Rick, Does the M17 have a halyard organizer plate under the mast? http://www.dwyermast.com/items.asp?cat1ID=40&cat1Name=Hardware&familyID=19&f... You can attach the lead blocks to the plate and mount the actual fairleads in front of the sheet stoppers - No holes near the light :-) Doug Kelch JDavies104@aol.com wrote: During the long winter evenings I have been thinking about modifying my M-17 standard rig to lead both halyards and a reefing line to sheetstoppers (main halyard and reefing line to starboard, jib halyard to port) on the cabin near the cockpit, and being new both to the boat and to single-handing would appreciate any advice from old hands who have been there and done that. For example, the cabin dome light is right below the starboard base of the mast and seems to get in the way of mounting turning blocks, and there is very little space around the forward end of the teak trim beside the hatch for mounting cheek blocks to turn the lines toward the cockpit. I have also wondered if there are any tricks to changing headsails when single-handing to minimize the chances of water-testing my Type V PFD. Thanks in advance for any thoughts, Rick ************************************** See AOL's top rated recipes (http://food.aol.com/top-rated-recipes?NCID=aoltop00030000000004) _______________________________________________ http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/montgomery_boats --------------------------------- Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now.

Rick, there is a good write up of leading lines aft at http://www.blumhorst.com/potterpages/linesrunaft.html . Although a different boat the concept is the same. I have put on the Dwyer plate organizer on my M-17 as the first step. Of course when I brought up the old mast step plate a good part of the outer gel coat came with it. It seemed that there might be some water intrusion below the plate. I put some west system epoxy to fix the outer layer of gel coat and also made the holes for the through bolts a bit wider, filled them with some more of the west system epoxy to seal the core of the cabin top drilled them out and got some longer bolts to put it all back. By the way, it took quite a bit to drill the holes through the Stainless line organizer plate from Dwyer; but this is an area I am ignorant of so I probably was doing it the hard way (as ever). Used up a few bits. The next step is the costly one where line clutches are required. I have other corrections/projects to do before buying the clutches. And then I figure roller furling as well. As near as I can tell, unless you are a supreme sailor like D Kelch (whom I have seen dancing about the fore deck while single handing and still under way) the approach for head sails is roller furling. Robbin JDavies104@aol.com wrote:

During the long winter evenings I have been thinking about modifying my M-17 standard rig to lead both halyards and a reefing line to sheetstoppers (main halyard and reefing line to starboard, jib halyard to port) on the cabin near the cockpit, and being new both to the boat and to single-handing would appreciate any advice from old hands who have been there and done that. For example, the cabin dome light is right below the starboard base of the mast and seems to get in the way of mounting turning blocks, and there is very little space around the forward end of the teak trim beside the hatch for mounting cheek blocks to turn the lines toward the cockpit.

I have also wondered if there are any tricks to changing headsails when single-handing to minimize the chances of water-testing my Type V PFD.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts,

Rick

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