Catamarans like sailing off the wind, but the genoa car track is set well inboard, creating weird and inefficient sail shape. Fortunately, the Leopard 40 (and at least the L47) have amidships cleats located at just the right location to use a barber hauler rig to obtain better sail shape. Below is an example of the rig.
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| Genoa Barber Hauler |
We have a set of snatch blocks that can be located anywhere that we need a turning block. A 2 ft length of 7/16 line is tied in a loop, the snatch block is snapped into it, and it is attached to the mid-ships cleat. A sheet with a snap shackle is run through the block and attached to the genoa clew. The sheet is run to one of our winches, which requires another snatch block at the aft deck D-ring on the side where the genoa will be sheeted. It doesn't take much effort to setup or to switch sides when tacking or jibing. We do have to watch for the barber hauler sheet chafing on the lifeline - sometimes is makes more sense to run the sheet outside the lifelines instead of inside.
The result is a much improved sail shape for broad reaching.
-Terry
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