Main Sheet Management

suthera

Member
It seems to me that one of the least talked about topics in sailing a Laser is what to do with the thirty odd feet of mainsheet that we have to store in our small cockpits on the way uphill. There are so many great publications that discuss sail trim, strategy, kinetics etc, but this all counts for nowt when I go for a tack and find that my ankles are tied together.

I had a race recently were I found myself in a good position on the start line. I horsed the sheet in with 5 seconds to go.
Good start. I’m in the front row and matching those around me for speed and height.
After thirty seconds I notice the mainsheet is in a bit of a mess, caught over one foot and wrapped around the toe strap. I have to put my head and one arm into the boat to untangle. Those around me are working the boat with both arms and have their heads out of the boat looking for the shifts/wind further up the track. I’ve lost a bit while tiding up the sheet and am beginning to fall into the bad air of the boats below and above me.
I throw in a quick tack to clear my air. It’s a good tack as I’ve already untangled the main.
Unfortunately I’ve managed to wrap the main around a foot during the tack and I’ve got starboard tackers coming at me.
I thrown in another, hasty, tack and everything goes wrong. I stand on the main and can’t get my @rse over the side of the boat on the new tack. I’m steering with my arm behind my back and the hand with the mainsheet in it can’t move far enough out board to grab the tiller. I end up dropping everything and start going again. I’m now in the dirt of all the boats in front of me so I press on and ignore trying to untangle the main. This keeps me in touch but it all goes wrong when I try to get around the windward mark and find a bundle of main that won’t move anywhere.

I’ve searched through this site and see that the topic has been bought up before. But the discussion basically goes “deal with it” before moving on to a debate about what kind of main to use. Doesn’t matter if it’s a Rooster, Bzzzz, or a shoelace – I need to find a way of sorting this problem.

I’m interested to know what everyone else does with their mainsheet, from the start, and then how they deal with each tack ie:

When you horse in the main at the start, do you dump it straight to the back of the cockpit, over the legs? Or do you drop it in front of the legs in to the front of the cockpit. Or do you drop it on top of yourself and then put it away?
When going up wind how do you store your main? Do you have it running from ratchet to front hand, and then over the body to the back of the boat, or running from ratchet to front hand to in front of the legs. If it’s in front of the legs do you leave it at the front of the cockpit, or kick it back. And how do you go about tacking. Is there a careful technique for stepping over the main, or do you just let it tangle and then deal with it?

Hope this isn’t too boring, but if I lose any more places due to my main I’ll have to consider something radical, like cutting off my feet. Cheers.
 
I think mainsheets causing problems are pretty much a fact of life in a Laser. I tend to make sure I get 1 arm load of sheet on the front deck by the centreboard as soon as I've gone round the mark or tacked so that I've always got slack to trim. Then I'll constantly be working on the sheet but with my eyes out of the boat keeping it tidy. I prefer to keep mine in the front of the cockpit where its out of the way of my feet and if I'm on a long beat I'll keep pulling armloads up to get most of the sheet on the front deck. The problem with that is you have to remember to get it back into the cockpit just before you tack and keep the boat flat (never a bad thing!) otherwise it can slide off into the water.
 
Loved this message as it goes to all the problems that we have with the Laser and more so as Alex does not agree with me that we need a longer mainsheet. What is the ideal length of mainsheet, and then what do you do with it? Steve
 
What is the ideal length of mainsheet, and then what do you do with it? Steve

Just long enough to let the boom out to 90 degrees and a bit more depending on how/where you like to sit and how you like to hold your arms when sheeting. You need to be able to comfortably sheet in when btl wherever you're sitting in the boat. Tie at least a figure 8 knot about 20 cm from the end to stop it pulling through the block. Some people tie the end to the toestrap but I've never liked doing that.
 
It all boils down to keeping your sheet together. I always try to keep mine kicked to the back of the cockpit.
 
