I am continuing to work on re-fitting my Columbia 45 with Mike Conner’s continued assistance.
We are beginning to engineer running halyards and lines back to my cockpit. I have main, jib and spinnaker halyards as well as the spinnaker topping lift halyard. My current main has one set of reef points and I intend to have two sets when I build my next main, so I am planning for two reefing lines. We would like to know whether I should plan to run these six lines back to the cockpit or if there are additional ones that should go back as well. If we run more than six, we are aware of deck organizers that stack the lines so four can run back with two on top of two.
Do you recommend for or against stacking lines with deck organizers?
Can you give a recommendation on which lines/halyards you most strongly recommend running back to the cockpit? Thank you for your input. – Eric
Hi Eric: There is no easy answer. It is a question of extra lines coming aft and that complexity, vs. how often the extra reefs would be used, and the space available for the hardware and rope tails.
On our larger boats we often just bring the first set of reef lines aft, plus the spinnaker halyard and main halyard, and leave the rest at the mast. On the other hand, if you have the room, bring all the reef lines aft certainly eliminates going forward when you’d rather be dry in the cockpit.
Given the deck layout of the C-45 I think I would go for bringing them aft. – Steve
Posted by Steve Dashew (November 30, 1999)
