an ingenious knot that keeps the sheets in place and doesn't hang up on the boat's rigging.

Just feed your new sheet (about twice the length of the original) through the tack, through again, and through itself.  Once tightened, it will not slip.  It will be much less likely to hang up on rigging and will be a bit lighter so it will tack a bit easier in light wind. And, you will finally get rid of the old sheets you have been planning to replace for years.

Gybing the Main

A few years ago we crossed the Atlantic from Cape Town to the Caribbean.  This trip is nearly 100% downwind, and there is lots of wind.  Gybing was a constant concern and we rigged a preventer as one of the more experienced delivery captains had instructed.  Every time she gybed, we released the preventer, reset it on the other side, and took off again at sometimes blinding speed.  We had long since reefed to our second or third reef and the boat was comfortably handling the speed (several 250 NM days), but the gybes were annoyance, often coming in the middle of dinner or the middle of the night.

We quickly "discovered" what monohull cruisers had known for years:  Buy a Dutchman Boom Brake, install it mid-boom, attach the control lines to the shrouds, and relax.  The boom brake burns off the energy of the gybe over a few seconds and smoothly resets the boom on the opposite side - all ready for the next gybe.  We calculated the load of a mid-boom brake and quickly determined that our boom just wouldn't handle the load of a gybe in heavy weather if the brake was installed in the middle.  Eventually, we bought a Dutchman for our previous cat and never regretted it for a second.  Our autopilot easily corrected for an occasional accidental gibe when the seas and a gust conspired to backwind our main.  We never broke a batten, never broke a sail slide, and never damaged a bat-car after installing the brake on the end of our boom.

When we purchased the Shearwater we quickly decided to purchase another Dutchman and attach it to the boom end where the main sheet is attached.  Wichard has begun making a competing boom brake that is a little cheaper and much less complex than the Dutchman.  It seemed a better fit for the Gemini so we bought it.  We attached it to the boom end and attached a short steel pendant to the brake for our main sheet. 

In use (the main sheet is stored on the brake in the photo), the main sheet traveler is centered and adjusted to keep the boom or sail from hitting the rigging.  The main sheet plays no part in the sailing except as a safety.

The brake lines (the purple lines, supplied with the brake) are adjusted for wind and sea conditions by reefing the through the brake and tightening or loosening them to set the gybing speed to your comfort range and, if necessary, the range of the autopilot.  Adjustment isn't terribly critical.

You can see the main sheet block - it is about a foot below the Gemini design point to reduce the weight and length of main sheet you must carry.  I've backed off from the original six to one (6:1) blocks to a four to one (4:1) because I seldom race and this seemed sufficient.  I also inverted the main sheet block system so the jam cleat is on top - giving a straight purchase from the helm position.

So far, it works as well as the Dutchman.  Perfect.