Our racing headsails are tacked to the deck, somewhat lower than the seldon
furler drum, they are cut so that their feet (foots, or whatever the plual of a sail foot is) are very close to the deck. For cruising we have a
roller furling genoa that obviously is tacked to the furler drum.
The racing headsails, or at least the
sails that do not have batons are cut so that they can be released from the tack on the deck and lifted up to the furler drum, to facilitate
furling, this is done for
storage only and is great timesaver when putting the boat to
bed after twilight racing and getting back to the club to eat and imbibe. UV protection is provided by a sock that is hoisted around the sail.
The reason I say all this is that we have a bit of experience with the speed differential of the boat working to
wind with the sail sweeping the deck and the sail about 18 inches above the deck. With sheeting position optimised for both positions the deck sweeping position is about half a
knot quicker in around 5 knots of true
wind, up to nearly a knot quicker when the true wind us around 13 knots, pointing ability is also degraded by around 5 to 10 degrees, granted that the variance might not be as great if the sail was specifically designed to be flown above the deck.
we race and
cruise on
Sydney harbour, where it is known to get a bit busy, so a good lookout to leeward on both port and starboard tacks is a necesity, while not the best weight configuration I tend to steer from the low side, especially on a port tack. But probaby more important is to have good spacual awareness, getting to be aware where all your problems are, before they become a problem, an 18 foot can seem to appear out of nowhere. Or a
novice in a cherub can turn a safe
situation into a drama very quickly, it is just being aware of what may happen and being prepared