The mainsheet on our new Sabre 30 didn’t look right. It was the middle of a hot, airless July week. We’d bought the boat barely a month earlier, and now we were attempting to get it from New Jersey to Maine. Because of the lack of wind, the mainsail sagged as we motored up Long Island Sound. I had plenty of time to look at Ora Kali’s boom but not a lot of incentive to solve any problems. 

Then one day, we were tied to a mooring in the harbor at Scituate, Massachusetts, cheek by jowl with another Sabre 30. Wow, I realized: Our ­block-and-tackle arrangement is just wrong. 

The weight of the boom and pressure on the mainsail on a small boat are light enough that the connection between boom and hand can be direct, but a boat of any size requires an arrangement of block-and-tackle to make it manageable.

Block-and-tackle reduces the forces necessary both to hold something in place and to lift it. In terms of mainsheet tackle, a block-and-tackle system makes it easier for the person in the cockpit to steady or control the boom and to sheet in the sail when there’s wind.

Ora Kali has three blocks in her mainsheet tackle. While the arrangement on the port side was fine for holding the boom in place, it did not take full advantage of the power for sheeting in. I took down the blocks and rearranged them. The correct arrangement gives a 3-to-1 advantage on the aft block-and-tackle, and employs the forward block mostly for turning.

The sloppy mainsheet tackle setup shouldn’t have been a surprise. This was not the first instance of the boom being rigged wrong. But Ora Kali was in such good shape for a 38-year-old boat when we bought it that I assumed something this basic would be correctly run. 

When the seller bent on the sails the day before the sale, I was still dazzled by our good fortune in securing the boat and didn’t take careful notice of what he was doing. A week later, we took down the mainsail before we sailed off to inspect it for wear that might need repair and noticed that the tack cringle was hooked onto one of a pair of hooks normally used when reefing the sail. It became obvious why this was done: The gooseneck fitting was set up backward, putting the attachment point for a tack shackle behind the hooks. Useless. In fact, it turned out there was no tack shackle. It was a simple matter to reposition the reef hook/tack assembly, and I eventually found a tack shackle that fit. 

Another puzzle we chose to work around in the interest of setting off for Maine was a barely functioning outhaul. An outhaul is used to tension the foot of the mainsail and attaches to the clew or clew car, then runs to the after end of the boom and around either an internal or external sheave and forward, where it can be adjusted. If the sail is fixed to the boom with slides or bolt rope, as it was on Oddly Enough, our Peterson 44, then an outhaul isn’t crucial for setting the general sail shape. In fact, we rarely touched ours. 

With a loose-footed main, the outhaul has more work to do. The Sabre 30 is the first boat I’ve owned with a loose-footed main, and I didn’t understand what the rig was. The rope that attached to the clew car was not the same rope as emerged from an exit plate forward on the boom. When we tried pulling on either end, the car would budge only so far, and we never were able to fully stretch out the loose foot. I assumed that the outhaul had broken and a knot someone had made to add new rope to the original was jamming inside. 

During the spring refit, I looked up in-boom outhaul rigs and saw that they usually include a block-and-tackle to add purchase for adjusting the mainsail foot. This is fixed midway by a bolt through the boom. I took Ora Kali’s boom end off and discovered that the bolt holding the block had been run right through it rather than through a shackle, keeping it from swiveling. The two pieces of line were too big to run alongside each other freely. Between a seized block and the friction built up in the lines, the outhaul was useless.

The tricky part of this rerigging was snagging the shackle. I used a messenger line to pull the block-and-­tackle into ­approximate position inside the boom, then ran a ­screwdriver through holes in the boom and the shackle.

The last piece of boom ­rigging that bothered me was the topping lift. On Ora Kali, this was a fixed length of ­7-by-19 wire rope attached at the masthead with a small block at the other end. A Dacron rope ran from a shackle on the end of the boom, up over this block, down to the boom end sheaves, then inside to an exit sheave.

This is a fairly common way of rigging a topping lift, but I’m not a big fan of using wire in running rigging. 

The primary purpose of the topping lift is to take the weight off the boom when the sails are furled and for reefing. On my previous cruising boats, I had topping lifts that doubled as a spare main halyard. 

To fulfill both of these needs, I replaced the system with a single rope outhaul, shackling one end of the new topping lift to the after end of the boom, leading the other end over an unused masthead sheave, and installing a halyard exit plate at the bottom of the mast for the topping lift to run out and be adjusted. The lift is simpler, which I like, but running it over a masthead sheave puts it more in the way of the mainsail leach. To make sure we ease it when the sail is raised, I plan to bring the bitter end of the topping lift back to the cockpit to an existing set of sheet stoppers and a winch on the coachroof beside the main halyard and the mainsheet.

All in all, I now have a cleaner, more rationally rigged boom. 

Ann Hoffner started sailing when she was 9 years old. Along with her husband, Tom Bailey, she spent 10 years cruising on their P-44, Oddly Enough, in the South Pacific, Australia and Borneo. Ora Kali, a nimble, shoal-draft Sabre 30, is now teaching them the joys of Maine coastal cruising.

The post Rerigging the Boom appeared first on Cruising World.

Anytime a sailor can set a spinnaker is special. A boat just seems to come alive and say thank you for adding the colorful, carefully shaped sail. 

Spinnaker fabrics, shapes, setting techniques, graphics and trimming methods have all improved in recent years. When the first spinnakers appeared during America’s Cup races in the early 1900s, sailors named the innovative downwind sails in honor of film stars such as Greta Garbo and Mae West. Today, thanks to sailmakers looking for advances in speed, spinnakers are lighter, stronger, easier to set, more efficient to trim and, best of all, fast. For many boats, awkward ­spinnaker poles have given way to ­asymmetrical spinnakers.

I’ve learned that simpler is better. The key to setting a spinnaker is spending some time folding the sail ­properly before setting it. This is similar to the protocol of a paratrooper packing his chute. Prepare the sheets and halyard, and secure the shackles to the three corners of the sail. When everything is ready to go, the sailor at the helm needs to steer a course that allows the sail to be hoisted behind the mainsail before the sail is trimmed. It’s a magic moment when the sail fills and the boat accelerates. The crew feels the energy, and it lifts everyone’s morale.

On my 32-foot Hood ­daysailer, Whirlwind, I hand over the helm to my crew, and then I set up the spinnaker. I’ve arranged the tack, halyard and clew to be attached to the spinnaker from the cockpit. I do not have a bowsprit or a pole. I do not need to go up on the foredeck. The sail attaches to the tack line, which is led under the foredeck so that I can control it from the cockpit. 

At one point, I was inspired to use an elaborate roller-­furling arrangement to set the spinnaker. I got the idea from around-the-world-racers. It was a mess. The roller furler would wind up in one direction at the head and the other direction along the foot. It was an impossible system to use.

