440: 440 Sailing with Jib only and no Main Sail

[Angels of Rio]

So we might be saying under 25 knots no main not an issue... worth investgating with Lagoon I think.

[Lagoon4us]

It makes more sense otherwise there would be masts falling down everywhere. Our handbook only relates to reefing nothing else so as the wind increases the combo's are noted.

I could improve the rig to hold up BUT as standard you can see their point in a severe blow.

I lucked onto a brand new storm sail from my sailmaker seem's someone ordered it and never paid/collected it years ago. Fits the foil as though built for it, triple stitched, orange luff the full bit!!!!

Just gotta pay for the twin headsails and Flat Reacher!!!!

Cheers winter's here!!!!!!

[Angels of Rio]

Makes absolute sense, as you say there would be dozens of threads here saying my mast broke !!! These wind speeds are within the typical trade wind windows you would expect.

[Lagoon4us]

Originally Posted by Angels of Rio

Makes absolute sense, as you say there would be dozens of threads here saying my mast broke !!! These wind speeds are within the typical trade wind windows you would expect.

[Angels of Rio]

Lagoon4us...

Can you scan me page in the hand book, I have received a reply from Lagoon dealer who will contact lagoon france if I send him the page in question. I am not back to my boat until 20 Dec My email is nigebyrne@hotmail.com My get an official response after all.

[oos_ya_daddy]

Originally Posted by oos_ya_daddy

I have now had writen confirmation from Lagoon that the Genoa can not be used with more that 1 reef in the main. I will copy and paste this in later.

I keep meaning to do this but my letter is saved on my boat computer.

[Lagoon4us]

Any Lagoon or just a 560? I'll copy my page 7 soon......

[Lagoon4us]

Originally Posted by oos_ya_daddy

I keep meaning to do this but my letter is saved on my boat computer.

Take a photo of it it's near as good as a scan.

[Lagoon4us]

Not sure about my scanner's quality.

[Angels of Rio]

Thanks for the scanned page, resolution was good. I have sent it to the dealer asking the question; Are there any sail plan reefing limitations up to 20 knots. Watch this space... Now we just wait for Lagoon

[yme_bosma]

Reefing instructions for the 400 tell me it's best to lower the main above 40knots of true wind speed, (only) when sailing a 70-130 angle to true wind. Depending on the wind strength they suggest to leave between 30-50% of the genoa.

See image here.

As for downwind sailing, they are a bit more vague:

- Do not fall off more than 150° to the apparent wind.
- Put the traveler out as far as possible and slacken the sheet slightly.
- Make sure the mainsail does not touch the shrouds ; the rubbing of the
battens will wear the material and cable very rapidly.
- Keep mainsail + solent up to 15 knots speed and put in one reef or
more if the accelerations are sudden and strong or if sea conditions
deteriorate.

[Lagoon4us]

That's interesting where they say get rid of the main completely finally running with a bit of Genoa.... How many stays do you have? We have 5.

Cheers

[rabbi]

Originally Posted by Lagoon4us

These guys are doing exactly what we are planning on albeit with poles as they are on a mono.

Twin Downwind Sails | Owen Sails

We use a thizzle rig, albeit a cheaper alternative.

We crossed from Med to the Atlantic earlier this year on our 410. We bought her for a sabatical trip with the option of selling her her after that. So investing lots of money just for one crossing didn't make much sense. Of course she only had standard sails.
Buying a complete furling gennaker or spi was out of question for just one trip, that would mean spending a few k EUR just for arriving a day earlier...
I read about the thizzle rigg and like it for its simplicity. But I could not find a matching jib on the second hand market.

But I ran into a second hand jib on ebay, pretty light but almost new. It was roughly the same size as the one on the furler but was a hank-on. For 80 EUR it was a real steal.

I made a temporary forestay of some SS wire, connected to a fixed eye at the top. It had a relatively small bottle screw that connected to an existing hole in the profile at the forebeam right beside the roller furler. To ensure we could cut it loose in an emergnecy I had a small loop of dyneema line between the wire and the bottle screw.
When unused we removed it at the forebeam and tied it to the port bow. Rigging took maybe 5 minutes, cost was 40 EUR.

So I set the Jib on one side and within five minutes I had another forestay where I could raise another jib. Nice and sweet.

These two sails basically towed us across the atlantic. If we felt overpowered in squalls we just opened the rope jammer and down the second jib came within a second.

This setup had a much better directional stability than wing on wing with jib and main. Less stress on the autopilot.
And it sports two relatively small and manageable sails, which can both be reefed without going into the wind.

Overall a nice setup, but could of course be improved by not beeing so cheap.

On the reefing directions, the 410 came with only a small table when to reef, no prosa. But it showed a similar warning not to use the jib alone.
Well, we needed a new topping lift anyway as it was worn out, choose dyneema and sheeted it very tight when going under jibs alone.
Never noticed any issues.
My guess is that Lagoon just wants to be on the safe side. Like McDonalds coffee: "Caution, content may be hot!".

[yme_bosma]

Originally Posted by Lagoon4us

That's interesting where they say get rid of the main completely finally running with a bit of Genoa.... How many stays do you have? We have 5.

Cheers

We have three including forestay, plus the diamond stays on the mast.

[yme_bosma]

Originally Posted by yme_bosma

We have three including forestay, plus the diamond stays on the mast.

And since I will be leaving for a three week crossing from the Canaries to the Caribbean in two days, I am too interested in whether or not I should fly the genoa or genaker without the main. Would be a lot easier to just go directly downwind without the main.