Harken Triple Block System - Harken have a reputation in the sailing industry of producing some of the very best blocks and cleats, in the form of both quality and performance.
Given that de powering a Topper is the most important factor in breeze, this is the best tool to do it.
The most effective and easiest to use downhaul for a Topper is this one.
Straight 6:1 purchase system, using ball bearing blocks and dyneema rope for most affective use.
It is a clip and use kit, we have rigged it for you. There are some extra instructions also included.
There are some substantial benefits of this downhaul over the cascade version:
- not being able to run out of travel,
- not having to go forward after the bear away to release the downhaul, this massively reduces the chance of nose diving.
We have carefully chosen the blocks we use in this system....
* Bottom triple becket fiddle block - with a swivel and including an upgraded fairlead,
* Top triple block - compact size (16mm) rigged 90 degrees out from the bottom fiddle block allowing it to slide effortlessly past the boom, and with it being 16mm you can pull more downhaul on without running out of travel plus included is the upgraded multi angle fairlead.
We often get asked why we don't rig our triple downhauls with a splice rope above the top block connecting it to the sail.
We don't use one for a few reasons...
- Sailors were running out of travel and therefore the downhaul was not being effective, this was due to having a larger 28mm triple becket fiddle block at the bottom which sits further up the mast (with the smaller 16mm top block and rigging it correctly it does not affect the boom in any way when being pulled on and off),
- We believe having the larger bottom block which does sit further up the mast is important however so that the control can be changed on both sides of the boat easily, it will sit above the kicker and using the swivel it easy to adjust.
- It is not true that with a splice you have less rope in the boat when pulling the downhaul on to its maximum. With or without a splice its still a 6:1 system. So when the downhaul get pulled on and the sail comes down 1cm there will be 6cm of rope going through the cleat and therefore into the boat. This is why the pvc handle needs to be right up against the fiddle block cleat when the sail is fully off. This will help to minimize the rope into the boat.
How to rig?
Please see the datasheet