To figure out what I should do, I called one of my sailing heroes, Jud Smith. He patiently listened to my problem and then calmly said: “I am going to send you a spinnaker bag. Put the sail in the bag. Attach the three corners, and hoist it. When you are finished, lower the sail, and put it back in the bag. That’s it.” 

I laughed as I listened intently to his sage advice. What he was really saying was, “Hey, knucklehead, just use the simple tried-and-true method of setting a spinnaker.” 

I haven’t had a problem since. 

Symmetrical-shaped spinnakers

These traditionally shaped sails are rounded evenly on both sides and are easily jibed with the use of a spinnaker pole. The sails work best when the deepest part of the draft of the sail is about 50 ­percent of the way aft. 

A good check is to set the sail so that the clews are level and the center seam in the sail is about perpendicular to the horizon. Use the spinnaker pole topping lift to adjust the height of the clews. Try to keep the clews at the same height off the water. Set the spinnaker pole on the mast so that it extends at a ­90-degree angle to the mast. This helps keep the spinnaker away from the boat. The air flows freely around the sail when it is set away from the mast and mainsail. 

In lighter winds, say less than 11 knots, it’s easy to trim a spinnaker with a 70- to 80-degree apparent-wind angle. As the breeze builds, the boat will start overheeling, and the course to steer needs to be lower. In 20 knots of wind, a comfortable apparent-wind angle is around 110 degrees. In a strong blow, steering can be tricky. If the boat starts rolling uncomfortably, then steer a higher course. This will end the rolling. If the wind seems too strong, then the best solution is to just take down the sail. 

Keep one person stationed near the spinnaker sheet. The sail should be eased out just before the sail luffs. Racing sailors adjust the trim constantly. When I am cruising or daysailing, I like to slightly overtrim the sail so that it doesn’t collapse, but I keep an eye on the sail at all times. 

Asymmetrical-shaped spinnakers

These have become popular in the past 30 years. They are easy to fly, and they make boats sail swiftly. 

Generally, one steers a higher course to make the asymmetrical spinnaker fly efficiently. This means that a boat will jibe through a higher angle, but the trade-off of additional speed makes the asymmetrical spinnaker a good choice. On Whirlwind, I am able to sail with the asymmetrical spinnaker with an apparent-wind angle of 60 degrees in winds under 11 knots. In a stronger breeze of, say, 17 knots, I find the most efficient apparent-wind angle to be about 105 degrees to 120 degrees.  

Bowsprits help the sail set more efficiently. I learned during countless days of speed testing on America’s Cup yachts that the farther forward you can set the tack of a spinnaker, the more speed you will generate. The luff of the sail should be relatively tight and the leech somewhat looser. The asymmetrical shape has a different draft or curvature in the forward part of the sail compared with the after part of the sail. There are times when I will ease off the tack line several inches to help the sail fly a little better, particularly in lighter winds. I suggest experimenting with the height of the tack to judge what makes the sail work best.

A convenient method of ­setting an asymmetrical ­spinnaker is to use a snuffer tube. The sail is zipped into a long tube that is hoisted to the top of the mast. Once the sail is all the way up, the tube is ­unzipped and the spinnaker fills. 

It is a thing of beauty to see the sail fill with air. The lead of the spinnaker sheet should be set so that the sail flies with a leech that is open but not fluttering. As the wind builds, moving the spinnaker-sheet lead aft helps to keep the sail under control. In lighter winds, the lead should be moved forward to keep the leech of sail a little tighter. Spend some time experimenting where the best position for the lead should be set.   

I suggest having at least two lead positions. If the sail seems to luff at the top of the sail first, then move the lead forward. If the spinnaker luffs near the foot first, then move the lead aft.

The trickiest part of using an asymmetrical spinnaker is jibing. On Whirlwind, I always use an inside jibe, where the sail switches sides of the boat with the clew inside the tack. Outside jibes work well when there is a good breeze of 11 knots or more, but they can be difficult to execute with a small crew. Prepare your crew in advance of a jibe. Good steering is important when jibing. Pick a point on land to head toward, or note the new compass course you will be steering before starting your turn. Trim in the mainsail as it swings across to control it. Make sure everyone’s head is down. Have some fun, and practice.   

I have been able to set the asymmetrical spinnaker to windward when sailing straight downwind. The mainsail is on one side of the boat, and the spinnaker is set on the windward side of the boat. The person at the helm has to be careful to keep the spinnaker flying to windward. Sometimes I steer a course that is slightly by the lee to make the arrangement work.  

A word of caution: Watch the boom. It easily can come flying across when you’re sailing by the lee. Easing the tack will help give the spinnaker a faster shape when you trim it to windward.

The spinnaker trimmer must be in a good position to see the whole sail. A slight curl in the luff of the sail is acceptable. Try to keep the sail from collapsing because it stresses the fabric, slows the boat, and makes the crew uncomfortable. 

Trimming spinnakers

The person steering and the spinnaker trimmer should work together. 

When the trimmer feels more wind velocity in the sail by the tension on the sheet, he or she should tell the person at the helm to bear off and sail a lower course. This will help you gain distance to leeward. When the wind velocity drops, ask the helm to steer a higher course to maintain boatspeed. 

Rotate crew during the sail so that everyone has a chance to trim and steer. If the sail looks out of balance, then make the adjustment to get the sail to set as discussed above.  

Staysails

Spinnakers fly best with little interference from additional sails. At times, staysails can add speed in moderate wind and when sailing on a reach. The slot created between a staysail and the spinnaker and the mainsail creates good airflow. 

If the wind is light (less than 7 knots), then the staysail will draw the spinnaker toward the hull of the boat and slow it down. A staysail on a roller furler makes it easy to experiment to see if the sail adds or subtracts boatspeed. In most cases, I find that the headsail should be rolled up or dropped to help the spinnaker set properly.

Be creative with your spinnaker’s color pattern. If you own a spinnaker, set it anytime you are sailing with the wind. Other crews will give you a hearty wave when you pass by with a spinnaker flying. 

If you don’t own a ­spinnaker, consult with your sailmaker and get one. It is as simple as hoisting the sail out of the bag and letting the boat take off.

CW editor-at-large Gary Jobson has a hard time deciding if he likes cruising or racing more.

The post How To Get the Most Out of Your Spinnaker appeared first on Cruising World.

With 25 to 30 sailboats making their North American debut at the United States Sailboat Show in Annapolis, Maryland, each fall, it’s a logical place to look for design trends. Hard chines in the hull, galleys forward in the saloon, and grills and sinks incorporated into the transom are a few recent trends that multiple builders have adopted. But looking at this year’s fleet, what really jumped out at me was the number of boats being designed to fly self-tacking jibs.

