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the
Jib Cunningham
Our jib
has the luff wire inside a sleeve of sailcloth. The head is
attached
to the wire, but
the
tack is loose and needs a jib cunningham. Our jib cunningham is
dead-ended
through a small eye-strap just to port of the centre-line of the deck
as
far forward as we can get it. From there, the 4-mil. pre-stretch
rope (dead-ended with a Figure Eight knot) goes up through the
cunningham
hole in the tack and comes down to a parallel eye-strap with microblock
on the starboard side. Finally, the rope runs aft through our coaming
to
a silver clam-cleat with a lead (CL211) or a good cam cleat near the
mast.
(see
attempt at diagram below, plus photos)
.....
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...
Upwind,
we tighten the cunningham enough to stretch our (shrunken, 5-years old)
luff tape a bit but stop short of stretching the actual sailcloth in
the
luff unless the wind really comes up and we need to move the draft
forward.
NOTE:
If your jib is fastened to the luff wire at both ends, you need
to make sure that your luff is not automatically given a cunningham
effect
as you tighten the halyard (and thus, the jib luff wire) - i.e. if your
sail cloth has shrunk, then the cloth will stretch it as the wire comes
under tension and you will have a vertical cloth wrinkle just aft
of
your luff wire! This is horribly slow - especially in light
airs!!!
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