I'm searching for some experienced opinions on CP16 boom reefing for the mainsail. I've got a '77 CP16 with boom reefing. I've used mine in lighter airs, but never much more. I'm wondering why it is not a common system. I'm aware that the more sail reefed, the more the sail is distorted. I've considered replacing it with Jiffy reefing or some similar system.
To reef my mainsail, I have to pull the boom away from the mast and rotate the boom at the gooseneck to roll up the main as I let out the main halyard. It seems like coordinating these actions could be tough if I'm bobbing about in rough conditions. Any thoughts? Thanks.
jkat
jkat, I had an 82 with the roller boom reefing too. Supposedly "what they say" is this is not as an efficient, thus popular means to reef in terms of sailing performance. You also can't run a boom vang, boomkicker or lazy jacks and reef so they are not often used.
However I liked the setup quite a bit when under fire to reef. So easy...release the halyard for a bit, pull out boom twist up the sail, push in the boom and tighten halyard. Done. What I especially liked is instead of just having 1 or 2 reef points, like on traditional jiffy reefing setups, you had many points of reefing available to you. Another bonus was you just rolled the sail up over the boom when moored without damaging the sail and messing with tiedowns. It was quick and easy.
Kinda miss the setup on my 19 but then again you just don't have the reef the 19 too often and it's not that big of a deal to do so when needed.