By my count, 11 of the 27 new models in the Class of 2022 were rigged with roller-furling, non-overlapping headsails that get sheeted to a car mounted on an athwartships track on the deck, ­forward of the mast. Typically, the sail’s single sheet is then led to a block-located well up the mast, where it disappears into the spar, runs back down to the deck and, eventually, is led back to a winch, often located on the cabin top. 

Add to those boats the majority of the rest of the fleet, which sported headsails measuring less than 110 percent of the foretriangle. Clearly, a revolution has taken place on the pointy end of most modern cruising sailboats. 

Relatively modest-size mainsails and big, powerful genoas have been tossed overboard in favor of more horsepower in the main (often furled in the mast for ease of handling) and smaller, easier-to-control headsails that have dramatically reduced the effort needed to sail upwind. For those who haven’t tried, believe me, cranking in a 107 percent or smaller jib in a stiff breeze is a whole lot easier than grinding in the venerable 135 percent (or larger) genoa commonly found on older designs. And the self-tackers, well, once they and the main are sheeted home, coming about requires only a turn of the wheel.

UK Sailmakers International general manager Adam Loory says that there are obvious benefits for a couple or shorthanded crew: “It’s a smaller sail and it can self-tack, so one person on the helm can turn the boat; the jib moves over to the other side, the main moves over to the other side, and the other person can go on reading a book or whatever they were doing.”

But, he adds, “when you trade for the ease of handling a self-tacking jib, you lose all ability to sail on a reach, because on a tall, high-aspect jib, as soon as you ease the sheet, the top of the sail opens up and luffs, plus you don’t have the overlap to bend the wind around to the mainsail. And that’s the whole reason why all the owners of these modern boats are buying code zeros, because you need that sail to reach with.”

So, you ask: What is a code zero, and what happened to the genoas that once ruled supreme on the foredeck? 

Well, it all started at the very top of the sport, where racing sails evolved thanks to changing measurement rules, and where equipment-makers are continually developing better sail-handling systems for long ocean races.

While most of us might get by quite well all season with a single headsail, say, a 135 or 150 genoa set on a roller furler, racers tend to favor a quiver of sails that can be swapped out as conditions and points of sail change. Depending on the regatta, they might carry a blade jib for tacking upwind, a close-reaching sail, a deep-reaching sail, storm sails, and probably a spinnaker or two for running. Setting and dousing all these sails is work, so hardware manufacturers came up with new gear that can furl the big billowing sails from the bottom up or, better yet, from the top down. These sails need to be set in front of the furled jib so that they are flown off a bowsprit, and thanks to the furlers, they can be left up when not in use.

In competitive sailing, sailmaking involves finding ways to develop new sails to take advantage of the various handicapping and measurement rules, some of which began to penalize the use of large, overlapping genoas. As a result, a hybrid sail, called the code zero, was designed so it would be measured as a spinnaker but still provide the reaching power of a big genoa. With all the code numbers already taken, this big, flat-cut, light-air reaching sail fell in at the low end—hence the name code zero.

At the same time, the trend toward smaller jibs for racing hard on the wind also meant sheets could be led at tighter angles. Since the sails no longer wrapped around outside the shrouds, the rigging could be moved to outboard chainplates, which lessened ­compression loads on the mast. That change allowed spars to be built lighter, reducing weight aloft, where it detracts from performance.  

It’s worth noting that all of this was happening as builders searched for ways to make sailing simpler and easier, to keep sailors sailing longer, and to attract newcomers to the sport. With electric winches and in-mast and in-boom furling, larger mainsails can be readily tamed. And with smaller headsails, loads are reduced on sheets, which must be frequently trimmed.

The downside is that the minute many contemporary sailboats bear off, even a little, the sailing becomes, well, boring. The small jib quickly loses its oomph.

But fret not. In practical terms, the sails and gear developed to help racers have gone mainstream, and are now incorporated in many of the new production boats that might never see a regatta. The racer’s sprit and cruiser’s anchor bow roller have melded, so adding a furled code zero or cruising chute to, say, a Dufour 470 or Jeanneau Yachts 60 requires only a chat with a sailmaker. 

And they, of course, are ready to talk details. Charlie Saville at Quantum Sails in Annapolis says that manufacturers, for the most part, have left the question of additional sails to the buyer. “The OEMs point people to us and say, ‘Talk to your sailmaker because they’ll help you figure out size and material.’” 

Quantum offers three versions of its apparent-wind angle reaching sails: the AWA 40 (light air upwind and close reaching), AWA 60 (close and midrange reaching) and AWA 80 (beam to broad reaching). 

While a racing skipper with a healthy budget might choose to carry all three because each is optimized for a certain point of sail, most cruisers won’t. That’s where a consultation with the sailmaker comes in. They’ll ask where you intend to sail and what sort of crew you’ll have, and then walk you through the choices. 

“If you’re going to have one reaching sail, pick which one you think you’ll be doing the most of, and choose that one,” Saville says.

Loory says that selecting the right reaching sail depends on the boat and how much power is needed for it to sail properly, given the ­conditions. A code zero for a boat sailing in typically light airs on Chesapeake Bay or the west coast of Florida would be very different than one spec’d out for a sailboat bound for the Caribbean or expecting to sail summers on windy San Francisco Bay.

“That’s why it’s really important that the sailor works with the sailmaker to explain how they’ll use the boat, what kind of boat it is, who’s sailing the boat, and where they’re going with it,” he says.

Cruisers sailing older boats might make out just fine ­poling out their 135 or 150 ­percent genoa when sailing dead downwind, but owners of the more-modern designs should also consider carrying a cruising asymmetrical ­spinnaker, either on a furler or with a dousing sock, if they plan to rely mostly on wind power to get from here to there. Again, Loory says, the chute can be designed for anticipated conditions. 

Cost estimates vary ­depending on the boat, the sailor and the material, but expect to pay in the $4,000 to $5,000 range for a code zero built for a 40-footer. Add another $3,000 and change for a furler and anti-torsion cable.

Gennaker is the name that North Sails uses for its reaching sails, says Will Welles, a sailmaker in the company’s Rhode Island loft. North recently introduced a couple of designs, each built with a structured luff so that a smaller anti-torsion cable can be used. The cable runs between the swivel that’s attached to the halyard and the continuous line furler, and the sail furls around it when not in use.

The Helix Furling Gennaker is intended for light air and tighter wind angles, while the Easy Gennaker is a fuller-cut sail optimized for deeper angles.

The Helix is designed for a wind range from about 5 to 16 knots. The lighter the breeze, the higher you can sail, Welles says. As the wind builds, you can put the bow down and sail deeper. How deep and when to furl or snuff the sail depends on the ­comfort level of the crew.

The Easy Gennaker covers essentially the same ­windspeed range but is meant for more broad-reaching conditions. An owner who wants to carry both sails might consider having a swivel and anti-torsion cable for each sail but using the same endless line-furling drum to save a few dollars. 

