Unstepping the Mast at Sea

The problem with the mainsheet cleat on the islands is that unless you physically hold the sheet up, it can cleat itself. I removed the cleat, routed the mainsheet through a plastic block attached to the underside of the front Aka bar, and then have a standard small plastic horn cleat next to the seat on the gunnel on the starboard side. It's easy enough to throw a loop around it to take pressure off my hand/arm when I want, but can be quickly "uncleated" just as easy. It saves of a lot of hand-arm movement and won't cleat when you don't want it to. I find it a real time saver and something that makes the boat much easier to sail.

Tom, I've had 3 AIs and an AI 2, and I don't remember having a problem with the main cleating itself. Of course, I'm sure it depends how, individually, we handle the sheet. Now that I think about it, I usually have the main cleated. Maybe that is the difference. When do you have yours uncleated, so that accidental cleating is a problem?

Keith

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2015 AI 2, 2014 Tandem

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex ... It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction." A. Einstein

"Less is more" Anon

Mine is only cleated when the boat is on the trailer. NEVER when it's on the water, unless the sail is furled. This is probably a habit from sailing overpowered boats like the Weta, H16 and H18, where a cleated sheet on even a remotely windy day will have you upside down in an instant. Even though the Islands aren't overpowered, I tend to actively sail them whenever I'm underway, which means having the sheet uncleated. Where the cleat was located on the aka bar meant that to work the sheet you had to keep it up high enough so that it never dropped down on the cleat, whereupon it would cleat itself if you sheeted in.

Again, I'm always cleated on the water, so I depend on being able to release the sheet on instant demand. That is why I moved my AI 2 main cleat back along the coaming. As the saying goes, "different strokes for different folks."

Keith

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2015 AI 2, 2014 Tandem

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex ... It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction." A. Einstein

"Less is more" Anon

Doubtful you'd get into trouble with an AI or TI doing it that way, but these other boats don't easily uncleat when a gust hits and suddenly you've got a ton of pressure on the sheet and cleat. That's where my habit of almost never cleating comes from.

Again, the AI and TI are hard to get into trouble with. They offer a lot of options insofar as how folks decide to handle the controls.

I also moved the cleats further back as I didn't have total confidence in being able to uncleat the sail when hit by a hard gust. I had a couple of close calls when it took a couple of attempts to uncleat the line. Hence the modification. I did something very similar to Tom and it works extremely well.

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