Welcome aboard. This is where SAIL's editors take turns answering your maintenance and equipment questions:
Nigel Calder: Systems and mechanics.
Don Casey: Sailboat care and maintenance.
Win Fowler: Sailmaking and sail trim.
Gordon West: Electronic communications.
Submit your question
HERE. We cannot answer your question unless you include your name and home town in your email. Our experts cannot answer every query. We select questions that have the greatest general interest.
The Q&A begins below our sponsored links.
Tales That Tell
Friends tell me that putting telltales on my sails will help me know whether I am heading too high or too low. Can I install them myself and what can they tell me about what’s going on. Should I put them on the main and jib?
Jeremy Wells, Pensacola Beach, Florida
Win Fowler replies: Telltales help are great trimming aids. I put jib telltales 9--18 inches behind the luff and locate one telltale on each side of the sail. I like 6-inch lengths of green and red yarn stuck and will stick them on the sail with pressure-sensitive adhesive backed fabric dots. Recycled cassette tape and a piece of duct tape will also work. I put the green yarn to starboard and the red to port and put the green yarn 2 or 3 inches above the red one so I can see what both telltales are doing.
I will locate jib telltales at 25, 50 and 75 percent of the luff length. Because the bottom set is most often the one you can see from the helm you can use it to help you steer. Use the upper two sets to position the jib car leads: move the leads back or forward until the upper two telltale sets are behaving the same way as the bottom set. If all telltales are streaming aft together you know the luff of the jib is properly trimmed.
Flickering weather telltales indicate either that you are luffing and need to fall off, or the sail needs to be trimmed. Flickering leeward telltales tell you that you must either head up or ease the sheet until the flickering stops.
Racing headsails will often have three or more sets of telltales located at height that is 25 percent of length of the sail’s luff length up from the tack. The first set is six inches behind the luff with rest are spaced six inches apart. The front telltale tells you quickly if you are coming out of the groove-- and in which direction—and it will do so before you need to make a major helm correction.
Telltales on the mainsail are located at the outer end of the battens and they should always flow aft. If the sail is over trimmed the telltales will disappear behind the leech of the sail.
Boom’s Up
What is the best way to rig a topping lift? I’ve been using a pigtail that hangs from the backstay and I’ve attached it to the end of the boom. But I see a lot of different methods and wonder whether you might have a favorite set up.
Dave Hackett, Bedford, Nova Scotia
Win Fowler replies: A topping lift holds the boom up when the raised mainsail isn’t able to do so. A pigtail hung from the backstay is fine when the main is furled and covered, but if you want the boom to stay up while you are moving it athwartships- when tying in a reef for example—you need a different arrangement. A topping lift line that runs from the masthead to the end of the boom is a good arrangement and so is a set of lazy jacks. They are lines that run from both sides of the boom to points on either side of the mast. While lazy jacks keep the mainsail on the boom after the sail has been lowered, reefing and furling the sail can be difficult if the lazy jacks also have to hold the boom up at the same time.
Installing a rigid boom vang is another good option although it is not inexpensive. My own preference is to install a second sheave at the masthead that is large enough so you can use it to rig a spare main halyard. But don’t expose the halyard to UV degradation. Instead attach a light line to the halyard shackle and than run the line down from the halyard shackle at the masthead to the end of the boom. Tension the line enough so it keeps the boom off the deck or above dodger. But also make sure that it is long enough so that when the sail is hoisted the boom is supported by the leech of the main and not by the line.
If you don’t want a spare sheave at the masthead, dead end the topping lift up there and rig it so you can make the adjustments on the boom. A simple lashing can hold the line or, if you put a block on the end of the boom you can run the end of the line through it and forward to a cleat at the forward end of the boom. You could also run the topping lift line from that block on the boom down to the deck and then back to the cockpit.
