Converting to German mainsheet system

[Tillsbury]

My mainsheet is currently on a 5:1 tackle to the traveller on the coach roof, and back to the cockpit on top next to the halyards. I’m thinking about converting it to a German system with two small winches right by the helm stations, just to make it easier to control singlehanded. There are good places for the winches. I was wondering whether anyone had tried doing this and had any suggestions, particularly for redirecting the sheet around and down to deck level to run back. What haven’t I thought of? What sort of winches might I need? I might increase the advantage to 6:1 just to give a little extra oomph when it blows.

[Delu]

Hi Tilsbury
Have you completed the changes yet? I am looking at doing the same to my 473 for the same reasons, my system is 5 to 1 but by changing the turning blocks to doubles and feeding the lines down each side deck I will have a 10.1 if I pull on one line so I may remove one or two blocks, may be a case of trials to see which is best.
My old Jeaneau 38 had a traveler across the bridge deck with a twin continuous sheet which was 4.1 if you pulled both together or 8.1 if you pulled one.
I assume your boat has two helm positions as has mine this means it is difficult or impossible to pull both sheets at the same time in m case I can add jamers on each side and share to Genoa winches as required. The one area I'm not sure about is the strength of the side deck where the sheet would come down from the goose neck, this deck position will need to take a lot of loading, so not sure how much reinforcing to add to that area below deck!
I am interested in your thoughts or the outcome of your modifications.
Fair wind
DELU

[Tillsbury]

No, this hasn't come high enough up the priority list yet. Good point though about the 2:1 being part of the deal when you have a single line. My trouble is going to be finding a way to lead the sheet neatly to the back without it getting in the way of anything else or being a tripping hazard (or going through so many blocks friction becomes an issue). Since there is obviously some work to do I'm thinking of bringing the traveller back to the same point and preventers too. It would be nice to have all three neatly back to the helm, and doing all of them at once would let me make more use of the winches when combined with triple stoppers.

I don't know of any new boats that have this system (mainsheet/traveller/preventer all running to each helm position). I try to spot such systems to find out if there are any tricks I should be thinking about.

[Tillsbury]

Well I’m still no nearer to finding anything out about this. There are plenty of discussions about it on small boats but none on larger ones I can find. This thread is what tends to come up when I search for information

I’m also considering the alternative, which would be having a double main sheet system. Advantage: the traveller is entirely removed from the equation so I can trim the main properly from the helm with only one line each side. This would require substantial strengthening in the coachroof where the sheet comes down, but both sides are above the heads and so this is certainly possible. Has anyone used this system on a larger cruising boat?

The objective is to get both main sheet and traveller controls right back to the helms so I can actually use them without having to go to the front of the cockpit (or worse, around the front of the sprayhood) all the time.