Cunning Hams
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How does your cunningham look? Anyone have pictures they can share? How much purchase, run to cockpit or control at the mast? Our boat is a bit of a project situation, where the rig was removed (not by us) and since a lot of it is a bit tired anyhow we may replace or rejig cunningham, looking for reference points.
I mounted one of these blocks on the side of the mast (watch for boomkicker swing). It goes up to a single block that has a becket to attach a lead line to a hook for the main hole for Cunningham. Back down to becket or tied to base. Two to one is plenty. Could just use a cam cleat instead.
I like that vertical plate setup. The tackle we have is an old garhauer fiddle with a cam cleat on it so it may be OK to use, not as clean as the mast mount.
Mine is a hook a the end of a tail, tied to a 2:1 that comes down to a turning block at the mast base and leads to the cockpit. Most my control lines come to the cockpit. I single hand most of the time so I like it.
It’s common to have the cunningham hook into the cringle of the sail, but a lot of people seem to also like to run the cunningham through the cringle and deadhead it to the base of the mast. I guess this extra bit of purchase is helpful.
The choice between mast base control and cockpit or cabin top control is an interesting one. For our boat I think we’re going to short-hand enough that we have to have cockpit control but for course racing mast base control is better. So for a multi-use boat you have to try to anticipate a bit and make the controls work in two different ways.
I find Cunningham (tricky pig) rigging to be a matter of taste and what is available. My set up is an old line run from the cockpit thru a spare slot in a deck organizer to a turning block at the base of the mast. Up thru the main back down and tied to the vang attachment with a simple bowline. Most of the time I leave it loose and try to get the main halyard set properly first, adjusting tension during prestart then downwind legs. Some speed wrinkles are ok in my book. Cunningham comes on when its breezy and we really need to flatten the main. By the way does anyone still use the flattener reef in the main? Mine isn’t even rigged, but the cringle is there for it.
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