Looking for guidance on setting sails

[jburke313]

OK, my prior experience sailing was on windsurfers for many years.
After many years of no sailing, I obtained my Mistral 16 this spring.
I have sailed her only a few times and once the sails are up I am
generally OK and need to practice to get better. I was wondering if
anyone had advice on rigging order, so as not to get beat to death by
the sail as I try to rig it with only two hands. Here is what I
currently do:

put boom in place with all rigging

slide sail into boom

hoist sail up mast

It just doesnt seem to go as smoothly as it sounds when I list it out
here. How do you all do it? Is it easy to do solo or is it a challenge
for you seasoned sailors?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Jon

[Albert Rietema]

General idea is:

Turn bow of boat into the wind before rigging. When sail is in the boom and you are ready to hoist her up, make sure you leave a lot of slack on the main sheet. This allows the boom to move a bit and avoids craziness. Because you already parked your boat straight into the wind, the sail should be 'in irons' and won't do much to your boom.

Some people prefer to rig the boat/ hoist the main sail while she's already in the water. I don't.

Anybody else some comments? ...I am a windsurfer as well and relatively new to the sailing. Just bought a Hobie Getaway. Getting it in 3 weeks :-)

Albert.


> Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2010 07:43:01 -0700
> Subject: Looking for guidance on setting sails
> From: jbur...@comcast.net
> To: Sailing...@googlegroups.com