Adding a Cunningham to my 110 Jib

My two 150% genoas already have cunningham grommets installed from the sail maker and I use the cunningham on them all the time to tension the luff as the wind picks up. I wanted to be able to tighten up the luff of my 110 jib while it was under a load without having to retension the halyard. This is an original sail from 1977 but it still has a lot of life in it and I expect to use it quite a bit on Lake Chelan.

First I simply added a small brass grommet to the luff and thought that would have enough strength for the job. The first time I used the new cunningham, I tore it out of the sail. So I repaired the torn section and started thinking about a better way to add the cunningham tack.

Then I decided I needed to sew a webbing along the luff to add the required strength for the cunningham. And instead of a grommet, I decided to simply have the webbing loop through a stainless steel ring on the port side of the sail. The advantage of the ring on one side of the sail instead of a grommet through the sail is that I can then attach the cunningham hook through the ring from the sail side of the ring and the sail will help hold the hook inplace when the sail is down on deck. That should help keep the hook retained in the ring during the hoist.

Here are a couple of pictures of the new installation.

   
Click images to enlarge

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