30U Mainsheet Length

Questions & Answers
1

The owners manual specifies a mainsheet length of 90’ for a 30U. Have other owners been satisfied with a mainsheet of that length? My current mainsheet, purchased many years ago, measures ~80’. I’m not sure why it is so much shorter than the specification. I suspected it was too short because I have never been able to let the boom out beyond perpendicular as I have heard others report doing. Will 90’ permit that or will I need more? If insufficient for that, how much more do I need? Any guidance welcome. Thanks.

2

I have a 110’ main sheet and have on occasion used almost all of it but I don’t have any full length battens. Apparently the practice of letting the boom past 90 degrees can damage bat cars and track so if you have full length battens maybe a previous owner restricted the sheet to prevent such damage.

3

I’ve never been able to set the boom forward of the mast, either. I don’t race and I sail in the bay only while going to and from the ocean. So I usually try to avoid direct downwind courses. I recently replaced my sheet with the length specified in the manual and it is much longer than the old one (which I’ve never measured.)

I haven’t had the opportunity to see how far out it will go now, but I probably will at some point. There are no full battens in the sail and the cars are attached to the sail with webbing, so I guess it’s properly setup for it. Hopefully that will be an interesting experiment but not an exciting one!

So far the only differences I’ve seen are that the longer line costs more money and adds extra bulk in the cockpit.

Brian Godfrey

4

Just some random thoughts…

I wonder if excess sheet length might serve a few of the following purposes for extending the usable life of the line:

  1. Room for tying knots, although that only would add a few feet to what’s needed
  2. Room to get more life from the line by reversing it when worn, while making sure that the parts that got the most wear don’t end up in a critical position since they’d now be at the tail
  3. Room to cut the line shorter if just reversing it isn’t enough

These all assume that the worst wear and loading is near the ends rather than in the middle of the line.

Or maybe they just thought it’d be good to have some margin in case people decided to play with how they route their rigging and came up with a plan that needed a few extra feet.

I tend to buy my lines longer than spec’ed, since I figure it’s easier to shorten them than to lengthen them if I change my mind about what I need after they’re in place.

– Bob
Me Gusta
Nonsuch e26U #233

1 Like
5

I suppose it varies with the sailor and how they use the boat. I don’t get the impression that the PO sailed the boat all that much, though maybe they did for a while and tired of it. There was no serious wear visible on any of my running lines, but most of them are exposed to the sun all year round and so the outer layer was severely UV damaged. (The only exception was the sheet where I put those bungee snubbers on and the UV damaged fibers broke down fast.) So I don’t think switching them or cutting them shorter would have helped anything. But I sail as often as I can - aiming for once a week, though not always hitting the target. So maybe my new lines will develop wear in certain areas where these measures would be helpful.
I did put one of those anti-chafing sleeves over the sheet where the bungee snubbers go. The last time I was out the winds were light and so I did some jibes and found that they absorb quite a bit of shock even with the Viper rope that I used to make the new sheet. I feel pretty good about that setup now.

I bought all lines based on the owner’s manual, but added extra if I was planning to splice an eye. Unfortunately, though the sheet ended up pretty long, the halyard ended up just barely long enough - and that was after I added three feet in case I had to cut off and re-try my splice. (Fortunately, I did not!) So for anyone with a 33, you might consider adding more than 3’ to the halyard length specified in the manual.

My old halyard was spliced onto a bare 5/16" shackle so the bend was pretty tight. For the new halyard I bought one of those shackles with the built-in blue piece that creates a larger radius in the eye. Since all of the strength is in the core, and Dyneema apparently doesn’t like tight bends, I am hopeful that will keep the line strong for a long time.

BTW, those didn’t seem like random thoughts. They seemed cogent and based on experience to me.

–Brian Godfrey

6

Thanks for your thoughts on this Paul, Brian, and Bob. I don’t have full battens or Tides track so I think I’ll go with 110’ just to see what happens when I let it all out. Thanks again.