hectoretc wrote:I sort of got it in my mind from reading the basic "raise the sail" comments and instructions that the halyard was used to simply pull the head of the sail to the top of the mast, and the tack or cunningham? was used for tensioning the luff, using gravity as your friend. Is that thinking inaccurate? It this kind of thing more needed for racing types of sail control, or is it completely a personal preference thing?
I realize much of this may become obvious when I actually get onto the water, but since that's not going to happen until the ice comes and goes, for a few more months, all I can do is practice and prepare in my head.
Take the jib. Many jibs have a wire running in their luff. By tensioning the halyard, you tension that wire. That will have two effects. You'll control the "sag" of the luff, and you change the overall forward tension, so the mast rake changes. Being able to adjust these is for different wind strength is useful. (Jibs may have a Cunningham as well, which would tension the sail cloth, not the luff wire). Chris' setup is for a jib halyard tensioner.
On the main, the pull from the halyard will be countered by both the luff and the leech tension. The luff tension you can influence by the Cunningham, the leech tension will depend on sheeting, and perhaps a bit on the outhaul. But you are correct, there are a number of boats that are designed to have a halyard lock - a ball on the upper part of the halyard, right where it comes out of the sheaves, will be locked in a sort of hook. In those designs, the halyard tension is not adjustable.
(The main advantages of a halyard lock are to cut the length of the halyard that's subject to stretch under sailing loads, thus making the system low stretch. And, at the same time, the compressive load on the mast is only half.)