Living with Lacing

An anonymous comment on my last post is worth pointing out:

Cap'n, if you'll re-lace your sail to the mast, not by whippng the lacing in a continuous spiral, as I see it in your photo, but instead come around, through a grommet and back around the front of the mast each time, you'll find that your sail hoists and can be pulled down far more easily.

Right you are, anonymous. Pete Culler, in his book Skiffs and Schooners alleges that around-and-around lacing will jam on the mast, while around-and-back lacing won't. I initially laced the sail around-and-around just because Chapelle's sail plan showed it that way. It did tend to bind on the mast when hoisting, though not when lowering. I tried it the way you suggest and I agree it it makes hoisting easier. Underway though, around-and-back lacing tends to pull the luff of the sail to one side or the other at each grommet. The luff needs to be hoisted tight, but the lacing need not be tight.

With a sprit rig, lacing the sail to the mast has to be done just right to avoid a tangle of lines, regardless of the lacing style. What causes the problem is the tackle for the snotter holding the forward end of the sprit. Each segment of lacing will snag on the tackle when hoisting or lowering the sail unless each one is lifted over the tackle. On my boat, the snotter goes from the end of the sprit to a block seized to the mast and down to a cleat at deck level. The snotter will tangle the lacing unless before hoisting it is rigged up  inside all the laces which will end up above the tackle and outside all the laces below it. With a lapfull of laces and snotter, it is easy to make a mistake. What I have settled on is to attach all the laces except the bottom three grommets, then run the snotter up and back down inside the laces and cleat it loosely, then hoist, then lace the bottom three grommets. The boat is small enough that I can reach them after the sail is hoisted. Finally, I take up on the snotter and secure it.

I can now well imagine what a welcome invention sail track was. I may convert my sail to slide up and down on a track.