esterday I found myself sailing aboard a yacht built last year, clearly to a price. Instead of a mainsheet traveller, she had a length of skinny Dyneema with an eye worked into the middle to which the lower mainsheet block was attached. Without a traveller – today’s equivalent of the classical ‘horse’ – no modern bermudan sloop can be sailed properly upwind in light airs or, some might say, in any airs at all. This vital piece of gear allows the sheet to take its part in controlling mainsail twist by assisting the vang as it tensions the leech. Classics that predate the 1950s generally don’t have a permanently rigged
