I must admit that I’m moving further and further away from the idea of using the jib sheets as righting lines.
Firstly, as mentioned above, if using a continuous sheet it won’t reach to start with, and also agree about the awkwardness of getting to them when the fairleads are on the side benches.
As to the idea of righting the boat hove to with the genoa backed, this seems like a bad idea as half the time it’s a backed genoa that had you over in the first place!
I’d rather the boat came up beam on to the wind with both sails flapping, then there’s no chance of it “tacking on top of you” as you try and climb in.
Funnily enough, the last time I capsized was in a GP14 last September, which was due to the crew losing his footing during a roll tack and ending up falling on the leeward side of the boat with the genoa backed. I was able to spring over the side deck as it went over and straight onto the centreboard. I reached in and grabbed the weather jib sheet to use as a righting line but even at full stretch I couldn’t pull it upright due to the wind on the backed sail. In the end the crew chucked the leeward jib sheet over and using that it popped straight up.
I wouldn’t worry about overstressing the shrouds. I did a safety boat training course last year and one of the things we did was how to right a sailing dinghy. The practice boat was a Wayfarer which we turtled and then righted by tying a warp around the leeward shroud and chucking it over the hull forward of the centreboard. Then re-approach the boat from dead upwind, grab the end of the rope and reverse upwind under full power until the boat fully rights. Now that dinghy was subjected to this about 8 times on the day we were there, so if you multiply that by the number of courses they do in a season the fact that it remained undamaged says it all, especially as it was a rather ratty and uncared for MK1 GRP.
Bit like mine… 🙄
Anyone any suggestions on the correct length for a Wayfarer righting line?