What Sail Is This?

[delmarrey]

This thing is like a spinnaker that is forward of the forestay but has a foot (tail) that also goes all the way to the back of the cockpit. It's like a 1 oz. cloth, a bit heavier then my regular spinnaker. Here are the dimensions written on the head.

BL = 54.2'
1/4 = 9.5'
1/2 = 18.8'
3/4 = 27.8'
FT = 38.5'
LE = 38.5'
55% = 20.5'
LP = 24.2'

USYRU Class C


BTW I'm willing to sell this thing if anyone is interested. It's too much for one person to handle. It weighs around 10 pounds.

[s/v Jedi]

Sounds like some kind of reacher or screamer or whatever they call them today. Are you sure the spi-pole is used for it?

cheers,
Nick.

[delmarrey]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

Are you sure the spi-pole is used for it?

Not sure? Can't remember. It came with the boat.
I only tried to get it up once a couple years ago. The pole may have been straight forward. It was a pain to get back down by myself without dipping it in the water or catching it on something.

[svHyLyte]

It sounds as if you are describing a "Blooper", a sail designed to be flown in conjuntion with a spinnaker but that, under the old IOR rule, was counted as a jib and not a spinnaker (when the number of spinnakers one could carry was limited). See

YouTube - J44 Blooper Flying on Lake Texoma

.

FWIW...

s/v HyLyte

[Charlie]

hard to tell Del. could be either a blooper or a reacher. I lean towards a reacher because of its length.

[speedoo]

It does not look like a blooper to me, because it appears to have a much longer foot than most bloopers I am familiar with including the one in the J44 video.

I recall that an old friend had a ketch or a yawl that was equipped with a reaching sail that he used to fly from the main masthead instead of his main. But I never saw one of those again. Sorry to say that, for cruising purposes, your sail probably has little value, unless you want to try to recut it into a spinnaker of some kind.

[delmarrey]

It pretty big for a blooper with a foot 38.5'. It extends the whole length of the deck +.

I would say it would probably work real well for a close-reach in light air. If it had a sock it would probably be a EZ to handle. But a sock that long might be a challenge.

I should take this thing out again and get some pictures, or a video.

[Cheechako]

gotta have it on a Choate! You'll be ghosting along at 5 knots in 5 knots of wind off the bow!

[delmarrey]

I finally got some pictures of the thing. I wanted to go out in the dinghy but I was having trouble keeping the boat straight in rip tides.

The first picture is straight up from the foredeck.
The second picture is the tail attached to the cleat at the transom.
The third is taken from the transom.
And the forth straight up from the bow.

[s/v Jedi]

I vote for reacher.

cheers,
Nick.

[MarkJ]

Its a Blooper. Used in the 1970's and 1980's when racing boats still went dead downwind. Under the IOR rules at the time most boats had a reasonable large fin keel with a rounded bottom so there was no real advantage of gybing downwind.
The Blooper set very well to leward and 'under' the spinnaker, but still outside the spinnaker sheet.
The trick with them is t have the bow leash the correct length... 3- 4 feet on a 50 footer, and then adjust the luff by halyard tension. The head will be 6 feet or more below the mast cap, but can be much more.

Its set after the spinnaker is up and flying and after the genoa has been dropped, of course, dropped early just before raising the headsail.

It really does add a good bit of boat speed and I always thought added to stability, but more experienced people think that it gave the death rolls a terminal finale!!!!!!!!

All I can say is experiment with it when you have a full crew


Mark

[speedoo]

I recall bloopers being smaller sails that had a much shorter foot than this sail has. They were pretty much foretriangle type sails that were usually set opposite the spinnaker downwind.

I think this sail is some kind of reaching sail.

[CharlieCobra]

That's a reacher...

[delmarrey]

It makes sense what MarkJ had to say since the luff is so short compared to the forestay (56'). And now that I'm looking at the markings on the head of the sail, it does have a BL 54.2'. There is nothing on the sail that is 54.2', but the forestay is close. And what would 'BL' mean? Blooper, I would think.

It takes a couple people to be donned/douse. A sock might work but it would be a problem getting the whole sail in with such a long foot.

Thanks all for your help!
For now I'm going to call it a blooper from the evidence.

[speedoo]

If you want to make it easier to douse, you could attach a dousing line to the middle of the sail, maybe around amidships when it is flying.

I think to douse it, you want to have someone on the bow ready to pull in the tack, using the foreguy. Also have the aforementioned dousing line either in someone's hand amidships or secured to the boat amidships. Then release the halyard, and gather in the sail using the foreguy and dousing line, finally releasing the sail at the transom. You need at least two people, preferably three. One to release the halyard, a second on the bow. The halyard releaser could also work the dousing line.

on edit: If you don't go with the dousing line, you could use the line at the transom end of the sail to gather in the aft part of the sail. Once the halyard is released, most of the pressure on the sail will come off, but you want to gather the sail quickly on deck to keep it out of the water. With this sail, I think there is a real danger of the boat running it over in the douse... much more so than with any kjind of spinnaker.

Actually, depending on the relative wind and its strength, it might be better to release the transom line before the halyard to release the pressure. I am thinking that might be preferable when the wind is forward.