Disadvantages of endless mainsheets?

[Ian McColgin]

Ahoy,

For a truely endless sheet, you'll need a long splice running through large enough blocks that it does not even begin to add new resistance.

But that aside, try tying the ends together and you'll see why this idea doesn't work too well. Sooner or later you'll be letting out one side and the only slack is from the coil or spilled pile on the other side - You'll be pulling line from the bottom and likely get a tangle.

Far easier is to get used to knowing how to counter the random walk of the sheet, or even the non-random walk if as a right hander, you tend to turn aft and trim or ease mostly on the port side. Use some different coloured tapes or whipped on threads to mark center at the closest block and a couple of symetrically colored marks on each side moving out with the sail eased.

I use a first off-center mark to one side at boom out to tight reach with all the easing taken from one side and the second a bit before beam reach. Just a bit more and the sheet's gone unless one eases from the other side. These marks make it easy to choose which side to trim or ease to keep the sheet a bit more closely centered, where that's desirable. Sometimes, as when sailing a shifty wind on a reach that wanders back and forth from tight to beam, it's best to trim and ease just one side.

G'luck

Ian