But, he notes, “most cruisers are cruising, out on the water relaxing and enjoying themselves. They typically don’t have a foredeck team, thus one sail that can cover a large range is preferable. They might choose a Helix Gennaker because it’s just a more versatile sail. You can probably get as low as 135 apparent with that sail by easing the halyard. It’s not going to perform as well as the Easy Gennaker at the broader angles because it’s a much flatter shape and it’s a smaller sail in the midgirth, but it’ll work, and it would certainly be better than trying to sail downwind with a self-tacking jib.”

Mark Pillsbury is a CW editor-at-large.

Sail Care

Furling reaching sails, whether called a code zero or gennaker, can be built with ultraviolet protection, though the covering is lighter in weight than the layer of Sunbrella or other material that might be used on a jib or genoa designed to be stowed for long periods of time on a conventional rigid furler. Because the code zeros are intended to be flown in lighter breezes, to avoid sagging, a lighter cover is used, and it’s glued on rather than stitched. 

All three sailmakers said that the reaching sails can safely be left up for a weekend or typical short cruise but should be taken down and stowed below when the boat is put away, or if it’s going to be at anchor for any length of time.

In the case of boats with a solent or cutter rig, where a non-overlapping jib is set on the inner forestay and a code zero is furled on a traditional rigid furler on the forward stay, a heavier cover can be applied.

Contact a Sailmaker

• Doyle Sailmakers: 978-740-5950, doylesails.com
• Neil Pryde Sails: 203-375-2626, neilprydesails.com
• North Sails: 401-683-7997, northsails.com
• Quantum Sails: 231-941-1222, quantumsails.com
• UK Sailmakers: 914-600-8800, uksailmakers.com 
• Ullman Sails: 27-21-007-3826, ullmansails.com

The post Best Sails for Offshore Cruising: Understanding Code Zeros and AWA Reaching Sails appeared first on Cruising World.

3Di Outlasts The Adventure
Francois Gabart and his 30-meter trimaran Macif broke the solo around-the-world speed record in December 2017 with a 3Di mainsail that had 45,000 miles BEFORE the start of his record run. 3Di powered all three around-the-world speeds records currently held.

No Film. No Delamination.
3Di is composite technology, not a sail laminate. All other sailmakers use laminates of which Mylar film is an integral component. Moisture, sunlight, and fatigue degrade both the adhesives used with the film, and the Mylar itself. These cause delamination and film failure over time.

Another Dimension
North Sails created 3D technology and is the only sailmaker to utilize full-sized molds. 3Di uses reconfigurable molds that are set to the sail’s intended flying shape.

Made By Robots (mostly)
The only sewing on a 3Di sail is for attaching details such as corner reinforcements and clew straps.
The majority of the 3Di process is automated and run by computers.

Unique To You North Sails has four versions of 3Di to suit different sailing styles and budgets.

It Has To Be North
3Di is a patented sail technology that is exclusive to North Sails. There are many “black” and “gray” sails on the market, but they are actually Mylar based string sails hidden underneath a cover layer giving them the superficial appearance of 3Di without the performance.

The post North Sails 3Di – What You Need to Know appeared first on Cruising World.

Sails do not last forever, but with proper care, cruising sails made of a high-quality Dacron sailcloth will provide many years of service. I know this because I spent more than 70 years maintaining sails, often turning for advice to Graham Knight, of Antigua Sails, who has been repairing sails in Antigua since 1970. Knight has repaired or supervised the repairs to more sails than anyone else I can think of.

My sailing career began in the days of cotton sails and manila or linen running rigging. It was a good school in which to learn how to repair sails, as there were few sailmakers in the Caribbean in the late 1950s, just a few locals who made or repaired canvas sails entirely by hand. We yacht owners did most of our own sail maintenance, also by hand.

When Dacron sails first arrived on the scene, we thought it was heaven. Dacron was unaffected by changes in moisture. Gone were the days of having to carefully ease the halyard and outhaul as you sailed into a fog, or when rain soaked the sail. Gone were the days of carefully drying sails to make sure they did not get mildewed, and we could forget about putting on the sailcover to keep the nighttime dew off the sail. I did, though, miss the most comfortable place to sleep in a boat: curled up on a dry cotton spinnaker in the fo’c’sle.

Over time, we learned from experience that Dacron sails become damaged in three ways: as a result of weak stitching, from flogging, and by degradation from exposure to UV radiation from the sun. The stitching was a particular weakness in those early Dacron sails, in part due to the sensitivity of the thread to UV exposure.

A Stitch in Time

I quickly learned that when the stitching fails, a sail will split from the leech in, seldom from the body of the sail out. If on Iolaire we noticed a seam opening up in the body of a sail, my crew or I would restitch it by hand at the end of the day. If a seam started to fail from the leech in, it would split all the way to the luff before we could get the sail down. I vividly recall spreading a mainsail across the fuel dock at Yacht Haven in St. Thomas, restitching by hand where it had split from luff to leech — two rows of stitches, each 15 feet long. That taught me to regularly inspect the leech of every sail and restitch the weak points before they failed.

Just before my late wife, Marilyn, and I decided to emigrate to Grenada, I acquired a heavy-duty Pfaff electric zigzag sewing machine mounted in a proper table. We disassembled it and packed it in Iolaire’s port pilot berth so it would be on the windward side going to Grenada. Periodically, I set up the sewing machine in the bar at the Grenada Yacht Club, where I could spread the sails out. I regularly restitched them along the leech and along the seams to 3 feet in from the leech. I did the same along the foot of the high-cut yankee. That ended the weak-stitching problem for Iolaire.

Take it from me, you will substantially increase the life of your sails by periodically taking them to a sailmaker who can inspect them, make any obvious repairs and do as I have described above. Also, have the batten pockets restitched if the stitching looks weak.

Once a sail is two or three years old, it will become apparent where it chafes on shrouds and spreaders. Have your sailmaker glue on reinforcement patches in the way of the spreaders and narrow strips over the seams where they chafe on shrouds. Taking these simple steps will lengthen the life of the sail considerably.

Knight recommends you persuade the sailmaker to use Gore Tenara thread when you have your sails restitched. Sailmakers do not like to use it because it is expensive and the machine must be specially set up for it, but the thread will last longer than the sail.

Shaken to Pieces

Flogging is another major cause of sail damage or destruction. In the days when Iolaire had cotton sails, I had a lot of trouble with the batten pockets or the sail under them tearing when the sail flogged during a tack or when reefing. When I ordered my first Dacron mainsail from Charlie “Butch” Ulmer, I asked for a battenless main. This eliminated the problem of broken battens, and battens fouling in the rigging when sails were hoisted or doused, but introduced another: I always had a fluttering leech unless the leech line was pulled taut, and then I had a curled leech.

