JOE, COULD YOU POST A PHOTO OF HOW YOU ARRANGED YOUR REEFING SYSTEM. SHOW IT WITH THE SAIL ALL UP AND THEN A SECOND PHOTO REEFED SO WE CAN SEE HOW THE HARDWARE WORKS. IT SOUNDS LIKE A VERY GOOD SYSTEM. THANKS LON M17 -- SELKIE -====-=-=-=-= zimco -----Original Message----- From: montgomery_boats-bounces@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:montgomery_boats-bounces@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of Joe Murphy Sent: Saturday, May 09, 2009 7:01 AM To: For and about Montgomery Sailboats Subject: Re: M_Boats: How do you reef? Andrei, I changed out my original single line reefing method. All it did was create a rats nest when I was hauling the main and it got exponentially worse when I reefed because I had miles of slack line. Given the size and weight of the boom, here's what I did. I put a pad eye below and just a tad aft of each luff cringle. I put each side of the boom. I spliced a loop on each eye, ran the line up and through the cringle and back down to the other side of the boom through a small hollow base cleat and tied off a figure eight knot. To reef I simpy pull the line. If the sail doesn't come down it's easy to lift boom. At the leech, I put in one pad eye on the bottom of the boom as close to the goose neck as possible. I put a pair of blocks on each side of the boom, again as close to the gooseneck as possible. I then put a pair of hollow base small cleats about 2/3 back on each side of the boom.. I then run a line in the eye and put a knot on each side of the eye so that the line doesn't slide one way or the other. I leave enough line on each side to run up to the leech cringle, back down, through the turning block and back to the cleat, and put in a figure eight knot. Arrange your lines so that when you reef the first point both luff and leech lines are on the same side of the boom. It's a simple three step process to reef. Secure the topping lift. Lower the halyard while you pull on the luff reefing line through the cleat and secure both. Then pull the leech reefing line through the cleat and secure. Since the lines are already run through the cleat you don't need to hunt for anything plus you have the turning bite to do it all one handed. You can come up into the wind and do it in seconds. I'm sure there are many other folks out there with their preferences and I certainly don't pretend that this is the end all solution. Just some food for thought. Joe Seafrog M17 651 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Andrei Caldararu" <andreic@math.wisc.edu> To: "For and about Montgomery Sailboats" <montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Thursday, May 07, 2009 7:27 PM Subject: M_Boats: How do you reef?