Tangled mainsheet

Hi,
How you avoid tangled mainsheet when tacking. I'm always have a bad time with my mainsheet lately. The mainsheet always get in my foot.
 
It may be the braid of line. Most lines have a tendency to twist and get tangled. Rooster makes a Laser mainsheet that is twist resistant. Mine still gets twisted unless I take care of it. When I'm rigging I throw it out in the water or on the lawn and carefully coil it in arm length coils. Then I rig it.
If it is really bad sail up wind and throw the whole thing overboard and drag it for awhile. It will unspin and will not twist.
 
I find one thing that helps it to untie the loose end of the mainsheet and walk it out running your hand along the length of it (do this twice) and then re-tie it off this will help.

This is because it help untwist the outer core relative to the inner core.

All you need to do then is stop it tangling round your feet...pretty much impossible I find!
 
Like Jeffers says....
Personally I got fed up of 1 - the skin ripping braid on braids, 2- the daftly thin 'cheese wires', 3 - birds nests and cockpit pythons ...
Got a bargain deal on a huge length of naked 9 mm dyneema.... It's like cuddling your favourite duvet...no tangles, soft yet not slippery, it floats, runs through the blocks like a Jamaican, on top of that it's properly co-ordinated colour wise.
Others see it and ask about it, the usual self justification remarks with all the reasons they have what they have appear but fade once they pick it up and hold it, ego people go silent, the honest and happy smile and ask where I got it..
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Meant to say...thoroughly recommended... Expensive but IMHO worth it
Also helps to keep your cockpit as dry as possible, you could ' train ' yourself to throw the spare sheet over the t strap and forward all the time so it becomes second nature....
With your leading foot nudge it all forward as a habit also.
 
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Whenever I've tacked of gybed I kick all the mainsheet lying on the floor to the front of the cockpit. Whenever you notice the mainsheet taking over the cockpit, kick it all to the front, I find it helps.

Also a tip I read in Paul Goodison's book on sailing the Laser, tie the end of the mainsheet around the front of the hiking strap fixing, it does 'help' to prevent tangles.

Hope that helps,

Dave
 
I do this Dave...it helps but I still find it wrapped around one of my ankles at least once each race....usually at a vital moment too when it seems to get attracted to it!
 
All good tips so far. Try this as well, which has helped me. After each tack, take an arm's length of slack mainsheet and lay it on the deck in front of you. This way you will have enough line to ease and trim through the next tack and not worry about it being tangled around your feet.
 
I've just changed the boots I wear, also. My previous pair had a pull-on strap at the rear and a velco strap over the top of the foot. Needless to say both of these helped pick up the mainsheet and tangle it around my foot! Not that I totally avoid getting tangled now, you understand, just a little less often :rolleyes:
 
Try the Rooster 6 mm poly lite, it's thin and resistant to kinks/tangles, you may need to get a new main block but personally it is the best line I've used, I don't really have any trouble with tangles,

This is what Andrew uses as well, watch his tack to cross the fleet:

 
This is what Andrew uses as well, watch his tack to cross the fleet:

He was lucky and the tack was very tight. a more aggressive racer in the 180 numbered boat might argue that he did not keep clear. Remember you do not have to impede or cause a course change to not keep clear (Ben Ainslie lost a protest in the 2004 Olympics the the French guy if memory serves). There was no contact and no avoiding action required but as the sailor thought he might need to that was enough to get him a DSQ.

Aside from that good technique especially in the tack but he does seem a little too far back in the boat to me (for flat water sailing), might just be the camera angle though.
 
Meh.... Windward telltales are all over the place, ass down hiking - bent spine, not as flat as could be.
Nonetheless, that 6 mm sheet turns into a cheese wire when the breeze gets over 15 kts.
 
He was lucky and the tack was very tight. a more aggressive racer in the 180 numbered boat might argue that he did not keep clear. Remember you do not have to impede or cause a course change to not keep clear (Ben Ainslie lost a protest in the 2004 Olympics the the French guy if memory serves). There was no contact and no avoiding action required but as the sailor thought he might need to that was enough to get him a DSQ.

Aside from that good technique especially in the tack but he does seem a little too far back in the boat to me (for flat water sailing), might just be the camera angle though.
Even simpler, Go Pros are technically illegal equipment on a laser when racing. Ditto, GPS and other tracking devices.
 
Interesting to note in the video, around 13 minutes, that he also got the mainsheet caught around his feet! It's not just us then :D
 
I personally don't worry about where the mainsheet is or if it gets tangled.
  • Before you tack slide each foot out so that it not going to inhibit your tack.
  • Before you go around the top mark, run the mainsheet out on the deck to make sure there are no knots.
Hence it becomes a rope maintenance issue. I've found that almost any rope can accidently knot up and to rely on it not knotting up without checking before going around a top mark is just asking for a problem.

The worst thing you can do to a mainsheet is coil it up when you put it away as you put twists into the core and that will help develop knots in the future. Either leave the mainsheet loose in the cockpit or just pick up as it lies and throw it into a bag.
 
The worst thing you can do to a mainsheet is coil it up when you put it away as you put twists into the core ....

Agree, I've developed the habit of flaking along the t/s....despite having no core. It also lets the rope breathe after the rinse
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