Tying off the end of the mainsheet to the hiking strap where it connects at the back of the cockpit does help keep the sheet from forming a really bad knot that you can't just pull out somehow. I do a lot of mainsheet mangement by feel, so I can keep most of my head out of the boat while untangling a knot. I live where it is warm so I can sail barefoot, and I have found I do a lot of management with my feet. I can feel where it is in the cockpit and keep it off my ankles without even looking down most of the time.
I didn't realize how much of a role my feet played in this until I put boots on for a cold blustery day. I capsized to windward in one of those psycho puffs and found myself dangling by my ankle when I tried to jump over onto the daggerboard. I had no clue the main was around my ankle because of having the boots on. It was not a Robert Scheidt moment. Other people hate sailing barefoot because they get the sheet caught in their toes.
Keeping it kicked to the side of the cockpit where your feet aren't is good, as is just constantly checking on it from time to time, especially if you are tacking a lot. I hate getting to the windward mark on a choppy day when your cockpit has been half full of water for the whole beat and you're ready to go downwind and have some fun, only to find your mainsheet has become a huge wad and you can't sheet out past 50 degrees and if you focus on untangling it, you'll miss waves and/or wipeout immediately.
 
there is one pro who gets a new mainsheet every 2 regattas to mainatin stifness which is an extremely important part of your mainsheet. the stiffer your mainsheet the less of a chance it will get caught on something or get tied in knots.
 
Hi Suthera - extreme empathy with your plight.
Like Michelle I sail barefoot to help stop the main sticking to my feet/boots. And like you I often find a loop around a leg especially after a few hectic tacks. I try to keep the sheet at the back of the cockpit mainly to keep it as far from my legs as possible. I've tried all 3 methods of tracking the sheet from my front hand to the back of the boat - in front of both legs, between my legs and across my lap/behind both legs. I find it best to have the sheet between my legs. Like that, it seems when I tack that it ends up between my legs again - esp with stepping the back leg over the strap first. If I have it in front or behind my legs it gets tangled around my legs more easily.
And as Michelle says - try using the feet to kick it around at any available quieter moment to keep it sorted.
From the start I guess you might have more sheet to deal with than on a tack as you'll be sheeting in from eased way out. Try to sheet in with the double hand method so you can use your tiller hand to throw the excess sheet to the back of the boat as you sheet in.
 
It helped me a lot to tie the free end of the sheet to the hiking strap fitting at the back of the cockpit. I have a lot fewer foot-strangling moments.
 
When I originally started this thread I was hoping to find a silver bullet solution to prevent my main sheet getting in a mess. I’m now, somewhat agonisingly, coming around to the view that there is no perfect solution. What this thread might of achieved is to stimulate some good discussion about why our main sheet’s tangle up and what we do about it. Thanks to those who have stuck their own experiences here. The subject has also been discussed previously in this forum here:

http://www.laserforum.org/showthread.php?t=6788&highlight=mainsheet+tangle

A couple of regular bloggers have also recently been broaching the subject.

http://propercourse.blogspot.com/2007/10/i-can-tie-knots-with-my-feet.html
http://litoralis.blogspot.com/2007/10/science-of-knots.html

As of last weekend I just got frustrated with this problem, but didn’t spend too long thinking about why this was happening. As a result of the above discussion here are my thoughts:

