440: 440 Sailing with Jib only and no Main Sail

[rabbi]

Originally Posted by yme_bosma

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.

As said, we had two jibs up and no main. In winds of 25kn steady and gusts up to 29 kn true. Mast was still up when we arrived (we have seen a number of monos without) No pumping, no movement, no stress cracks, nothing.


AFAIK the 410 has a similar rigg with a single diamond, forestay and two shrouds.


Since I never had a gennaker, have you ever tried to run dead wonwind with both gennaker and genoa?

[Lagoon4us]

Originally Posted by rabbi

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!".

Agree, we have the Pacific in front of us as well, we were going to go for two new genny's then our sailmaker did a overhaul on our original sails and confirmed they had little use and suggested we simply get a matching Genoa built.

We have gone along with this and will set on the spare track on the foil, as you say you can simply tack and in our case furl.

To me this is a good option as we enjoy the simplicity,security and safety of wing-a-wing, always have.... Mono's and Cats.

We have upper aft shrouds and lower aft shrouds so feel confident of rig security.

Cheers

[roetter]

Just crossed the Atlantic with the ARC in 15 days. Blew out our spinnaker blocks at the mast with our Parasailor in 25-30 knots after 72 hour so happy surfing in 4m swell.

Then had to preserve the autopilot from too much strain due to the main. At night we often took the main down and ran full genoa at AWA 160-180. Other wise our most used sail combination was 3rd reef main and full genoa due to the high wind strength. Under 24 knots we started to call 'becalmed'.

[Lagoon4us]

Originally Posted by roetter

Just crossed the Atlantic with the ARC in 15 days. Blew out our spinnaker blocks at the mast with our Parasailor in 25-30 knots after 72 hour so happy surfing in 4m swell.

Then had to preserve the autopilot from too much strain due to the main. At night we often took the main down and ran full genoa at AWA 160-180. Other wise our most used sail combination was 3rd reef main and full genoa due to the high wind strength. Under 24 knots we started to call 'becalmed'.

Well done !!!!! We followed your progress and were impressed with your pace, good stuff no doubt you'll enjoy the Caribbean.

Cheers to all...

[yme_bosma]

Originally Posted by rabbi

Since I never had a gennaker, have you ever tried to run dead wonwind with both gennaker and genoa?

No, haven't tried that yet, but will do. Especially in light winds.

[yme_bosma]

Originally Posted by Lagoon4us

Well done !!!!! We followed your progress and were impressed with your pace, good stuff no doubt you'll enjoy the Caribbean.

Cheers to all...

We've followed it as well, my crossing will be a bot slower looking at the forecasts...

You have the lower aft shrouds as well right? The 400 does not. And as far as I understood from another 450 owners, there are no 'Warnings' in your reefing guidelines like the one we discussed here.

[Lagoon4us]

That's right aft lowers as well, i believe i copied the only suggestions in the handbook and it's for reefing above 23knots....
Cheers

[django37]

Mainsail + gennaker and genoa side by side is fine; the gennaker sends wind into the genoa, which would otherwise be in the lee of the mainsail. If the wind is more on the beam, we set the genoa to windward on our 21' long spi-pole and the gennaker to leew. If the wind is less than 15 knots, the 125 m2 assym. spi is set. If the diamond-wires are kept tight, so that the lower part of the mast does not move, I see no reason to keep the mainsail uo ind strong winds.
Lars

[rabbi]

Thanks, Intersting. Works just like ours (one wing tunneling wind into the other)

What is the speed difference between gennaker + genoa and the spi?

[oos_ya_daddy]

This is the official response from Lagoon......

The position of Lagoon is clear : sailing downwind without the mainsail can
be dangerous for the mast. Indeed the mainsail, the battens and the tension
of the mainsail sheet are part of the tension balance of the mast.

Sailing with just a headsail means that the mast is not enought "tight by
the aft" and so the mast head is pitching too much.

It is our official statement.

Alexandre Dauberville

CNB-LAGOON

[Lagoon4us]

Interesting U-tube clip of POCO LOCO sailing in sloppy conditions during the recent ARC (i believe).

Off the wind there should not be huge loads on the mast, on the wind yes there'll be compression loads.

Watch the clip, see what you think...

Stormy Sailing sneak peek - YouTube

[armido]

I was caught by the subject matter under discussion here. Not because I own a cat, 'cause I don't, but because a link was in the right margin of the OpenCPN discussion forum.

The effect of sailing with jib only on rigging is an important consideration, but I believe daddle hit the nail on the head.

"Might be the mast issue. But one of my concerns with jib only sailing is de-powering in an unexpected squall or gust. There can be situations where there are no good quick options. With a main up one has many more options because of the main's better"

Never having sailed a cat, I don't know what measures are available - or how vulnerable a cat is to capsizing in extreme conditions with big waves if forced to lie ahull without a mainsail. A monohull is definitly at risk in such conditions if there is no main up with which to properly heave to. Considering the challenge of raising a main going downwind, and the hazard of a possible broach while turning into the wind in attempt to facilitate getting the main up (even worse if your motor is disabled), it is definitely good seamanship to always be carrying at minimum a double reefed main. If the presence of a main overworks the servopendulum wind steering gear or electric autopilot, then going to a third reef is always an option. The main can also be sheeted nearer to the center line to present a smaller profile to the wind.

Anyone who has ever seen an aerial video of a Coast Guard rescue underway, with the vessel under distress with a bare pole rolling violently ahull to the waves, totally out of control - understands the problem.

armido

[Lagoon4us]

De-powering, the quickest option, if caught/emergncy is to let the sheet go and furl fast.

Never having sailed a cat, I don't know what measures are available - or how vulnerable a cat is to capsizing in extreme conditions with big waves if forced to lie ahull without a mainsail. We are only discussing off the wind sailing in reasonable conditions and very likely for days on end.

In rough conditions on the wind a sheeted in main is the way to go same as a mono, a strip of 'storm jib' also makes handling easier.

The hard sheeted main gives stability in rough conditions when motoring as well.

However the convo is about whether the rig is capable of handling the conditions very similar to what 'POCO LOCO' is sailing in. Seamanship matched to the conditions of course.

Cheers

[armido]

"De-powering, the quickest option, if caught/ emergncy is to let the sheet go and furl fast."

If no main is already up, then what?

We are only discussing off the wind sailing in reasonable conditions and very likely for days on end.

Been there, done that - but, I've also seen conditions deteriorate rapidly in such conditions, or the wind strength creep up gradually to a point where getting the main up ain't so simple anymore if it ain't up already. Best we can typically expect weather wise is what's forecast three or four days out. Even then, what we get sometimes bears scant resemblance to what's expected. So, is it prudent to always carry at least some mainsail?

Regarding affect of no mainsail and jib only on the rigging has been addressed by the manufacturer.

armido

[Lagoon4us]

Hence the varied discussion.