Blade Jib?

[s/v Beth]

Right you are Jim, I still find a good way to reduce sail here ( where winds are usually 15 +and swells are constant) is Yankee and stay sail then reff main and Yankee, then stay and ref main, finally just stay sail. Haven't got below that yet (thank goodness)

[pillum]

Hi Dockhead, I used a blade jib on my Javelin 30 back in the early 90s, great sail. It was my sail of choice for cruising as well as heavy weather racing.

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by s/v Beth

Right you are Jim, I still find a good way to reduce sail here ( where winds are usually 15 +and swells are constant) is Yankee and stay sail then reff main and Yankee, then stay and ref main, finally just stay sail. Haven't got below that yet (thank goodness)

And Newt, for what it's worth, the yankee cut works better as a double head rig (over the stays'l) than a genoa in my experience. Long ago we used a sort of "genoa yankee" (called a jib top then) for reaching with a stays'l. It was a high clewed sail, fairly full cut and with a ~135% LP and sheeted outboard to the rail. Seemed the best rig for close reaching in 15-20 kts apparent in those days before good reaching kites... at least that I could afford!

Your sail progression sounds quite workable for your Valiant.

Cheers,

Jim

[Albro359]

No way am I taking off my 110% genoa in a breeze. Furl it up is the only way. I have my staysail hanked on the inner stay ready to go under normal conditions.
We are just about to leave Fiji for New Zealand which will no doubt be mostly to windward and see a front or too, I'm considering hanking the storm jib on the inner stay read to go.

As far as yankees are concerned, my understanding was that they were used on the forestays of cutters, with a fuller jib flying on the inner stay. Without the inner jib a yankee is a pretty inefficient sail with its high clew.

Correct me if I'm wrong...please..

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Albro359

No way am I taking off my 110% genoa in a breeze. Furl it up is the only way. I have my staysail hanked on the inner stay ready to go under normal conditions.
We are just about to leave Fiji for New Zealand which will no doubt be mostly to windward and see a front or too, I'm considering hanking the storm jib on the inner stay read to go.

As far as yankees are concerned, my understanding was that they were used on the forestays of cutters, with a fuller jib flying on the inner stay. Without the inner jib a yankee is a pretty inefficient sail with its high clew.

Correct me if I'm wrong...please..

I don't think there's anything inefficient about high-clewed yankees -- they give away some wind at deck level which can be scooped up by the stays'l on a reach, but we don't generally use our staysails when sailing close to the wind.

In my experience, they are easier to trim than a genoa as the length of the leech is not so disproportionate to the length of the foot, as is the case with genoas, so easier to balance leech versus foot tension.

They also have a better shape on a run.

[mikereed100]

Dockhead,

We recently switched to a 90% jib on our boat and love it. More of what we would call a "blaster" on the West Coast, it has a higher clew than a blade, mostly for visibility and better sheeting angles. My boat is quite different from yours, a cat with a fractional rig, but I find that once the wind gets up over 10-12 knots the jib keeps us moving at half the wind speed or better. We have a code 0 for lighter winds. Our jib is mounted on a boom with a double sheet arrangement, not self-tacking but I have precise control over sailshape and the boom is always fixed in place wherever it is, eliminating flogging. All in all one of the best improvements we've mad to the boat.

I would think carefully about re-cutting your old jib. You will save in materials but pay more in labor so the saving won't be that much. Many, if not most, sailmakers are now using giant lofts like China Sail Factory and Rolly Tasker with low labor costs to make their sails, keeping the cost of new sails down. If you want to do a re-cut you will likely be paying UK labor rates. Also, at 12 years old, even though the sail seems in great shape I would guess that it likely isn't as good as it looks, but a sailmaker would be a better source of info than I. Also, if you get a new jib you can keep the old one as a spare.

[S/V Alchemy]

Originally Posted by estarzinger

We have done quite a bit of headsail development on Hawk, but our rig is quite different than yours (fractional) so I don't know how relevant it is.

Our primary working jib is high aspect and sheets inside the stays - when reaching with it we clip on a 'short sheet' with the block a bit forward and out on the toe rail. The clew when sheeted for close hauled is about 2' off the deck - this is lower than earlier jibs.

I do not know if that officially makes it a 'blade' or not. A blade in my mind entails a very low deck sealing foot.

One thing to be careful about with a low foot, especially when planning to use it in some breeze to windward, is waves getting caught in the foot. That's a huge stress loading on the fabric.

I concur with this. I would suggest that any blade/No. 3/90%-100% foretriangle sail you consider NOT be a deck sweeper, but instead angled tack to clew off the deck.

