How to rig a Dutchman Furling System and learn about my standing rigging.

Making sure your standing rigging is properly tuned and balanced is very important for the life of your standing rigging and mast. This boat was fairly new to me at the time, so you will see that I was finding all types of things such as a bird’s nest in the boom. One of the Dutchman Monofilament furling lines had broken, so this is also my first time figuring out how that system worked. As you will see, I had to bring the topping lift down in order to have access to the connection point for the line, after that I let it hang with plenty of extra line for when my sails came back from the loft. It’s important when running the line to start on the port side and then feed the line back and forth through the sail – not too tight – to allow for the sail to fill out on a down wind course.