Adjusting boltropes

Hey all,

After a bit of advice to see if anyone has done this before but also a good bit of info!!

I brought a great condition 2nd hand main for my Etchells. It is beautiful and crisp and looks fantastic on the ground, however....
When I hoisted it I found it had heaps of extra sail cloth up the luff. It meant to get the luff creases out and get the draft anywhere near where it should be I had to pull massive amounts of cunningham on.
Now I thought it was because I wasn't getting enough mast bend, even though I was pulling a bucket load of backstay on (the backstay has a 12:1 purchase) I would get a nice tight forestay but still the main had terrible bags up the luff.

I have played with lots of stuff then I was googling last night and found that over time the dacron sail stretches and the 3-strand poly bolt rope shrinks. As the bolt rope is sewn top and bottom the stretch and shrinking causes all the sail to bunch up.

My plan this weekend is to unpick the bolt rope at the tack, hoist the main and then pull down the cunningham so the bolt rope disappears up the sail, then drop the sail and re-sew the bolt rope.
After some research i found this is a common thing and can also be done on older dacron headsails with hanks and a boltrope that seem to need a tonne of halyard to get the scallops out between the hanks.

Will take before and after pics and post them later!!!

You allowed near the boat?

Morning

We have done it for several sails .... re-phrase that, youngest does it (I just become the unpaid labour) as he is the sailmaker.

Before you do it tho' .... how much excess boltrope do you have out at the bottom ?? difficult to get back if it escapes up into the sail pocket. Sometimes easier to replace the entire boltrope leave a bucket load of tail at the bottom and then stretch it out.

We replaced a few of them as the particular rope they were using for the boltrope was shrinking, job is a bit of a pain but achievable. Big strong stitches to re-secure it afterwards

Easy way to check if it has shrunk, measure the luff length and compare to the class rules.

Rumble, definitely hand sew 2 feet of the same diameter rope to the end of the boltrope. Nothing wrong with releasing the tension but you'll want the boltrope the whole way along the luff tape on an Etchells. Once the ripe has gone up inside the luff tape, hot knife off the excess rope with a 6" tail again and bob's your uncle.

Jethrow