When the battenless main was coming to the end of its life I replaced it with a main with battens. To keep the wooden battens (plastic battens did not yet exist) from breaking and tearing the batten pocket or sail, I installed three very thin battens in each pocket. The thin battens would bend more without breaking than a single thicker batten. I also removed the batten pockets, sewed a patch under each pocket, then reinstalled the pockets. As a result, if a batten did break and tear a hole, because of the double thickness, the hole was usually in the batten pocket rather than in the sail. A hole in the batten pocket was much easier to repair than a hole in the sail.

The problem of the flogging mainsail was solved in 1989, when Robbie Doyle gave Iolaire a fully battened mainsail with one of his first StackPacks. I will not get into the debate about which sails are faster, but from the cruising sailor’s standpoint, a fully battened sail beats the battened soft sail six ways to Sunday. A fully battened sail does not flog when it’s being reefed. If a squall approaches and the skipper feels it will only be a brief one, the main can be eased so it’s completely depowered but will not flog. It may take some strange shapes, but it will be depowered. It can be retrimmed once the squall has passed.

We discovered a few problems with the Doyle StackPack as originally conceived, but we sorted them out over time. A fully battened sail installed in a StackPack or a similar cover will last virtually forever.

After six hard seasons in the Caribbean and a transatlantic passage, I replaced Iolaire’s original StackPack with a Street Pack — a Doyle StackPack installed with zippers (see “From StackPack to Street Pack,” page 85). I replaced it not because the sail was worn out but because the cover and the membrane were falling apart and, being all sewn together, were too difficult to repair. Since then, the cover and membrane have been removed and repaired three times, but the sail was still going strong when I sold Iolaire 17 years later!

Many sailmakers make their own versions of the StackPack. Before ordering one, make sure the sail, cover and membrane (if fitted) are all connected with zippers rather than being sewn together.

UV and Polyester

We discovered the hard way in the tropics just how susceptible to rapid degradation polyester fabrics like Dacron are when exposed to UV rays. Knight showed me how to determine how severe the damage was. He pushes a sail needle through the cloth. If it goes through cleanly, all is well and the sail can be restitched and repaired. But if the needle goes through the material with a pop, the cloth is toast.

We also discovered that the light, easily handled Dacron sailcovers were not the answer; they did not protect the sails from UV damage. The solution was to make the covers out of mildew-proofed Vivitex or, later, Sunbrella. The life expectancy of boom-stowed sails on all rigs was greatly increased if the crew put on the sailcovers every day as soon as the sail was dropped. The StackPack took care of the UV problem to a great extent, on Iolaire’s mainsail anyway. Headsails were another matter.

On Iolaire, we fought the problem of UV degradation on roller headsails for 50 years. In 1961, I installed a jib and a staysail that roller-furled on their own luff wires. We made them work by setting them up on two-part halyards led to a winch. The luff wires were the same diameter as the stays, and we tensioned the luff wires until the head and staysail stays were slack. The system worked well, but the sails were all the way out or all the way in. To minimize damage from UV rays, any time we would not be sailing for two or three days, we lowered the sails and stowed them coiled in bags.

Eventually, the leech and foot of the yankee, which remained exposed when the sail was furled, were shot. The body of the sail was fine, so my crew and I laid out the sail and removed the luff wire. I then had a sailmaker cut 18 inches off the leech and foot and rebuild the head, tack and clew corners. My mate and I shortened the luff wire to suit the new luff length, fed it through the sail and tensioned it between two palm trees with a four-part tackle. We then adjusted the luff tension of the sail, secured the head and tack cringles to the ends of the wire, and secured the sail to the luff wire. We now had a good J2 and bought a new J1.

This same operation, cutting the sunburned material from the leech and foot of a high-cut jib, can also be done on a genoa, reducing a 150 percent genoa to a 135. With headsails fitted to a roller-­reefing foil, this operation is much easier than with the old sails with luff wires.

Roller Reefing

In 1986, Olaf Harken offered me a very good discount on Harken’s headsail ­roller-reefing gear. From the late 1960s to the ’80s, bent-up and ­broken-down roller-reefing headsail gear was stacked like cordwood in rigging lofts across the Caribbean, so despite the limitations of my roller-furling headsail rig, I was not at all interested in switching to a roller-reefing headsail on a foil.

What Harken really wanted was for me to test his company’s new gear for larger boats. When he offered to give me the gear and a headsail to go with it, I accepted. The gear worked perfectly for nine hard years in the Caribbean, three transatlantics, 17 years cruising and racing in Europe, and was still going strong when I sold Iolaire.

In one way, though, it was a step backward. To protect the sail from UV rays, we removed it whenever we were not sailing for any amount of time. With the headsail it replaced, one person could slack the halyard, drop the sail and, with some difficulty, coil the furled sail into its bag. By contrast, removing the big yankee from the headstay was a three-person job, as was hoisting it. Thus we did not do it with the frequency we had with the roller-furling sails, and the sail suffered.

To eliminate the sunburn problem, many cruisers have a protective layer of Sunbrella about 18 inches wide sewn on the leech and foot. It looks like hell and does not improve the set of the sail. The better solution for a roller-reefing headsail is a cover of the kind I first saw on German yachts in the Baltic in the late ’90s and is now becoming common elsewhere. The cover, which is a long sleeve, is hoisted, usually with the spinnaker halyard, then tightened with a lanyard threaded through a series of hooks and eyes. It covers the sail completely and does not flap in the breeze. However, friction imposes a limit as to how big a sleeve can be made and still be practical to hoist and douse. Knight says the maximum practical luff length is about 60 feet. A sail with a luff any longer than 60 feet is too big to regularly take down when the boat is not being sailed, so it is left up and the leech and foot remain exposed to UV rays. Some skippers, rather than use a colored protective material, have sacrificial strips of cloth the same color as the sail sewn on the leech and foot. Mark Fitzgerald, the longtime skipper of the 115-foot high-tech ketch Sojana, coats the leech and foot with white emulsion paint, which has proved to minimize UV damage. North Sails has a liquid “ink” that reduces UV damage. It is available in several colors and can be sprayed on existing sails if they are clean.

Be sure when you furl your sail on a roller furler that the drum turns in the ­direction that leaves the Sunbrella cover and not the sail itself exposed.

I have been told by Evelyne Nye, head of Custom Canvas and the North Sails agent in St. Thomas, that the best headsail covers are made by Etienne Giroire, a French singlehanded racing skipper who does business as ATN (atninc.com). This certainly looks like the solution to the UV problem with roller-furling headsails.

With diligent care, Dacron sails can be made to last a good long time: Don’t let them flog, inspect and restitch vulnerable areas on a regular basis, and protect them from sunlight.

– – –

Voyaging legend Donald M. Street Jr. has been racing and cruising on both sides of the Atlantic — and writing about his exploits — for over five decades.

The post Making Your Sails Last appeared first on Cruising World.

