I just bought an old Thistle. I'm trying to figure out the jib sheet rigging. The inside of the boat had been stripped out by the previous owner. But he took lots of pictures, and I have all the removed wood pieces and hardware. Between the photos and the obvious screw holes and varnish "shadows", it's pretty easy to figure out where everything was. There is no sign of any fairlead blocks or cleats for the jib. I have found several sites online which feature good pictures of several variants of jib sheet rigging, all of which lead the sheet, by way of blocks, to cleats on the thwart. There is absoulutely no sign of any of this on my boat. I am also struck by how far inboard the "ideal" route for the sheet seems to be.
The only possible place I can find where they might have secured the sheet, is a cleat at the aft end of the centerboard trunk. It is quite large, and designed to have a line wrapped around the back end before being "jammed" under the front. It is so far aft that the sheet would have crossed the thwart at a position not far from "ideal".
Has anyone seen this arrangement in use in older boats?