Barber Haulers

Alan Lucas says barber haulers keep side-decks clear and produce better upwind performance even on cruising boats.

According to Rick Grajirena’s contribution in the book, More Sail Trim, the Barber Hauler was devised by Lightning Skiff sailors of the late1950s, the Barber brothers in San Diego. In essence, their device is a small ancillary tackle set up to fine-tune sheet-to-headsail angle as well as to adjust the clew laterally to improve the slot between headsail and mainsail when beating (Diagram 1). Although created to enable more tweaking when racing, the principle is applicable to all levels of sailing, as in my Heath Robinson-type cruising variation that keeps side decks track-free and safer.

The true Barber Hauler is versatile in that it can also pull a headsail’s clew athwartships to fine-tune the slot between it and the mainsail. This is an important function, more or less depending on whether you are racing or cruising, and can be set up on a small athwartships track (Diagram 2). When beating to windward, the slot between sails is critical in that it should not be too open, allowing their aerodynamic collaboration to be squandered, nor should it be too closed, causing it to choke the wind-flow and ultimately back-wind the mainsail.

Despite producing an obstacle over which crew members are likely to trip, the athwartships track is less obtrusive than a longitudinal track thanks to its more easily remembered siting and minimal length. Also, it can be fully based on a strong sub strata member, such as a deck beam or bulkhead, making it less likely to strain the deck. Longitudinal tracks can cause leaks along the deck-hull joint because of the way they bridge over unsupported areas of deck.

For non-competitive sailors, the simplified Barber Hauler – we will call a ‘basic hauler’ (Diagram 3), eliminates - or at least reduces - the length of side deck tracks making them safer by de-cluttering these busiest of thoroughfares. The basic hauler can be as simple as a gunwale-to-sheet lanyard worked into a 3:1 tackle, the tail of which is forced down then tied off with a slipknot under the sheet.

This allows the headsail to be sheeted through a fixed turning block placed wherever a below-deck structural member proves suitable for the job, such as a deck beam, hanging knee, gusset, deck-shelf or chain plate. This eliminates deck clutter, but is too static to guarantee an ideal sheet-to-sail angle for all sail settings. That’s when the basic hauler is used to fine-tune sheet angles according to sail settings. It can also adjust athwartships settings depending on exact placement of the lanyard.

A basic hauler can be sophisticated by using a dedicated Handy-Billy tackle with a purchase of 3:1 or 4:1, depending on whether you want to pull the tackle’s tail up or down. Snap hooks on each block make for easy attachment and the bitter end can be secured to a nearby cleat, rigging screw or whatever, using a slip knot for easy adjustment and removal.

In action, the headsail is set according to course and wind and its sheet is cleated off, after which fine-tuning is achieved using the basic hauler while watching the sail’s response. Watch its leech. If it flaps while its foot is tight, then the basic hauler needs sweating down to change the sheet’s angle until flapping stops.

Before roller furling became common, the tendency was to have a wardrobe of two or three headsails that were changed according to demand, which meant changing their sheets’ respective angle of attack by moving the turning block. In those days, there was little argument against jib sheet tracks along the side deck. Now days, a roller-furled sail’s sheet angle is more or less constant and is thus less dependent on a moving block. The trick, therefore, when placing a fixed block for roller furling is to make sure it is a little further aft than necessary to assure that all Barber or basic hauler adjustments will be downward.

The Barber Hauler principle applies to all angles of sailing except when the sheets are freed. Once squared away, the realm of vangs and preventers is entered, although sometimes a form of basic hauler used to bowse down a headsail pole’s aft guy can be handy in damping the pumping action that sometimes occurs.

To summarise, the advantages of the basic hauler are; the headsail sheet’s turning block can be permanently fixed to a substantial base; the decks are free of potentially distorting hardware and the most used thoroughfare on all vessels is freed of obstructions. The downside is less convenience than a jib-sheet track and a permanently deployed Barber Hauler, but the upside is the fact that you get closer to the sail being tweaked and thus better placed for its monitoring.