Conversely, you can have a little less height in the luff and have a short wire strop from the bow to the tack. This is also called a "pendant". I use it when my need for forward visibility and ease of tacking on my sloop outweighs my need to harness wind for speed.

Although putting the No. 3 I have on a pendant will in fact grab more air as we sometimes get wind 10 feet off the water that goes to waste on a low foredeck...

[Bash]

Because we average 25 knots on SF Bay in the summer, we've had a high-clew blade/yankee built as our summer sail. What amazes me is the range of wind in which it excels. Indeed, every autumn I seem to be delaying more and more when I switch back to the lapper.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Bash

Because we average 25 knots on SF Bay in the summer, we've had a high-clew blade/yankee built as our summer sail. What amazes me is the range of wind in which it excels. Indeed, every autumn I seem to be delaying more and more when I switch back to the lapper.

That sounds like the English Channel. We have a high percentage of days with 20 - 30 knots of wind, usually from the WSW or thereabouts. You have it in the summer; we usually have it in the spring and fall. Coastal sailing here is East and West, so it means quite a lot of beating right upwind. I would really like to be able to sail efficiently hard on the wind in 25 knots of wind -- I can't do that now, as I need to reef my yankee to the first reef mark, and it really doesn't like it -- seems like the rolled-up reefed part of the sail separates the airflow, plus I can't get the sail flat enough any more.

Sounds like a 95% yankee (probably wrong to call it a "blade"; I don't intend to make it a deck-sweeper) might be just the trick.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by mikereed100

I would think carefully about re-cutting your old jib. You will save in materials but pay more in labor so the saving won't be that much. Many, if not most, sailmakers are now using giant lofts like China Sail Factory and Rolly Tasker with low labor costs to make their sails, keeping the cost of new sails down. If you want to do a re-cut you will likely be paying UK labor rates. Also, at 12 years old, even though the sail seems in great shape I would guess that it likely isn't as good as it looks, but a sailmaker would be a better source of info than I. Also, if you get a new jib you can keep the old one as a spare.

Thanks! I'll keep that in mind when I discuss with sailmakers.

If it doesn't make any sense to recut it, then I'll just have it cleaned and repaired and keep it as a spare, I guess. It's in very good shape -- just a bit bagged out after all the abuse I've put it through the last three years

[foolishsailor]

We have a inner stay and in the heavy stuff when I still want to go up wind we have a blade for that stay. I also have fair leads set well inside the shrouds for the sail. When the wind has pipped up and I have a reef or two in the main I work very close to the wind efficiently with our blade and reeled main. By staying close to the wind as well we reduce so much of the heeling moment from the wind. Works great as well as a proper staysail when genoa unfurled and working just off the wind.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by foolishsailor

We have a inner stay and in the heavy stuff when I still want to go up wind we have a blade for that stay. I also have fair leads set well inside the shrouds for the sail. When the wind has pipped up and I have a reef or two in the main I work very close to the wind efficiently with our blade and reeled main. By staying close to the wind as well we reduce so much of the heeling moment from the wind. Works great as well as a proper staysail when genoa unfurled and working just off the wind.

My staysail is made of extra-heavy Dacron and is mounted on an oversized furler -- same size as the yankee, which is triple the area. So it is specifically designed to be used as a storm jib, and it works really well for that. In 30+ knots, I roll in the yankee altogether and use the staysail with a bit of main. This works extremely well -- a compact, low sail plan with no weather helm, very little heeling moment, and to boot it's entirely self-tacking, reducing the work load in heavy conditions where this is a real blessing.

My problem is between about 20 knots and 30 knots going upwind. I start to reef my yankee at about 20 knots -- maybe more with the new one since I will be able to keep it flatter. But in under 30 knots, the staysail alone doesn't really produce enough drive to keep the boat moving well.

It seems to me like a high aspect, non-overlapping sail might be just the ticket for this.

[foolishsailor]

Blades are used by racers for multiple conditons, depending on the boats sailplan. On my race boat it is the default sail for anything over 8 knots,while on others it kicks in around 15-18. For a crushing boat with your sail plan It would work well for the conditions you are describing. However, how do you get the furled sail off safely in those conditions to get the blade on?

[foolishsailor]

An FYI...


Our inner stay triangle is only 18% smaller than our main triangle and gives us great sail plan options.

Makes tacking the genny a pain though, but for us, this boat is about carvng out miles versus short tacking or racing...

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by foolishsailor

An FYI...


Our inner stay triangle is only 18% smaller than our main triangle and gives us great sail plan options.

Makes tacking the genny a pain though, but for us, this boat is about carvng out miles versus short tacking or racing...

That's almost a Solent stay, then, isn't it? My staysail is 1/3 the area of my Yankee.