As you no doubt know, the gate is there to stop the sail falling out of the luff groove and when removed allows the sail to be changed, say for the storm trysail.

Yours does look to be somewhat high off the bailing hooks. This height was probably determined by the distance between the tack and the bottom sail slide. It is a good set up but as you have discovered, it is not ideal for fitting a boom bag.

Main sail operations are always carried out on the starboard side of the mast and head sail operations on the port side.

What you could do to facilitate the sail coming right down to the boom is to fill in the missing luff groove edges with stainless steel strips, bolted or riveted on the port side to be fixed, but on the starboard side pivoted from the top end and released at the bottom end by way of a large wing bolt so as to allow a gate.

The stainless strips don't have to be heavy as they will not be under any load. They will just contain the sail slide/s at a lower point when the sail is doused.

That is just my idea so see if somebody else comes up with better or more importantly SIMPLER.

You know the K.I.S.S. principle/rule. Keep It Simple Sailor.

Oh, I see what you're saying. Seems pretty simple. although will require strips of curved ss but if they don't need to take much load then they could be quite thin. Thanks Cisco. All other suggestions or insights appreciated.

By the way, my mast and boom winches and main halyard are to port. What behind this mast stb, foresail port thing?

If it was me and you wanted to remain using the reeding horns, I would remove the wing nut and bolt , get a piece of garden hose the length of that feeder slot and wedge it in , if I wanted to
remove /reef the sail off the mast simply pull out the hose...

1x 10 cent piece of hose , cut half a dozen of them in case you drop one ob or tie a lanyard on it so you can't loose it.

The other option is to not use the horn and put a block and tackle with a hook which would be long enough to reach above the feeder slot and reefed flaked sail and hook through the reefing Cunningham point . That way the hose or wing nut stays in permanently , your sail looks too high for this though ? , . The wing nut is a bad idea having to remove that at sea cos I can see that going over the side.

DrRog said..
By the way, my mast and boom winches and main halyard are to port. What behind this mast stb, foresail port thing?

Headsail halyards to port and mainsail halyards to starboard is a convention or protocol most people use and is generally accepted in the yachting fraternity a result of which is that when people crew on different yachts they don't have to relearn the whole sail handling system.

When you say your main halyard and winch are to port, I am thinking you may be using your boom topping lift (which usually doubles as a spare main halyard) as the main halyard and using your main halyard as a topping lift.

Have a click around here. Some of it is good.

www.google.com.au/#q=sailboat+running+rigging+diagram

Interesting principle Cisco (standardize on Headsail to port and mainsail to starboard). I will play closer attention to what people are actually doing down at the marina. I'll let you know the results of my random survey. certainly my boat has the headsail halyard is on the port side of the mast.