Coming back from holidays, my hands still hurt after sailing several days in a row. Is it a common problem? I don't like to cleat the mainsheet when it's blowing, and it blew very often... My crew members are is still young to give them the mainsheet, so it's not a solution yet, though I'm planing to do so soon..
What to do?

Edit: N5.5SL, 7:1 for mainsheet

It's part of the game, things hurt hands swell. Sounds like you're doing it correctly to me.

Do you wrap your hand in the sheet? I used to really tear my hands up by wrapping - it is much better to avoid the compression, which is what often causes swelling and soreness. You can increase purchase to 8:1 (I think that was stock for the 5.5), and search this forum for discussion on how to hold a main or spin sheet better - there has been discussion on this topic before.

Naproxen sodium (Alleve) is your new best friend...

Yes, that happens.

Solution, sail more when at home and train your hands to handle this abuse

Last advice sounds healty in many aspects, I'll tell my wife..
I think I don't wrap my hands in the sheets as much as I did before, but I didn't think of it much this time, I'll have it in mind. I'll do some searches, thanks!

IF you wrap the sheet you can minimize the injury by holding your hand rigid while wrapping and gripping REALLY HARD when sheeting.

What part of your hands are swollen? I'm a front of the boat guy and pull all the strings, what I find is that it's not the main and spinnaker that jack my hands up. The super small diameter stuff that is used for the cunningham, outhaul, rotator, spin halyard, etc that causes problems.

I’ve never understood it, but none of the glove manufacturers put “leather” across the back of their gloves. This is where I always get the most beat up. I keep a piece of mole foam stuck in the back of my gloves. If I can’t find the foam when I need it, a double layer of mole skin works well. Once the breeze gets up to 15-20, I start taping my fingers and hands. Past 25, I double glove and use the orange box handlers gloves over my sailing gloves.

The boat I’m on is crazy over powered. Last year during a 2 ½ hour distance race, I destroyed a brand new pair of Harken Black Magic gloves. I burned so many holes in them that they looked like swiss cheese. Even with that kind of abuse, I don’t remember my hands being in bad shape at the end of the day. I have however switched glove brands since then…

Andinista, You didn't mention anything about wearing gloves... Did you?

Another thing to consider is that things can go wrong very quickly. During an unplanned dismount with the line wrapped around your hand, hopefully the line is long that you body hits what is going to hit prior to the line taking up...dont ask me how I know... IJS!

2002 Worrell, team I was on, skippers "Can't miss/hurt" trap handle broke. Traveler was wrapped around his hand several times. Hit the water with the kite up at ~25 and D#@$ near broke his hand; I'm amazed that he didn't. It torqued the traveler cleat all to hell and his hand was freakish looking it was so swollen and black/blue. One more reason why I don't trust those trap handles and haven't used them in a LONG time.

What do you use now?

Daniel, yes I do wear gloves.
Will, it's just all the hand, not burned by friction but just swollen. I pull all the lines of the boat except the jib. I agree it's not just the mainsheet but I believe it's the one that contributes the most. The last three days I was on the beach with a f***ng electric cable that kept me from moving the boat with the mast up, so assembling and disassembling the boat was a big part of the problem I think. The original plan (after discarding leaving the boat on a buoy, as in previous years) was to leave it on the beach, with the cover on. But the concept didn't work.. the boat ended up being immediate attraction for the late night gang..

I wear decent gloves but use less than decent ones for assembling, etc.. I'll consider an improvement on the latter...

I would agree that those little lines seemed to cause me the most problems..

My hand issues usually aren't friction related, it's bruising from the compression/pounding of pulling lines. The padding in the back of the glove helps that a lot. Tape helps with friction.