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Measuring the jib
Take the line and tie the middle of it to the halyard block. Then take the block as far as possible and secure the halyard to its cleat and clean the deck so that there will not be any mistake with lines.
Now the block is up and we have two lines coming down, one of them will be
the luff and the other will be the leech length.
Take one line and secure it on the traveler, with a little slack so that if you bring the traveler thwart ship 1 meter, the line is tight and no stretch is left in it. This is very important for the computing later on.
The rest of this length will go to the mast and from now on we call it the
“Footlength”.
The other line, the leech, is now pulled tight, this give you the leech length.
With the two lines it is now possible to find the position of the clew by moving
the foot line, up and down and the leech line fore and aft and at the crossing or intersection of the two lines is the position of the clew. The average for a normal jib is with this traveler position about 1 meter foreword of the mast and 1,5 meter above the deck.
Keep in mind the place were you secure the sheet line to the clew
this line must run 45 degrees to the clew so it will pull on the leech and on the foot with equal tension.
When it is determined where the best place is, knot the two ropes together to secure this position.
You now have the perimeter of the jib. It is best to take a few steps back and take a good look at it and be critical about your work. If it looks good, lower the jib halyard and measure each of the lines
with a folding rule or some other measuring device writing each of the measurements in a small notebook. It is best to write all your measurements down in tabular form:
Luff (length)
Leech (length)
Foot (length)
It is important to write the measurements down, do not leave anything to memory.
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