Sail trim like a pro! Barber Hauler 101 

Cheers Rafa! Stoked to hear this!

For sure a good old crab s perfect for the job, the o lay down side being they will usually be 6000 series aluminium and corrode. The other option is to have a friction ring on the sheet and leave it in permanently as per racking yachts. If you want to adjust it when close hauled you would probably need the 2:1 purchase on it but you could just pinch up a bit to adjust it. Still, what a cool and cost effective solution with multiple uses on board though! Let us know how you get on!

Thanks for the comment, so nice hear. Cheers!

Cheers Richard!

For sure.. maybe we should do reaching blocks together sometime! I reckon that could be fun day out!

@@SailHub think you need to come for a sail on the sunny south coast 👍

Wahey! Cheers guys✌️

Mate! Thanks, much appreciated👍

Glad to help out 👍

Clew about the clue 😂

My bad (Jenni) spellings never been on point haha 😂

Sounds an ideal set up! They’re great little gems onboard!! Thanks for the encouragement! 👊🏼 Lots in the pipeline.

Nice, let us know how you get on!

Sure, the Antal stuff is awesome. Race boats are using the barber as a reaching block in what you describe, they are also used for trimming as in haulers, down haulers and twinning lines. Such a useful piece of kit. As a boat builder I’ve used them for pretty much everything over the years! 👍

Hi Tim! Thanks for the compliments! Regarding your foresails, the barber will work well, careful positioning should give you a good sheeting angle as a down haul too, some times )like on our last boat) when we hauled in the leech would open at the top so we had an extra line to haul down and prevent it. Let us know how you get on! 👍

Yup, your right! As for spinnakers we can haul both down and in to achieve good shape, it super important (for me anyway) with the kite, it’s what allows us to trim it well and achieve the performance that it offers! It quite often that we see spinnakers up that are nit being utilised properly.

I have a downeaster 38 cutter that sails pretty terribly upwind. Often the current makes it where each tack is not gaining any forward motion, just going in and out. When I get too close to the wind I get no forward speed to overcome the current, and when I fall off the wind the tacks make little progress. Would this help?

@bullschitt3666 what a classy boat! I would imagine the keel isn’t really going to allow for great upwind performance but the barber is worth a try! I wouldn’t spend though, just tie a bowline around the sheet and haul it in/down or both to get the sail shape correct - also, I’m sure you already are but make sure your getting the mainsail to work with it using the laminar flow from the slot. Le us know how you get on!

Haha! Im not sure I can recommend it… it’s been away for weeks already with warranty and I’m told it could be away for a year. Tudor pelagos

@@SailHub Thanks! That's a pity. It looked very legible. At least it's under warranty!

@admacdo yeah. All good… unbelievable returns policy - expect to wait a year?! Whatttt! Nuts. Anyhow, it’s not the end of the world, I’m always late anyhow!

Good move, I like it 👍 We used a friction ring to save money. That way you can easily tack if needed. The cool thing with the Antal barber is we use it for all sorts, even our spinnaker blocks. Super useful piece of kit.

You could try it and it sound work, the only issue will be your cap shrouds chafing it. Just put a bowline round the sheet to try it out and see if it works for a short while.

Interesting question, it really is about speed vs pointing ability. If you point higher you go slower but your not going as far sideways. It’s about velocity made good as opposed to speed. However if you only use the barber to haul in a little, say enough to point 5° higher to maybe 38° off true wind you will probably not make much loss of speed at all and you get to your destination quicker due to less distance being covers in your tacks. I hope that make sense to you!

@@SailHub i own a pogo 650. On that boat the barber hauler I would say gives me about an extra 5° of point ability. And I lose about 10% of speed On my 36 bene a barber hauler would give me at least an extra 10° of point but I lose almost 40% of speed.

@@goodq cheers for chipping in! Super 👍 p.s… I would love to sail your boat!!

Sorry Dave, it was pretty simple though- just cleated it off on the midships cleat.

Hi, This was a demonstration to show how close we can sail with the Barbour hauler, however sailing this close is not really worth it as the speed is so low. The 30° was true wind - you may be able to see it in highlighted in the RayMarine instrument dial. With the barbour she can sail at 20° apparent although slowly. We tend to sail a decent speed at 30° to the apparent.

@@SailHub I usually understood this “Cruising monohulls sailing close-hauled can generally point 45 degrees true wind angle to windward while cruising catamarans typically sail close-hauled at 60 degrees. Many racing boats can point 35 degrees to windward and sometimes even higher.” With my boat sailing to less than 40º aparent is difficult, can’t believe somebody sails at 20º😱

Sure, without the Barbour we’re around 40°-45° and with it we’re much closer, the best angle is 30°-35° for us. At 4:40 the instrument ms clearly show what we’re sailing at - using the barbour with a jib makes a huge difference. Although, not all monohulls are the same - rig type and keel type will have an effect on how close you can get too. 👍

@@PaudolphyGmail Interesting piece of kit, thank you Sail hub for showing and trying it , like that it works as a snatch block,easy to put on and could see it as an improvement on jib clew position in some breezes.Would agree about the 20 degrees being hard to believe tho, would like to see all the instruments for such a claim (boat speed ,true and apparent wind speed with angle). Boat speed was 2.2. knots at 40 degrees apparent (3mins and 1 sec) then dropped to 1.1 knots at 30 degrees ( 4mins 40 secs). Boat speed has been cut in half . If I understand correctly , it's a balance between highest speed and the direction you want to go. Here I would suggest the higher pointing angle with the new jib clew position is a worse change . My understanding/reasoning/evidence is slower boat speed thru the water on a beat means less effective sideways grip/lift from the rudder and keel (am assuming a fin keel tho don't know for sure) , that means more leeway. Slower speed and more leeway means less efficient upwind progress. Efficient progress to windward, depends on a lot of factors e.g. wind speed, clew position as well as jib sheeting angle, forestay tension, main sail , heel of boat, sea conditions etc . In tighter on the jib clew doesn't always mean better for a beat. For all that ,great to see people experimenting with different gear and techniques.

Hey Paul, Your entirely right, pointing so high means less optimal use of keels and rudders etc and therefor more leeway and poor performance. We also loose speed when pointing so high. The idea of the video was to show what can be achieved if needed and encourage others to give the barber a try and maybe improve their upwind performance. I find it amazing how so many boats could be such better upwind sailors if they were only rigged a little different. So, 20° true is possible, however it’s at some where between 25° and 30° true where the performance starts to make sense and a decent velocity made good can be noted. Of course with greater wind speeds the effects make more sense as when we point higher we have more wind to power the boat at such tight angles. At the end of the day it’s all about VMG. I find the barber is a super simple and good piece of kit, pretty much all racers use them. It makes sense for long beats on a cruiser and maybe even to pinch super high once in a while to get round a mark if it’s quicker than putting a tack in. It’s also super handy to reuse the same barber for closing the leach on spinnakers. Thanks for getting involved and sharing your thoughts, I would love to hear how you get on if you give it a try. Cheers -Chris 👍⛵️

VMG in this instance was worse, but like I said, if you need to pinch up this works. If you have more wind you can of course achieve higher boat speeds and get yourself up to hull speed, but 10° closer which is why they are commonly used in racing.