Hi Rich,

The Westsail I owned from 1982-85 had a traveller bolted across the deckhouse and mid-boom sheeting. I have the same arrangement on my current Nordic 40 and I think it works very well. It keeps the mainsheet out of the cockpit, and also gets it above the lifelines so it doesn't chafe there. The traveller also enables better control of boom and sail shape (and there's no room for a traveller on the aft end of the Westsail cockpit). Spread the load on the boom a bit, as Brian points out. I also agree that lazy jacks are easy, cheap and work pretty well for furling.

I am traveling so don't have access to photos, but if you look at my blog you can find a few photos that show the traveller. In particular the last photo of "South Pacific 1982-84" and a few of the photos from the Southern ocean preps/voyage. I might be able to find others once I get back to my boat in a few days.

Max

Edit: I highly recommend a fully battened main, as has been discussed here several times by many folks. Also, I put a lot of stress on that boom during some of those voyages, and it held up fine