When crewing...and you are out on the wire, Where do most of you have your jib sheets? In front of the shroud wire or behind it? Cheech hates it when I have it in front of the shroud wire (He feels its tougher to unsheat altho I feel no diff.) Second question.... Do you wrap the jib sheet around your hand or just grip it tightly?
Depends on whether we're close hauled or reaching. Close hauled I like the crew to be forward, so the sheet is in front of the shroud. Broad or beam reach we are both back aft to avoid the a p.p. i found it's easier to uncleat in front of the shroud cause the sheet to cleat distance is shorter, giving better leverage. Although it's tempting for a better grip, I try not to wrap the either sheet around my hand. Should we broach, I don't want anything to keep me from bailing to windward.
I have always had my jib sheets in front of the shrouds. I did have the problem of not always being able to uncleat whenever I wanted but then I changed to newer cam cleats and the problem went away.
you can put it where the skipper likes it,, ha ha just kidding, I don't care where it is as long as you can uncleat it. especially when its blowing 20+ waahooo wind. cheech
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When on a easy double-trap beat (upwind) I will usually have the sheet in front of the shroud. As the wind builds you may have to move back and take the sheet with you behind the shroud.
On any type of reaching you HAVE to have it behind the shroud to get your weight back.
Wrap if you like, just be able to get you hand free in the event of Cheech pitch-poling your A@#%$!
All get comments on where to place the sheets I just wanted to add one comment. When you have the sheet behind the shrouds if you pitchpole you should hang onto the jib sheet. When you pass forward during a pitchpole the sheet will actually pull tight and preventing you form going around the front of the mast or hitting the bows or something. Thats if you remember to hang onto the sheet line when you pitchpole. You may damage a jib sheet block when it pulls tight but better a jib sheet block than a human part. Boat parts can be replaced but human parts are harder to replace. You should also have sailing gloves on as rope burn sucks and wrapping a line around your hand is not always a great idea because if something bad does happen you may brake a finger or crush your hand. Sheet lines can sometimes move faster then a person can react. We had a local sailor who broke a finger because he had a sheet line wrapped around his hand, just something to watch out for. Once again pitchpoling on a H16 is highly over rated but just like on any cat it can and will happen.
I agree totally, but I never crew anymore - I guess I'm too busy loosing as skipper! Time to crew for some A-fleeter again. I believe Chong only wraps the line once which is easily dropped, how about takin him out some time for fun, to show him some of the finer points of crewing without beating him up about it. He learns fast but I'm not capable of teaching him anymore, not only am I busy learning to skipper, I don't crew much either. I would say my learning curve is still on the steep side.
I'm looking forward to the point when I can still learn alot, but not so much so fast.