Doyle UPS sail

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

The only situation when the UPS is no good is "very broad" reach and dead run.

Cheers,
b.

What keeps one from poling out the UPS type sail just as you do a genoa when sailing very deep? I used to do that with an early gennaker-type sail and it worked fine.

Cheers,

Jim

[colemj]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

What keeps one from poling out the UPS type sail just as you do a genoa when sailing very deep? I used to do that with an early gennaker-type sail and it worked fine.

Cheers,

Jim

Nothing at all - that is essentially what we do (without the pole). Since we are a catamaran, we have the option of moving the tack over to the windward hull, which, doing so, acts the same as using a pole on a mono rig since the clew sheet point is now 21' away from the tack. We have permanently rigged a wire bridle with control lines between the hulls and the furler drum rides on a block on this bridle and can be easily moved from one hull to the other.

Downwind with the halyard slacked a bit to loosen the luff, the UPS acts like an asymmetrical, though not as efficient (or large). With a pole, it would be even better for a mono rig. The inefficiency deep downwind is due to the relatively straight luff and the leach twisting off at the top.

It is not as efficient as a full spinnaker deep down wind, but it does work to keep one moving in light air and is much easier in general to setup and use. Coupled with its ability to be used up to a close reach, it is a versatile sail. It is absolutely in its element in light winds at 70-120* AWA.

Mark

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

What keeps one from poling out the UPS type sail just as you do a genoa when sailing very deep? I used to do that with an early gennaker-type sail and it worked fine.

Cheers,

Jim

Arggghhhhhhhhhh!


Jim, mate: this computer ate my reply.

Well, more briefly this time:

Yes. I think it can be poled out. However it will not deliver its full potential this way. We do not pole it out. We point higher, get extra speed and then gybe the boat and sail another broad reach. The sail is very easy to gybe.

Cheers,
b.

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by colemj

(...)

It is absolutely in its element in light winds at 70-120* AWA.

Mark

I will only add that on our ship (which is a small mono) we can use this sail down to AWA 150 in stronger winds, AWA 135 in light conditions.

Cheers,
b.

[islandplanet]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

What keeps one from poling out the UPS type sail just as you do a genoa when sailing very deep? I used to do that with an early gennaker-type sail and it worked fine.

Cheers,

Jim

Certainly nothing to prevent you from poling it out if you have a long enough whisker pole. I would experiment with different wind angles and see how much speed you pick up every 5 or 10 degrees you head up. Often you will have better VMG heading up a bit. These sails (UPS, CLASS, etc) are pretty much a Swiss Army Knife of a sail.

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by islandplanet

Certainly nothing to prevent you from poling it out if you have a long enough whisker pole. I would experiment with different wind angles and see how much speed you pick up every 5 or 10 degrees you head up. Often you will have better VMG heading up a bit. These sails (UPS, CLASS, etc) are pretty much a Swiss Army Knife of a sail.

+1!

This is exactly why we find GPS such an amazing piece of kit.

Ours has one of the screens set permanently to show VMG (for our course and trim choices) alongside with SOG (for reference only). The only reason why we might at times be willing to give up some VMG on downwind legs and head 'elsewhere' is when the best VMG coincides with the most uncomfortable going (due to old swell and other such pleasantries).

Big asymmetric smile to all ya,
barnie