Barber hauler: what it is and how to rig it

A barber hauler is a simple adjustment system that moves the jib sheeting point sideways, pulling it inboard or outboard from the fixed position of the sheet car. It lets you fine-tune the sheeting angle continuously, closing the sail up when you are hard on the wind and opening it out on a reach, all without shifting the car along its track. Most cruising and racing crews rig it with a low-friction ring, which deflects the sheet to a new pull point with almost no friction and nothing to maintain. Get it right and you gain pointing ability upwind, more power off the wind, and a cleaner slot at every angle in between.

What a barber hauler is and what it does

Every jib sheet leaves the clew and runs to a car on a track, and that car defines a single fixed point through which the sheet is trimmed. The trouble is that the ideal direction of pull is not fixed at all: it changes constantly with the point of sail, the wind strength, and the sea state. Hard on the wind you want a narrower sheeting angle, the sail pulled closer to the centreline, so the jib helps you point higher; crack off onto a reach and you want a wider angle, the sail swinging outboard, so it opens up and generates power instead of stalling. The barber hauler bridges that gap, letting you pull the sheet toward a point different from where the car sits and adjusting the angle smoothly rather than in the coarse steps a track allows.

Where the name comes from

The device takes its name from the Barber brothers, American sailors who popularised the technique on small racing boats. They needed a way to control the sheeting angle beyond what the standard fittings offered, and the secondary line they used to haul the clew across became known simply as the barber hauler. Today the name describes any line whose job is to drag the sheet or the clew inboard or outboard to change the angle of pull. The origin makes the idea clear: it was never meant to replace the primary trimming hardware, only to add a dimension of control the hardware could not reach on its own.

What problem it solves

Think of the jib as a wing whose shape and angle of attack you are constantly managing. Halyard tension, sheet tension, and the fore-and-aft car position all shape the sail, but none of them controls how far inboard or outboard the clew is pulled. Without a barber hauler you are locked into the athwartships angle that your track and toe rail happen to provide, and on many boats that is a compromise suiting neither tight upwind work nor powered-up reaching. Adding a line that pulls the sheet across unlocks the lateral dimension: you can sheet harder inboard to squeeze extra height in flat water, or ease outboard to open the leech and keep the flow attached as you bear away. It is one of the cheapest, lightest upgrades you can make to a headsail's trimming system.

Inboard versus outboard barber hauler

There are two directions a barber hauler can pull, and although the hardware is nearly identical, the effect on the sail and the situations that call for each are quite different. An inboard barber, often called an inhauler, drags the sheet toward the centreline and tightens the sheeting angle. An outboard barber, sometimes called an outhauler in this context, pulls the sheet toward the rail and widens the angle. Knowing which one you need at a given moment is the heart of trimming a barber hauler well, and the table below summarises the two at a glance before we look at each in more depth.

Type	Pull direction	Effect on the sail	When you need it
Inboard (inhauler)	Toward the boat's centreline	Closes the sheeting angle, sail sheeted harder and flatter	Hard upwind, flat water, light to medium wind
Outboard (outhauler)	Toward the rail or toe rail	Opens the sheeting angle, sail more open and powerful	Off the wind, reaching, when you need power and width

The inboard barber (inhauler)

The inhauler is the darling of the racing fleet. On many modern boats the jib track sits well outboard, and even with the car pushed all the way forward the sheeting angle is wider than a fast upwind trim wants. By rigging a line that pulls the clew a few centimetres toward the centreline, you narrow that angle and let the jib point closer to the wind, squeezing the boat higher without stalling the sail. This is most valuable in flat water and moderate breeze, where the extra height translates directly into distance gained toward the mark. As the wind builds and the water gets lumpy you usually want to ease the inhauler again, because an over-tight inboard angle chokes the slot, so it is a live control you play with the conditions rather than a set-and-forget trim.

The outboard barber (outhauler)

On cruising boats the outboard barber is often the more useful of the two, because cruisers spend a great deal of time reaching rather than beating. When you bear away onto a reach with the car in its upwind position, the jib is sheeted too tightly for the new angle, the leech hooks to windward, and the sail loses drive. Pulling the clew outboard toward the toe rail opens the whole sail, lets the leech twist off, and restores a clean flow that pulls the boat forward instead of sideways. It is the difference between a jib that flogs and complains on a broad reach and one that sets like a wing and adds real speed. Because the load on a reaching barber is often modest, this is exactly the kind of job a low-friction ring handles beautifully.