North Sails has been the exclusive official supplier to the Volvo Ocean Race since the debut of the VO65 one design fleet in the 2014-15 edition. Now, after analyzing extensive race data,further modeling and listening to feedback from Volvo Ocean Race sailors, North has created a new 171m² sail to fill an apparent gap between the masthead code 0 (MH0) and the J1 jib, boosting the performance of the VO65s in the process.

In the most recent edition of the historic race, sailors reported having to constantly switch between the MH0 and the J1, two of the biggest sails carried onboard, in search of the configuration that gave them the best speed.

Crucially the introduction of the J0 will eradicate the need to change headsails so frequently – welcome news for the sailors, who expend thousands of calories a day manually hoisting the massive sails.

“The most important feedback we got from the last race was that there was a gap between the J1 and the masthead zero,” said North Sails designer Gautier Sergent, a Volvo Ocean Race expert.

“Between ten and 15 knots of wind the crews were forever changing sails as they looked for the best configuration. We wanted to provide a solution for this gap, so we introduced a new J0 that fits perfectly between the J1 and the masthead 0.

“The teams will still have to stack the J0 but they don’t need to tack or gybe every day when they are sailing offshore, so overall it is a net gain with fewer sail changes.“

North Sails has spent a lot of time comparing recent race data with historic weather routings, using software developed with Great Circle, to guarantee the J0 strikes the perfect balance among the VO65 fleet’s sail inventory.

AkzoNobel training

Targeted for conditions between eight and 15 knots upwind and up range reaching, the bowsprit-set J0 is already proving a useful tool in a much wide range of conditions.

Not only will the Volvo Ocean Race crews now have a new sail to play with but they will also get better use of their existing arsenal.

The masthead code 0 will be much more effective while the fractional code 0, which had a very narrow range in upwind conditions in the 2014-15 race, becomes a dedicated downwind sail.

“The addition of the J0 is better suited to the new race course, which has more of a Southern Ocean routing,” Sergent added. “It also allows the fractional and masthead code zeros to become more efficient and the fractional zero to become more downwind-oriented.”

The current crop of Volvo Ocean Race sailors got their chance to put the new sail through its paces during Leg Zero, the four-stage qualifying series that included the iconic Fastnet offshore race.

Early feedback from the teams has been overwhelmingly positive.

Leg Zero, Departure delivery Sanxenxo to Gosport. Photo by Ugo Fonolla/Volvo Ocean Race. 26July, 2017

“North Sails have done a really good job – they listened to the feedback and developed the J0 for this edition, which is what we need,” said Dongfeng Race Team crewman Daryl Wislang. “Upwind it’s a very versatile sail but it can be used at the wider angles as well. It’s going to get a lot of use.”

Dee Caffari, skipper of Turn the Tide on Plastic, added: “It’s the first time we’ve even seen a J0, and I think it’s my new favorite sail. It’s a really interesting space that it fits into so we’ll have a look at that in more detail. It’s a big change for the sail wardrobe for this edition of the race.”

Leg Zero, two boat training with Dongfeng Race Team and MAPFRE in Sanxenxo, Spain. Photo by Jeremie Lecaudey/Volvo Ocean Race. 31 August, 2017

Pablo Arrarte, watch captain on MAPFRE, said each team must decide how best to use the J0. “It is a critical sail, new for everyone, and we have to test it intensely,” he said. “Each team will make their own conclusions while training about how to use it to their best advantage.”

Just like the rest of North Sails’ Volvo Ocean Race inventory, the cutting-edge J0 is made from its unique 3Di technology that pushes the boundaries of sail design.

The patented technology, developed for the Volvo Ocean Race, uses tiny pre-impregnated filament tapes to mirror the load-bearing and shape-holding qualities of a rigid aerofoil wing while remaining lightweight and durable.

The Volvo Ocean Race begins in Alicante, Spain, on October 14, with the opening round of the In-Port Race Series before the fleet departs for Lisbon, Portugal, on the first of 11 offshore legs on October 22.

Learn how North Sails 3Di can transform your on-the-water experience, no matter what type of sailing you do: northsails.com/sailing/en/sails/materials

AkzoNobel

The post New Versatile Sail Completes North Sails VOR Inventory appeared first on Cruising World.

Headsails are getting smaller on the latest generation of boats as designers, builders and sailors embrace the ease of handling and simplicity provided by large mainsails and smaller foretriangles. Genoas no longer exist on modern racing boats, but the day of the overlapping genoa is also numbered for cruising sailors. They will not be missed!

Roller furling has been standard issue for generations and still the go-to system whenever possible. On sails with overlapping headsails this is typically a medium to large roller furling genoa. For the latest designs this can be a non-overlapping sail that is as large as possible but still fits in the foretriangle.

Having the right sized headsail with the right amount of overlap will make all of the difference when it comes to handling and managing it. Here are the factors you’ll need to consider and some options to meet your needs.

Foretriangle vs Mainsail Size

The larger the mainsail relative to the headsails, the smaller the genoa needs to be. Check the foot length of the mainsail (“E”) versus the base of the foretriangle from mast to stem (“J”). If they are equal, or if E is longer than J, the boat relies more on its mainsail for horsepower and the jibs can be smaller. The latest performance cruising boats have huge mainsails and use non-overlapping jibs as the primary sail. On the other side of the coin, more traditional cruising boats have relatively small mainsails and big “J” dimensions. These are genoa dependent, and will need larger headsails.

“J” vs LP

LP is the shortest distance from clew to luff. It is expressed as a percentage of “J” (150% LP = 1.5 x J). It does not relate directly to area, but is a measure of overlap. For a given percentage of overlap, you get a much bigger sail on a boat with a long J dimension. (See Figure 1 below.)

Crew & Conditions

The make-up of your crew and your normal conditions aren’t part of your boat measurements, per se, but they are important factors to keep in mind as you make an optimized sail plan. The larger, stronger and more experienced your normal sailing companions are, the bigger the sail you can manage. Power winches can assist in sail handling as well.

When considering what size headsail will be best for your boat, factor in the average wind speeds for the region in which you will sail most frequently.

Performance

Going larger (say from a 135% to a 150%) is usually only a benefit in under eight to ten knots of breeze. Additional LP is a liability in more breeze. It is also only of marginal, if any, benefit while reaching and running. With sheets eased, most of the back end of a genoa is turned back into the boat. A higher clew is actually the biggest help when reaching because it keeps the sheeting angle consistent so you don’t lose the top of the sail.

Furling Ability

Genoas for roller furling are usually sold on the premise that they can be used partly furled. This is true from a structural standpoint if allowances are made in the initial construction. Shape deteriorates with the amount of sail furled. Most sailmakers will quote reasonably effective reduction of up to 30% of the original LP. Beyond this, you have a triangle but not much of an airfoil. When sailing off-the-wind this probably isn’t that important, but it is if you want to go upwind.

