It's a liros magic pro sheet that comes with a spectra core. originally its only a 6mm rope but i removed the core and added another 4mm core inside the core. the extra core fattens up the sheet just nicely.

24x4mm = 96mm or 4 inches there abouts. but the splice has no structural value as the core runs the entire length of the sheet without joins and carries the load.

Pepin, your right about the taper, havnt finished this sheet yet, just happened to be making a new one tonight.

so you have a 6mm outerbraid with a 4mm core ...

shouldn't it be 24x6mm? (144mm /5.7inches)

New wildcats have a 11:1 main sheet. Bit overkill i think, thinks it o just try and outdo the infusion, but 11:1 is too much on a f18, 10;1 is plenty. Bundy had cut his down to a 9;1

I think they put more purchase on the Wildcat mainsheet because it has a fatter head and shorter foot thus requiring more force to "close" the top.
Personally I think 9:1 is fine.

I like the first setup Tornado posted (maffioli swiftcord to dyneema), any chance to find instructions somewhere to do this???

I still like 8:1 - it takes a lot of muscle, but you can actually trim from the skipper position with an arm movement.

Andrew, the 6mm outer becomes a 4mm line without a core in it. have a 6 inch splice if you want, not going to hurt either way.

Jake, when you move onto a sail with 1 meter square top you need less travel to have the same effect. I agree 11:1 is too much, I find 10:1 is over the top sometimes.

We use an 8:1 with the Harken 75mm block at the bottom. This seems to reduce the sheeting effort vs. the 57mm and you avoid the extra rope of the 9:1

I use a double braid and bury the cover into the core in a taper splice. I don't weave the cover through the core - just a straight bury to keep things smooth. I lock stitch at intervals along the double braid and once in the buried cover section to keep things secure. I don't whip - this stiffens up the line and screws up how it runs through the blocks. I use 3/8 regatta trophy braid and replace the core with 1/4" spectra. I then splice in 3/16" spectra into the 1/4" with a taper splice.

Doing splicing on old sheets is a lot harder than starting out with brand new line. In fact sometimes if a sheet has been loaded up hard it is impossible (or certainly beyond my skill level) - so do yourself a favor and learn your taper splicing craft with some new line - just sacrifice a couple of feet for experiments.

Splicing robe line or maffioli swiftcord can be a little fiddly. One secret I found is to extract the strands you wish to trim for the taper starting at the end and working back towards where you want to cut. This is different than working with 12 strand single braid high modulus (e.g. spectra or vectran) where you can pull the strands out right where you want to make a cut. The 'fuzzier' robe line seems to snaggle up if you try and pull out a strand all at once.

Use the resources on the yale and samson websites for splicing instructions.

Main sheet size is a trade off - if a sheet is a little larger there will be more friction through the blocks - so it won't unsheet quite as fast and there will be more effort required to sheet in vs. a thiner line. On the other hand - a larger sheet can be more comfortable to pull on under high load. This can make it more likely that the sheet will be played in a puff rather than leaving it where it is and steering. The longer you are on the water the more this can matter - so skinny sheets might be a better choice for buoy racing vs. distance racing.

Chris.

I agree if you are sailing around a buoy course with refined upwind sailing. However, we often find ourselves (in distance racing) on a gonzo reach and the 10:1 is just too slow to get back in after a gonzo blast.

Thanks to all that helped with data

I love my 10:1 and you'd have to pry it out of my cold dead hands before I go back to 8:1. Real skippers trim their own main :-)