Online Book: Sail Handling and Rigging Made Easy

Which of the three common cruising rigs is best? Like so many things around voyaging, all three have advantages and drawbacks. John takes a deep dive that will help you pick the one that’s right for your needs and then shares his two favourites, one for offshore and one for inshore.

A headsail that is not protected from sun damage when furled, will only last a season or so. So what’s the best way to protect the sail? John has some suggestions.

John has long advocated for preventers rigged from the boom well outboard to the bow as the only right way. We now have solid engineering, and a tragedy, to show how important this is.

Earlier in the summer, John wrote a rigging tips post, which was popular and also spurred several members to share more really useful tips. A win, win. So here’s another post in the same vein.

John puts his lazy streak on display with five rigging hacks to do less work, but still do things right.

In the previous four parts of this series on mast tuning, we got all the basics taken care of, now we just need to go sailing to complete a great tune.

Setting up a rig to be safe and functional offshore is all about getting the details right. Here are some vital things to know and do.

John bored you to death with a lot of mast tuning theory in the last chapter, but here’s the pay off: a step-by-step guide that will yield a good tune every time.

In Part 1 we got the mast upright in the athwartship plane so it was not leaning over to one side or the other. Now let’s set the fore and aft rake and bend. But before we set off on that long and winding road we need to make sure we know what the destination is, and that’s what this chapter is about.

Getting the rig properly tuned is vital for any sailboat, but it’s not easy to do right. John takes the mystery out of the process with a step-by-step procedure that works.

The loads on a modern offshore cruising boat are substantial so we sailors need to really think about how we handle them. John discusses two common mistakes and what we can all learn from them.

Details matter on an offshore cruising boat, and nowhere more than the running rigging. John shares how to select the right rope diameters, attach sheets and halyards to sails the right way, and keep chafe from ruining your day.

We offshore sailors are presented with a bewildering array of options when buying rope for running rigging. John demystifies the process and makes detailed recommendations, including brand names, based on decades of experience, together with recommendations from one of the best riggers in the business.

When we have a problem on our boats, it’s always tempting to try to fix it by adding gear, but often a better approach is simplification. We look at mainsail hoisting as an example and provide several tips to make the job easier.