The bottom line is that handling and versatility considerations suggest keeping the genoa as small as possible. Build only enough size to maintain the ability to drive the boat reasonably well in light to moderate conditions. The more easily the boat drives, and the larger the mainsail relative to the headsail, the smaller the LP can be.

The Working Jib

Now that we’ve looked at all the factors needed to make an informed decision on headsail size, let’s look at the working jib.

For serious offshore work, a smaller, second headsail is required. The second headsail should be a heavy working jib, with an LP between 85% and 100%. In more than 15 to 18 knots of breeze, depending on the same performance versus foretriangle size considerations which applied to the genoa, this will become the sail you will need.

If the boat were staying strictly in a light air area, it would be the sail of choice in the spring and fall, or whenever windy conditions were anticipated and could be used on the primary roller furling system. However, the difficulty of changing sails on a furling system should be recognized.

For sailing offshore, building this sail for use on an inner forestay installed separately with some type of quick release mechanism should be considered. The stay should be located well forward (unlike the classic cutter layout which puts the stay 40% of J aft), so that the working jib size does not get too small. It needs to remain large enough to be useful. In light air and constricted water, the inner forestay could be secured at the mast most of the time. This setup would allow the sail to be hanked on and ready to go when sailing offshore, and would avoid the somewhat messy change from big sail to little sail on the furling system. Roll the big sail up, attach a halyard, and hoist. The genoa could still be designed to allow for partial furling, but there is no substitute for having a purpose-built small sail for the job. Having the small jib will also protect and extend the life of the genoa, and provide needed insurance against complete sail failure when far from home. Offshore, the working jib is likely to be the correct sail a large percentage of the time. The other beauty of a separate inner forestay is that it is the perfect place to hank on a true storm jib.

The other possibility to consider would be to use a second conventional furling system on the inner forestay for the small jib. This is more of a true offshore configuration because the system will make it impossible to make the inner forestay easily removable. Tacking around the stay is the problem. However, for pure, never-go-up-on-the-foredeck ease, this setup cannot be beat.

There is a third alternative; however: the structural furler. This is a relatively recent development that is now standard issue on Super Yachts and on high performance multihulls and single-handed racing boats. Instead of a permanent stay or a wire stay that connects when needed, the system uses a hi-modulus (aramid or PBO) super rigid torsional rope inside the luff of the sail. The furling system is a free flying top-down or bottom-up model that attaches to the torsional rope. On big cruising boats the sail is hoisted up and locked off and then tensioned from the bottom (usually with a hydraulic ram) to get enough stay tension. You don’t want sag in an inner forestay designed for a heavy air sail. Usually this also requires running backstays to help keep the mast straight and the stay tight. This is not a system you would try to hoist into place in breezy conditions. This should be set up at the dock in light air before heading out on a long passage. All of this, of course, comes at a price and really requires the boat to be designed around the system from the outset.

Be sure to include your sailmaker anytime you look into optimizing your sail plan. Even if the result isn’t incorporating a new sail, having a better understanding of how your sails work together and which one to use when is invaluable. You might also be surprised to find an extra furler or some additional hardware could make all the difference in handling your headsail!

– – –

This cruising tip was brought to you by Quantum Sails.

The post Sail Handling: Headsails appeared first on Cruising World.

“There is nothing new under the sun.”

That idea, from Ecclesiastes, was new just over 2,400 years ago. Woven cloth was new about 25,000 years ago. Polyester was invented in 1941, and since around 1950, woven polyester cross-cut sails have been the reigning technology on cruising sailboats around the world. (Racing sailboats are a different story.)

3Di Nordac technology, introduced this summer by North Sails and created for cruising sailors who truly want to sail, is something new under the sun.

The Trouble with Weaving

3Di manufacturing at the North Sails sail loft in Minden, Nevada.

“The big difference between a good cruising main and a bad cruising main,” says North Sails CEO Dan Neri, “is the twist profile, where the top of the sail is the most open place on the sail. Then it’s progressively less open when you go down.” On a normal Dacron sail, where you don’t have any control of the stretch, the middle of the leech becomes the most open when it’s time to twist the sail, he says. “That pulls the top of the leech in, which gives a deeper head and open middle. And that makes the boat heel more.”

The question for sailors and sailmakers, then, is: How do you create a sail that holds that desirable shape over time — a shape that delivers the most forward-driving lift with the least speed-killing drag?

The history of sail-making is marked by innovations in both fiber and cloth. The year 1851 was a watershed year. That’s when the schooner America trounced 15 British contenders for the Hundred Guinea Cup, later called the America’s Cup. While all the Brits were flying sails made from flax (linen), America demonstrated something new: cotton (canvas) sails. Retaining a flatter shape, the sails contributed to less heeling moment, a drier foredeck and — most notably for an island empire held together by its sail-powered Royal Navy — a pointing angle that was 6 degrees closer to the wind than that of the nearest competitor.

It was another ­transatlantic competition, some 90 years later, that produced the next major innovation in sail-making. This was the quest to commercialize organic chemistry. The result was the British discovery of polyethylene ­terephthalate (PET) — better known as polyester. In 1946, DuPont purchased the patent and called it Dacron.

Since about 1950, cross-cut polyester sails have been the reigning technology on cruising sailboats. Throughout this period, the sailmaker’s goal has been to control stretch. Newer fibers such as carbon, aramid, Spectra or Vectran stretch less but bring other downsides, including cost.

In two-dimensional cloth, warp yarn runs lengthwise and fill yarns run the width. In a fill-oriented cloth, the warp yarns bend, or “crimp,” under and over the fill yarns; such cloth stretches less in the width dimension. “Bias” is the diagonal between warp and fill. The most typical cruising sails are cross-cut sails, made from panels of fill-oriented polyester cloth. Because they stretch least in the width dimension, the panels are aligned perpendicular to the leech, where the primary loads occur. The trouble is, not all of the loads are in that direction, so the sails eventually stretch into rounder, deeper shapes.

Beginning in the 1970s, sailmakers found a way to avoid some of the problems inherent in all woven cloth — particularly stretch in the bias direction. They laminated yarns on a layer of Mylar film (another form of polyester). But with rare exceptions, the downsides of durability, longevity and cost made laminated sails, or “string sails,” more popular for racing sailors than for cruisers. Lamination, many found, was too often attended by its evil twin: delamination. From fiber to cloth, we move from one dimension to two. But sails are three-dimensional airfoils. To create that third dimension of draft, sailmakers cut curved edges into the flat panels of cloth in a technique called “broadseaming.” The placement of the draft is a fundamental difference between good sails and poor sails. When a formerly good sail stretches out, its draft slouches aft.

3Di Nordac Sails

3Di manufacturing at the North Sails sail loft in Minden, Nevada.