How to rig a barber hauler with a low-friction ring

The simplest and most reliable way to build a barber hauler is around a low-friction ring, a smooth-bored alloy ring that deflects a line through a change of direction with very little friction and no moving parts at all. Because there is nothing to seize, corrode, or wear out, it suits the semi-static, load-and-hold nature of a barber hauler far better than a conventional block would. A ring like the easysea Olli is light enough to leave rigged for a whole season and strong enough to take the loads a headsail generates on a reach. The rigging is straightforward, and once you have done it once you can set it up again in minutes.

Step by step

1. Choose the deflection point. Decide where you want to pull the sheet toward: a strong point out at the toe rail for an outboard barber, or a padeye and strop leading toward the centreline for an inboard one. The point must be able to take the full load of the sheet, so favour a proper deck fitting, a padeye, or a lashing around a strong base rather than a light accessory.
2. Attach the low-friction ring. Fix the ring at that point using a strop closed with a soft shackle or a simple passing line. A Dyneema soft shackle keeps the connection light, snag-free, and easy to move from one point to another as conditions change.
3. Lead the control line. Run the sheet itself, or a dedicated line that grabs the sheet at a point, through the ring and back to a cleat or a spare winch you can control from the cockpit. Keeping the tail within easy reach means you can trim the barber on the fly.
4. Trim and adjust. Hauling in on the control line drags the effective sheeting point toward the ring; easing it lets the sheet float back toward the car. Because the ring adds so little friction, small adjustments give you an immediate and predictable change in sail shape.

Why a low-friction ring is the right tool

It is worth understanding why a ring, rather than a block, is usually the smarter choice here. A barber hauler holds a load steadily far more often than it renders line under load, and that semi-static duty is precisely where a low-friction ring shines: it is lighter, cheaper, and completely maintenance-free, with no sheave bearings to grease or flush. A block earns its keep only when a line runs constantly under heavy load, which a barber hauler rarely does. To dig into where the line falls between the two, the guides on what a low-friction ring is for and low-friction ring or block walk through the trade-offs. For a barber hauler on most cruising and club-racing boats, the ring wins on simplicity, weight, and cost.

Barber hauler and the sheeting point: working together

One of the most common misunderstandings about the barber hauler is that it somehow replaces the jib car. It does not: it complements it, and the two controls work on different axes to give you complete command of the headsail. The car adjusts the sheeting point fore and aft, governing the balance between how hard the foot and the leech are pulled and therefore how much the sail twists. The barber adjusts the sheeting point sideways, governing how far inboard or outboard the clew sits and therefore the angle of attack across the whole sail. Only when you coordinate both do you get full authority over the shape and angle of the jib at once, and neglecting either leaves performance on the table.

What the car controls versus what the barber controls

Picture the sheeting point as a location on a two-dimensional grid on your side deck. Moving the car forward or aft slides that point along the fore-and-aft axis, tensioning the leech as you move forward and freeing it to twist as you move aft, which is how you match the sail's twist to the gradient of the wind. Moving the barber hauler slides the same point along the athwartships axis, inboard for a tighter angle and outboard for a wider one. Because these are independent axes, you can set your twist with the car first and then dial in the angle with the barber without one undoing the other. Learning to think in both dimensions at once is what separates a jib that is roughly trimmed from one that is genuinely fast.

Reading the sail to trim both together

The telltales and the leech tell you when the two controls are in harmony. If the top telltale stalls while the bottom flows, your twist is wrong and the car needs attention; if the sail backs near the luff at an angle where it should be drawing, the athwartships angle is wrong and the barber needs a pull or an ease. Upwind you generally want the leech roughly parallel to the centreline with the top telltale just on the edge of stalling, and the inhauler helps you achieve that without over-sheeting. Off the wind you want the leech open and the whole sail breathing, which the outboard barber delivers. Clean trim also depends on clean boat handling, so pairing good sheeting-angle management with tidy tacking techniques for performance noticeably improves both your height upwind and your speed on a reach.

Setting up for different points of sail

A barber hauler is not a control you set once and forget; it earns its place by being adjusted as the point of sail changes. The rig you leave on deck should make it quick to switch from an inboard bias upwind to an outboard bias off the wind. Below are the two situations where a barber hauler makes the biggest difference, along with how to approach each.

Upwind in flat water

This is the inhauler's home ground. In flat water and light to moderate breeze the boat can carry a narrow sheeting angle without the sail choking, so pulling the clew inboard lets you point noticeably higher for the same speed. Start with a modest amount of inhaul and watch the speed on the instruments and the feel of the helm: if the boat slows or the helm goes soft, you have pulled too far and the slot has closed, so ease back until the flow returns. As the breeze builds or a chop develops you will want to release the inhauler progressively, because a wider angle keeps the boat moving through the waves. The inhauler is a gear you shift, not a lever you jam on and leave.

