EDDIE Dunhill's comments regarding “new” inboard sheeting are a little astray especially in blaming the Mirror Committee in “allowing it”
—perhaps you can put him right.
Inboard sheeting, outboard sheeting, sheeting from the bows or the aft transom or anywhere else has always been allowed with the proviso that there is no alteration of position while sailing—this from Vic Shaw on behalf of Copyright Holders.
This was to prevent extra costs such as slides, etc., putting up the price of the boat. In 1964/65 some of the medium good sailors were experimenting with inboard sheeting at the inner edge of the side tanks and in fact early in 1966 I put blocks under the side tanks in M6330 to take fairleads the same as John Taylor had in case inboard sheeting paid off. Now John Taylor sailed far better than anyone else at that time and found it unnecessary to alter his fairlead position so it died out. Of course had he had inboard sheeting in those early days he would have won the Nationals three times just the same and equally obviously many would say it was just because he had inboard sheeting, because what is the first thing we all do? Inspect the winner’s boat for his magic recipe for success.
My opinion of inboard sheeting is that it takes longer to use efficiently and I am very dubious as to whether there is any gain upwind and, if so, is it not all lost reaching? As for having to get a different cut of jib or main I would just mention that sailmakers have to make a living and that most sails will work equally well whether inboard or outboard position of fairlead is used providing the helm and crew know what they are doing.
Over the years there have been minor modifications made to this safe one design boat to make it even safer and frankly I hope it continues because if it doesn’t the boat is either perfect in this imperfect world—or dying.
Roy Partridge, M15000.
Editors Note: This article is from Reflections No. 26 October 1976, page 2. It has been captured by OCR, so typos & errors are possible.