  • Footwear is important. 2 people have suggested that sailing bare feet is the way. I wear the Zhik boots, and now that I think of it the main sheet defo sticks to them a bit. Not badly, but enough to assist the main into tying itself around my foot. I’m way too soft to go bare foot. So from now on extra attention on keeping the feet as far away as possible from the sheet in the cockpit.
  • I love Tillerman’s description of frontendians and backendians. I too have tried both and can confirm that the sheet still wins. I would however point out two things I’ve noted. When I have the main stashed at the front I am less likely to get it wrapped around my feet during a tack, but more likely to have a ball of mess to deal with when I go around the windward mark. Conversely, when I stash it up the back (and tie to the foot strap) I have a terrible time trying to tack, but easing the main out at the windward mark is far easier. When I ask good sailors around my local district for their secrets most say they just kick it backwards. But in Ben Ainslie’s book I notice he has it coiled up in a very neat pile in the front Starboard corner.
  • Until reading through all of these accounts I never really thought about why my main would get noted in a ball. Several people have mentioned that having water in your cockpit is the problem. On reflection I would agree entirely. That nice coiled pile gets thrown about everywhere like it’s in a washing machine. I guess the only thing that can be done is to try and limit the amount of water that gets into the cockpit (not easy in a chop) and to switch on to potential tangles more when waves wash water into the boat.
  • Everyone has the same problem. I recently watched a DVD of the final Laser race for the Sydney Olympics. The footage wasn’t good enough so that I could see how everyone was organising their mainsheets. But when they went round the leeward mark everyone ended up with mainsheet all over the place. They are obviously horseing the main in as the first priority, and then taking the time to clean up once they are going upwind.
For me I think the best thing is to keep it forward as I really can’t tack at all with the main sheet coming anywhere near the back of the boat. I’ll just have to be ultra organised at the windward mark to ensure a smooth rounding. No doubt I’ll change my mind 1 Billion times with each future disaster.

Thanks again to those who took the time to contribute your thoughts. At time of this post there were 9 replies and 289 views. Does this mean that 280 of you don’t have this problem? Feel free to let us know your own experiences. Remember – there is no right or wrong answer.
 
Occasionally I find that the sheet has worked its way round my ankles, but not often enough that I would call it a major problem. I have found that whatever boat I have sailed (mostly Enterprise but Laser fairly regularly the past few years), I know to flick the mainsheet away from my feet once I'm through a tack, it only takes a second if you make sure you do it every time you tack. In the Ent (transom sheeting) I make sure the trailing sheet is behind me, but in the Laser I have it in front of me - basically making sure that I am not between the block and the trailing sheet, if that makes sense. I find that it tends to fall nicely across the toestrap, just behind the block, and doesn't slide around too much once it's there. When I tack my feet are around the centre of the cockpit too..

Loz
 
The problem with bunching the sheet at the block is that in most conditions, (flatter water, medium/moderate breeze) you should be sailing sitting at the forward edge of the cockpit with your feet under the strap just behind the sheet block. This would put the mainsheet all over the top of your feet. You start moving back when the breeze and wave conditions pick up.
 
Yes, I agree the mainsheet always gets me in trouble, and just at the wrong time.
A few weekends ago I was racing having just had an awfull first beat, followed by a stunning downwind leg that had got me into second place at the leeward mark. So I was feeling pretty good as I sheeted in to go round the mark- only to find that instead of one piece of mainsheet coming through the block there were three. I soon realised that this would cause problems and it did, it took me 30 seconds of unravelling and by the time I had it sorted I was back down the pan again.

What had happened was that a spare fall of sheet had dropped onto the correct piece of mainsheet and as I sheet it in , the correct piece sucked the other bit in and out the other side. It will not happen again!!!
 
Take heart yee tangled racers! The culprit may be the type of line you're using and not you! I recently purchase "Racing Sheet" from a well-known mid-atlantic distributor. This particular sheet is touted as the ultimate newest greatest sheet since sliced bread. The feel is great - it's soft, light and flexible - it's fine in light winds but once the breeze picks up BEWARE - it gets wet, and sticky and is prone to knotting. The softness of the line works against you when the wind picks up. It tightens up on itself which is a total bummer especially when you have a great windward mark rounding in front of most of the fleet but you can't ease the main because of a BIG HONKING KNOT! :eek: (but I'm not bitter) I only use it now for fun sailing and in places where I can get back to the dock if the wind picks up. So consider a stiffer line - OH and do as mother always said tiddy up! She'll be proud of you.
 

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