Reaching and off the wind

When you bear away, the outboard barber comes into its own. As soon as the apparent wind moves aft of the beam, the upwind sheeting position leaves the jib sheeted far too tight, so pull the clew out toward the rail to open the sail and let the leech twist off. The improvement is often dramatic: a sail that was flogging and stalling suddenly fills, sets like a wing, and adds a knot or more of boat speed. On a long reach it is worth taking the time to set the barber properly rather than living with a half-trimmed jib, because the gain compounds over the miles.

Common mistakes to avoid

A barber hauler is forgiving to rig but easy to misuse, and a few recurring errors account for most of the disappointment sailors feel when the gains do not appear. Being aware of them from the start saves a lot of trial and error on the water. The three below are the ones that come up again and again, whether on a cruising boat setting up an outboard barber for the first time or a racing crew chasing height with an inhauler.

• Over-hauling the sheet. An excessively closed angle, whether inboard upwind or simply over-trimmed, chokes the slot between jib and main and kills the flow. Pull only as far as the telltales and the speed allow, and back off the moment the boat slows.
• Forgetting the car. The barber works with the sheeting point, not instead of it. If you leave the car in the wrong fore-and-aft position, no amount of athwartships adjustment will fix the twist, so set the car first and then refine with the barber.
• Loading a weak deflection point. The load has to land on strops, padeyes, and strong deck fittings, never on a light accessory that was never meant to take sheet loads. A failure here happens suddenly and can be dangerous, so build the anchor point to take the full working load with margin to spare.

Gear and materials for a barber hauler

You do not need much to rig an effective barber hauler, which is part of its appeal. At the heart of the system is a low-friction ring sized to the sheet it will deflect, a strop to attach it, a soft shackle or lashing to close that strop, and a control line led back to a cleat or winch. Choosing a purpose-made low-friction ring rather than an improvised fitting matters, because the ring's bore is polished and radiused to protect the line and shed load smoothly, and a quality ring will outlast several sets of sheets. The easysea Olli Flex family of low-friction rings covers the range of sizes and load ratings most boats need for jobs exactly like this. Size the ring to the line running through it and to the load you expect at the deflection point, and keep the strop short enough that you can reposition the ring easily, because that versatility is much of what makes the system worth rigging.

Frequently asked questions

Is a barber hauler only useful for racing?

Not at all, and this is a common misconception. While racing crews love the inhauler for the extra height it buys upwind, cruising sailors arguably get more everyday value from the outboard barber. Cruisers spend a large share of their time reaching rather than beating, and it is precisely on a reach that the outboard barber opens the jib, restores clean flow, and adds real, usable power. If you cruise and have never rigged a barber hauler, the outboard version is the one that will most obviously improve how your boat sails off the wind.

Should I use a low-friction ring or a block?

For a barber hauler the low-friction ring is usually the better choice. The load a barber carries is largely semi-static, held steadily rather than rendered constantly under heavy tension, and that is exactly the duty a low-friction ring is built for. The ring is lighter, cheaper, and completely maintenance-free, with no sheave or bearing to service, whereas a block only earns its extra cost and weight when a line runs continuously under high load. Unless your particular set-up demands frequent trimming under heavy load, the ring will serve you better and simpler.

Can I use my existing jib sheet, or do I need a separate line?

You can do either, and both are common. The simplest approach is to lead the existing sheet through the ring so the barber deflects it directly, which needs no extra hardware beyond the ring and its strop. The alternative is to rig a dedicated control line that grabs the sheet at a point and hauls it across, which keeps the primary sheet free and can give you finer control. Which you choose depends on how your cockpit is laid out and how often you expect to adjust the barber; many boats start with the sheet-through-the-ring method and add a dedicated line later.

Inboard or outboard, which should I rig first?

On a cruising boat, start with the outboard barber. It delivers the most immediately noticeable improvement, transforming a poorly setting jib on a reach into a sail that draws properly and adds speed, and reaching is where most cruisers spend their miles. The inboard barber, by contrast, gives its biggest gains hard on the wind in flat water, which is more of a performance and racing scenario. If you are new to barber haulers, rig the outboard version, learn how it changes the sail off the wind, and add the inhauler later when you want to chase extra height upwind.

How much load does a barber hauler put on the deck fitting?

More than many people expect, especially on a reach in a gust. Although the barber often holds rather than renders line, the sheet loads on a headsail can be considerable, and all of that load is concentrated at the deflection point when the barber is trimmed on. This is why the anchor must be a proper deck fitting, padeye, or a lashing around a strong structural point, sized with margin to spare, and never a light accessory. Match the strop, the soft shackle, and the ring to the same working load so that every link in the chain shares the same safety margin.