I have been sailing my H16 for a little over a year now. So I still have long ways to improve my skills with the boat. One of them is getting on and off the wire.
The dogbones hang so that when I'm hooked, but still sitting on the tramp, my behind will be slightly below the rail. So what I do is the following:
1. I hook up, I hold tiller in the aft hand and main sheet is in the forward hand. I cleat the main sheet.
2. I then push myself out a bit so that my behind goes over and slightly below the rail, but I'm still in contact with it. At this point I take a few seconds to stabilize the boat and myself.
3. I then start pushing myself out with my heels against the tramp and then I'm out.
The problem here is that very often I need to or I want to grab on the trap wire handle with my forward hand to help myself. BUT this is where I hold my main sheet! Once I put the hand on the handle, there is a lot of slack between me and the block, so that if a gust hits, I will first need to take the slack off and only then be able to react on the gust. Plus mainsheet likes to get entangled in the handle.
I also tried to hold tiller and mainsheet in the aft hand, while using forward hand to hold to the handle and push myself out. In this case I don't have any control over the mainsheet at all! So I did not like that either.
When I come back from the wire this whole commotion is getting reversed, but now I
must grab the trap wire handle to pull myself on the tramp.
The bottom line is that I'm very unstable while getting out or in. I'm most unstable at the end of step 2 and beginning of step 3 - I'm not out yet, and I'm not in.
I would like hear how you guys do this and please comment on my method.