Purchase in the traveller: is it legal?

cabalar

cabalar

New Member
Recently I've seen a purchase system in the traveller: no blocks, just making a knot in the traveller cleat, then sending back the line to pull from the traveller Y and finally once again to the cleat. You can apply much more force in this way.

I was planning to use it, but someone has also told me that this purchase is not legal or that it shouldn't be done. Is that true?
 
The over-riding rule is that "if it doesn't say you CAN do it, then you can't". Doesn't matter that it doesn't say you CAN'T do it. (I can feel a G&S song coming on)
 
If my memory is correct, it actually says in the rules that the traveller line shall be run as a single closed loop, with no additional purchase... or something like that!

I cant find my rulebook :(
 
see 3 (h) i

...It shall be rigged as a simple closed loop through the traveler eyes and the free end passing through the traveler cleat.
 
I looked in the Laser rigging manual(provided by Vanguard) and it clearly show and directs you to tie an overhand knot where it intersects the first bowline. It then says to tie a bowline handle. I do not see these addressed in the rules.
 
An overhand knot over the bowline doesn't alter the fact that you've made a 'simple closed loop'.

As for handles:
3 ix. Rope loop handles covered with plastic/rubber tube and/or tape may be included anywhere on the free end of a control line.

Hope that helps. Andrew
 
whats the point of having a purchase? theres only so much you can tighten the traveller before it rips the eyes out the boat and makes it impossible to tack?
 
Yellow said:
An overhand knot over the bowline doesn't alter the fact that you've made a 'simple closed loop'.
Click to expand...

Many of you will already know this but I have spent nearly 30 years in and out of lasers wondering why people tied this knot rather than just running the tail through the eye on its way to the cleat. I only discovered the obvious last season.

If you tie the overhand knot in the loop way too short (i.e the triangle formed by the traveller is much flatter than it would naturaly lie). When you pull the traveller tight at the cleat you are gaining a massive advantage in the same manner as pulling a bow string (God a digram would really help here but I don't know how to!). Once you try it, it will be obvious and for the first time I can now get my traveller as tight as I want it!
 
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