Crossword clues for preventer
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Preventer \Pre*vent"er\, n.
One who goes before; one who forestalls or anticipates another. [Obs.]
--Bacon.One who prevents or obstructs; a hinderer; that which hinders; as, a preventer of evils or of disease.
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(Naut.) An auxiliary rope to strengthen a mast.
Preventer bolts, or Preventer plates (Naut.), fixtures connected with preventers to re["e]nforce other rigging.
Preventer stay. (Naut.) Same as Preventer, 3.
Wiktionary
n. 1 One who, or that which, prevents. 2 (context nautical English) An arrangement, made with ropes and blocks, that prevents the boom of a sailing boat from performing a jibe. 3 (context nautical English) Any of various lines set up to reinforce or relieve ordinary running or standing rigging.
Wikipedia
A preventer, or jibe-guard, is a mechanical device on a sailing vessel which limits the boom's ability to swing unexpectedly across the boat due to an unplanned accidental jibe.
During an unplanned accidental jibe (or gybe), neither the crew nor the boat is set up properly to execute a planned jibe. As a result the uncontrolled boom will swing across the boat potentially inflicting injury or knocking crew members overboard. The mainsheet or traveller can also inflict serious injury. Uncontrolled jibes may also damage the boat itself.
Rigging a preventer on a yacht's mainsail is often performed when the wind is behind the beam (i.e. when it's coming from more than 90° off the bow). It can also be useful at other times when there is more swell than wind, a situation when the wind may not have the strength to keep the boom in place as the boat dips and rolls.
On any boat that is sailing downwind without a preventer, strict 'heads-down' procedures must be enforced anywhere within the boom's arc. Certain areas of the side-decks and maybe the cockpit also have to be strictly 'no-go' to all crew depending on what the boom and mainsheet could do in unchecked full swing.
The preventer with the most mechanical advantage is a line, from the end of the boom, led outside the shrouds and a long way forward - perhaps right up to the bow - through a block, back to the cockpit and secured within reach of the mainsheet.
Many cruising sailors prefer to rig two tackles (port and starboard) that run from the midpoint of the boom to blocks on a track such as the headsail-sheet-block track. These tackles are typically a 2 - 4 part tackles for greater purchase. This rig can also be used as a boom vang without taking up space under the mast that may be essential to the cruising sailor for dinghy stowage and other uses. There is a possibility of breaking the main boom with a preventer rig such as this, but many modern yachts are considered to have short enough booms and be beamy enough to overlook this possibility in normal use. For example, while running with the preventer cleated, a large swell could roll the boat, dipping the boom end into the water, snapping the boom in half.
Care should be taken when selecting the rope which is used for preventer lines. To reduce the shock loads on the tackles, for example in an unexpected jibe, three-strand nylon line may be preferred over of braided cored line.
Usage examples of "preventer".
Preventer, or Inner Breeching, will be found indispensable to avoid accident when running out to leeward in a sea-way.
On such an occasion the preventer breeching is invaluable, and will be the best safeguard, if fitted so that when well stretched it will not permit the fore trucks to ascend on the curve of the Fore-hurter, for it is this which strains the strap of the Compressor.
Preventer Breechings were then fitted, and answered so well that the practice was continued at sea as usual.
Humming Scottish tunes, he spent hours by the preventers under the floor of the derrick, busying himself with a magnetograph and making notes.
Once the yards were braced to satisfaction, and the preventers and parrels rigged, it was time to layout on the yard.
Surprise was a well-found, weatherly ship, and she rigged preventer backstays, braces, shrouds, and of course stays throughout, as well as rolling tackles, a full suit of storm-canvas bent well in time and her topgallant masts struck down on deck.
Lewrie took hold of the preventer backstay that was already twanging with the weight of the men who had pre- ceded him and began to descend, after glancing over to sting Rolston with a smug look.
He took a death grip on the preventer backstay and locked his legs about it tighter than a virgin, without a further bit of thought.
Many a watch had been spent in sending up preventer backstays, braces, shrouds and stays and in attending to new earings, robands, reef-points, reef-tackles for the courses and spilling-lines for the topsails, to say nothing of new sheets and clewlines fore and aft.
The sea was heavy, and we were compelled to put a purchase on the fore and main yards, with preventers to windward, to ease the launch in going over the side.
He would give it another preventer travelling backstay, and if that did not answer he would turn to his old caper of getting light hawsers to the mastheads, however uncouth it might look.