Yawl

[Tony B]

A yawl has a much smaller mast than a ketch. The amount of extra sail area is negligable and you wont gain much from it. As for balance, I don't believe the yawl mizzen would make any difference as far as unbalancing when sailing. If anything, a yawl would help in balance. A yawl is basically a sloop with a tailfeather. The only problem I see would be the technical aspect of finding a solid enough base for the tabenacle.
The yawl configuration would help balance the boat both at sea and at anchor, but not real gain in 'power'. If you want more power and balance, you will need a ketch.

[skipmac]

Have to agree with Sailmonkey. We bought a new main for our OI36 and it made a world of difference. A big genoa made a dramatic difference in light air performance.

One thing that nothing will help is upwind sailing. The OI36 just doesn't have enough keel to point well. It's been a long time but if I recall correctly best we could do was about 50 degrees course made good. Off the wind the boat is fairly fast for the size and age due to the low wetted surface area.

[Kevin84]

I have to agree with Sailmonkey as well. If you really want to increase her speed, maybe go to either a 135% or 150% Genoa. And like Sailmonkey said, a new mainsail would definately help.

[Eddien]

Pretty much done all that. Running with a 150 genoa, the main has full batons and the roach taps the backstay. I suspect that she sails as fast as she is ever going to. I can get her to point to almost 45 degrees.

[Sailmonkey]

Originally Posted by Eddien

Pretty much done all that. Running with a 150 genoa, the main has full batons and the roach taps the backstay. I suspect that she sails as fast as she is ever going to. I can get her to point to almost 45 degrees.

If you've got a well shaped genoa and main it's all you're going to do. But if you just have big blown out sails there is a lot to be said for new properly shaped sails