In addition to standing rigging that holds the masts up a sailing boat needs running rigging, (ropes) that operate the sails. I wanted all these lines to finish up in the cockpit so nobody, usually me, had to venture on deck in inclement weather or rough seas.

Roller furling certainly makes sail handling easier, in that it is not necessary to pull the sails up and down every time you want to reef or furl a sail. However, these systems need more control lines and when you have five roller furling sails these ropes can become a bit cluttered. Luckily Britannia’s cockpit has a wide empty area on either side  of the companionway that we call the “rope decks, originally used for only a couple of lines. I proposed to bring in twelve.

The main components of this are:

The control lines, sheets, furling lines, lifts and braces for the squaresail.
Two banks of six rope clutches.
Two self tailing winches.
Two rows of five belaying pins.
                                               CONTROL LINES:

The controlling lines are modern double braid polyester, 3/8”, 1/2” and 5/8” inch diameters, depending on their job. These ropes are exceptionally strong with very little stretch and also nice and smooth on the hands. All these individual lines are shown on the sketch and consist of:

(a) four furling lines that wrap the sails up round their stays,
(b) three out-hauls that unroll the sails,
(c) three sheets that control the booms,
(d) two square-sail furling lines that roll the square-sail up and down.

In addition there are five other control lines, (sheets), that are bent on the clews of the sails and lead into the cockpit through running blocks and fairleads to their own winches mounted on the cockpit comings.

                                                                                 BLOCKS:

Blocks are roller bearing pulleys that lead lines along the deck and eventually to the cockpit. Britannia has 22 of these in singles, doubles and triple combinations. However, I could not find suitable blocks to carry my lines up and over the three deck levels into the cockpit, so I made my own, using very small diameter sheaves. I made one single sheave block, a double, a triple and a row of six.

                                               ROPE CLUTCHES:

These clutches allow ropes to slide through them but lock the rope when the lever is operated. They permit multiple lines to be used on a single winch. When a line is correctly tensioned on the winch the lever is applied that locks the rope and it can then be removed from the winch so that it can be used for another rope. Not all lines need to be attended at the same time of course and I arranged them so each sails lines are next to each other. This still means a lot of winch winding; for example it takes 19 turns to wind the squares’l up into its yard. To make this operation a lot easier I have a powerful electric winch winding machine called an Ewincher2 that takes all the effort out of winding the winches.

                                             WINCHES

Some of the winches were seized-up when I bought the boat, and a few of the internal ratchets were broken. They were all Lewmar so I was able to repair them. I then had all the winches re-chromed along with all other deck hardware that really improved the appearance of the boat.

                                                                                                BELAYING PINS:

These are my preferred way to to keep the lines tidy. Another way is to used bags but then the ropes don't dry out so quickly if they are wet. I also enjoyed turning the pins on a lathe and they look very smart and traditional. These is now our “rope decks” either side of the companionway and easy to reach.