3oz dacron for a drifter/reacher headsail

[Orchidius]

Hi there,

I'm in the market for a second hand drifter/reacher headsail, essentially a big, lightweight genoa for light-air sailing. I've bumped into one that would fit my boat, but it's made out of 3oz dacron rather than the usual superlight spinnakercloth/poly/nylon.

Is it suitable at all for my needs as a light-air sail, or is this too heavy for this purpose?

Thanks!

[mike d.]

One thing is for certain you won't blow it out! I don't know if it's to heavy! My geniker is 1.5 oz. and the sail maker said I would not be able to blow it out, other than in a severe storm, if I was that stupid/foolish to still have it up!

[Orchidius]

I'm concerned it'll be too heavy to act as a true light-weather sail, not scared to blow it out .

[Snowpetrel]

I had a sail about the same, guess it was a light Genoa once. It worked well in the light stuff and downwind in moderate wind. For me it was free, as it was ripped, but easily repair and worked ok, but probably a lighter nylon sail would have been better.

Sent from my HTC_0PCV2 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[roverhi]

Had a reacher/drifter made out of light weight dacron. Sail was cut for a Morgan 35 but used it on our Westsail. Worked fine as a light air sail and used it a lot as we only started the engine in flat calms on our cruise. Eventually got pretty baggy after some serious abuse carrying it in too strong tradewinds for days on end. Sail handled very strong winds without blowing up including gusts of 40mph off Point Conception till i could get it down. Will probably not fill as well as a 3/4 oz nylon but will definitely take the abuse better.

[barnakiel]

I do not know how much experience you have sailing boats in light winds. Hence my post is necessarily generic. PLS bear with me, if you already know all the below.

With sails for light winds, it is always a riddle - as the weight (cloth weight) choice always depends on how 'rolly' a boat is, while how rolly a boat is depends on how long she can carry her canvas into light winds. (Sails, as long as they pull, stabilize the boat).

So the short answer is, it will depend on the boat and on the waters you sail.

Very choppy waters + very rolly boat (yours may be one) are no good mix with either too big or to heavy, canvas (in the narrow aspect of light airs).

To cut this long and likely puzzling post short: at times, it pays to consider a light, flat, SMALL (relatively) sail over a light big drifter - for a boat and conditions as described below.

If the s/h sail is a steal price and condition probably give it a try. Should your try by a miss, sell it off.

Cheers,
b.

[UNCIVILIZED]

One perk to a sail that weight, for your intended purpose, is that you can have a luff wire sewn into the sail. Or a Kevlar or Spectra webbing luff tape stitched on.
That way, you can set it flying, especially from something like a Screecher or Staysail furling unit. So that it's easy to pull out & hoist, without having to remove or attach anything to a stay. Which is particularly handy if you have roller furling.

The free flying luff, definitely has some perks. As it gives you more latitude to tune the shape of the sail; based on wind conditions, & how high or deep you're trying to sail.

Also, with that weight of cloth, & a built in luff wire, the sail is kind of like a poor man's Code 0. Especially as, when you tighten up the luff, you can fly it upwind, to about 050 AWA+/-, until there's truly enough wind to properly switch over to your primary upwind headsail.
That typically being a 135% or so, jib, set on the furler (or hanks). Which comes into it's own when the wind goes North of 7kts or so.

Honestly, it's quite a common setup. The Pardey's used something akin to such, & did Beth Leonard & Evans Starzinger. http://www.bethandevans.com/sail_combinations.htm
I even had the sailmaker rig one up for me from a light #1 (155% jib), as a cheap fix for light air on a 40' racer that I had for a while. It's purpose was to augment the 125% jib which lived on the furler.

Though as another poster already said, there are definitely times when it's best to get the mainsail board flat, along with hoisting a superlight 100% headsail (Windseeker), also tuned board flat.
Albeit, in a pinch, you can use your #3 (100%) or similar, in lieu of a Windseeker.

Such a setup (combined with a flat, hard sheeted in Main) uses the boat's rocking to actually extract some energy from the seas & what little wind there is, in order to drive the boat. And in some light air conditions is a far faster rig, than if you were to hoist a 200% jib.