North’s 3Di sails were new about 10 years ago and born of yet another transatlantic competition. Neither a weave nor a laminate, 3Di is a composite of flat tapes of fiber layered in a matrix of thermoset resin, much like your boat’s hull. While woven cloth or laminated string sails are “load-path” structures in which virtuous properties align more with some yarns than in other directions, 3Di is different. It’s a quasi-isotropic material — “isotropic” meaning that it exhibits its properties of strength and stretch-resistance in every direction.

During the 1992 America’s Cup event, Bill Koch’s America 3 syndicate introduced a material subsequently called Cuben Fiber. Round yarns, or tows, of fiber (Dyneema, carbon, aramid) are spread out into a flat tape of side-by-side ­filaments. At the time, Cuben Fiber was used in laminated sails. Then, in 2001, Swiss sailmaker Gérard Gautier imagined such flat tapes put to a different use — one that would get rid of the film in the laminate. In Gautier’s version, the tapes were impregnated with a thermoset resin that, once catalyzed, would hold its shape despite heating or cooling. The Alinghi syndicate tried Gautier’s technology in the run-up to its successful America’s Cup defense in 2007.

Before long, North Sails did what DuPont did with polyester: It bought the patent. But the patent was only for the process, which Gautier accomplished in two dimensions before applying the traditional broadseaming technique to join the panels in a concave shape. North Sails’ engineers adapted Gautier’s idea to their own previous innovations in sail-making directly on a 3D mold. The result was to eliminate seams altogether.

Since 2011, North’s 3Di sails — built with such fibers as carbon or aramid — have been the state of the art for Volvo Ocean Race competitors and other grand-prix race boats. Speaking to durability, Volvo boats previously carried 28 sails per circumnavigation, including three mainsails, says Neri. Using 3Di sails, they can do it with 11 sails and just one main. When Thomas Coville set the solo round-the-world record at 49 days in 2016, he left the dock with 3Di sails that already had 50,000 miles on them. That’s two full circumnavigations.

What’s new under the sun this summer is the combination of 3Di technology with tried-and-true polyester for cruising sailors. With this cloth, sail repairs can be done on the dock, using adhesive. There are also no seams, or the stress risers they cause.

Like all new things, we may still have more to learn about how Dacron behaves in the 3Di environment. But it certainly looks promising for cruising sailors who truly love to sail.

Tim Murphy is a Cruising World editor-at-large and a longtime Boat of the Year judge.

The post North Sails 3Di: Beyond the Weave appeared first on Cruising World.

Spinnakers should be dry and free from dirt or salt before storing. Many spinnaker fabrics are woven from the small denier threads. Any dirt or salt left on the sails will get into the fibers and cause the cloth to deteriorate prematurely. If your sail is wet from salt water, fly it upside down, with the clews tied together at the top and the head at the bottom. To rinse saltwater off the sail, use a hose spraying from the top and letting the fresh water flush to the bottom. Using this method the sail will float gently in breeze and dry off pretty quickly. Use this same method for sails wet with freshwater or spread out indoors, inside your boat or in an enclosed space with a dehumidifier running.

Once your asymmetric is clean, fold and store them properly using these tips:

Step 1: Start with the spinnaker open and flat, with one person at the tack and one at the clew. Begin to take flakes in the sail, of equal widths, along the luff and leech.

Step 2: Continue to flake the sail. Make the flakes along the luff, which is longer than the leech, slightly wider so sail flakes evenly on top of itself.

Step 3: Finish flaking by making the head reinforcing patch lie flat in the the center of the flaked sail.

Step 4: Start rolling the flaked sail from leech to luff.

Step 5: Continue to roll to luff. The finished product will look as it does in Figure 5 above.

The easy way to store your spinnaker is just to stuff it in the bag it came with. By taking good care of your sail, flaking and storing it properly, you will extend its racing life and ensure you get the most from your investment.

The post Asymmetrical Spinnaker Care appeared first on Cruising World.

The rage in the market today is the new breed of free-flying furling systems aimed at furling anything from a heavy jib to a running asymmetrical. Specifically, the focus is on replacing the conventional spinnaker sock for downwind cruising sails. More than a dozen manufacturers have designed a furler to address this market. Essentially, the idea is to provide a luff rope with a swivel at the top and a continuous line drum at the bottom to wind the sail around the rope.

Furling units can be divided into two types: bottom-up and top-down. Bottom-up systems work the same way your conventional headsail roller furling system works, except that instead of aluminum foils wrapped around a fixed stay, a torsional rope is used. The tack is fixed to the drum at the bottom. The rope runs up inside the luff of the sail. As the drum is turned, the tack winds around the cable and the sail furls from bottom to top. A continuous line drum is used so you don’t run out of line before the sail is furled because the sail will not necessarily come in at the same rate as with a conventional furling system. This is mostly due to the torsional rope. If the rope twists, the sail will require more effort to furl and may not furl smoothly. (A rope is critical to the operation of any free-flying furling system, and is usually the limiting factor.)

Bottom-up units work fine as long as the sail is not too wide at the top. Ideally, the sail should be genoa-like. The mid-girth (mid-leech to mid-luff) should not be much greater than 50 percent (no more than 60-65 percent). This is the case for off-wind sails that are built for close reaching angles. Often referred to as Code Zero (or Screacher for multihulls), these are basically big reaching genoas that tend to be flatter than other downwind sails. There should be little to no sail area forward of the straight-line luff. The downside to this type of sizing is that the sails act like genoas when eased out at broad angles. They are too flat and small to be stable, and they project out from behind the mainsail and around the bow. For this type of sail, ideal apparent wind angles are typically between 60 and 130 degrees.

As downwind sails get bigger and the mid-girth increases, it’s harder and harder to get the top of the sail to furl if you start from the bottom. For broader angles (90-155 degrees), downwind sails are bigger, wider, and they have more depth. They also have considerable area forward of the straight-line luff. That is what keeps the sail stable and powerful and allows you to ease the sail out to project area in front of the boat. This is where top-down furling comes into play. Since the sail needs to project and there is a lot of area in the front of the sail, the torsional rope is not attached directly to the sail. The head is attached directly to the swivel and rope at the head. The tack is secured to a free-rotating fitting on the drum. As the furling line is pulled, the tack lags behind and the head furls first. The sail furls from the top down, capturing the hard-to-furl top sections first.

No matter how well the furling system works, or how good the torsional rope is, there are still limits. Full-sized broad-reaching and running spinnakers have mid-girths of as much of 100 percent of the foot length and can be very deep. That can be problematic to furl. As a rough guideline, if the mid-girth is much over 88-90 percent of the foot length, all bets are off. It might furl, it might not. That’s when a spinnaker sock makes the most sense. They’re a good choice for full-sized asymmetrical spinnakers designed for broad reaching and running. They are also more cost effective, since a good top-down furling system with a proper torsional rope can easily cost as much as the sail.

The bottom line is this: for furling systems, smaller and flatter is better. Once you are full sized, think sock.

This cruising tip has been brought to you by Quantum Sails.

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