Sail Inventory...What's in Your Bags?

[Stillraining]

Our boat came with bear bones sails...135 genoa on roller furler. main and mizzon..that's it.

We want to race in some of the local cruiser type categories in some of our local races like the Swiftsure and VanIsland races but that's about it...other then that it will be just trying to get around in the PNW with all its fluky idiosyncrasies.

So what do you carry and why?..and when are you changing to them?

[jkleins]

We shortened from a 130% genny (came with boat) to 110% for cruising with a foam luff that allowed us a lot more reefing ability and was much more useful to us. We carried the 130 as spare. Then we had a cruising spinnaker in a sleeve we used fairly frequently in Mexico and Costa Rica but not so much after going through the canal. We had a small trysail that we would rig on a track next to the main track and keep in a bag under the boom when we went for more then 24 hours or so. Our main was a full batten main with 2 deep reefs.
That was it except for sail repair material and accessories.

Jim

[Stillraining]

Thanks jkleins....did you notice much loss of hull speed cutting down your Genoa through the same wind speeds as before?

[jkleins]

Originally Posted by Stillraining

Thanks jkleins....did you notice much loss of hull speed cutting down your Genoa through the same wind speeds as before?

We upgraded the quality of the sails and did not notice any difference (except improvement) in the way the boat sailed with the smaller genoa. I am sure there was some at certain wind speeds but the original sail was probably so poorly shaped that the new one almost matched it. We probably lost some downwind performance but we were always reefing going to weather in any wind over about 12 knots so I think the new one allowed us better shape and control.
Going downwind in light airs we could use our cruising spinnaker and were very happy in light winds if we weren't just going right into them. The big genny was not that easy to keep filled going hard downwind. The smaller one was a little easier to go wing-on-wing.
We are going to do the same and trade in our big genny on our new boat as it has the same problem. I understand the Chesapeake has pretty light airs so we may regret it but Mexico had some pretty light airs as well and we sailed everywhere we went.

We had all the time in the world then though.

Jim

[Joli]

Upwind and close reaching you really don't loose much performance when reducing overlap. A 110 or 120% is fine for most sailing.

Downwind however you need sail area. When sailing deep the apparent goes away, the nice 15 over the deck upwind turns into 4 across the transom dead down. A good choice is an assy in a sock. It's easy to set, trim and douse. In the lighter stuff sail a bit higher angle, that will keep a breeze across the deck and the boat moving comfortably.

[barnakiel]

The initial set we got with her was:
-main,
-130+ genoa,
-normal jib (no overlap),
-spinnaker,
-storm jib,
-spares (m+j+g)

We added:
-MPR,
-trysail,

We feel missing:
-a 2/3 inner stay to fly the storm jib,
-a 'blade' jib,

We have changed:
-cut the genoa back to about 110%, boat goes faster, the option was to stick to the bigger overlap but our sail was too heavy for this.

BTW - we have foam luff too (two stripes, one shorter). Works great.

b.

[bewitched]

[QUOTE=Stillraining;370755]Our boat came with bear bones sails...135 genoa on roller furler. main and mizzon..that's it.QUOTE]

You can go nuts on racing sails if you really want to, but I would suggest that you need an inventory that you can go upwind, downwind and across the wind in both light and stronger breeze.. Taking each in turn:

Upwind light - you current configuration is fine

Upwind stronger - Add a smaller jib (which can also be a roller), probably around 100% or around where your bigger genoa starts to look really ugly.

Across wind light - add a reaching spinnaker - on a cruising boat only used for occaisional racing, I would go for an asymetric in a sock rather than a flat symetrical.

Across wind stronger - your current configuration is fine

Downwind light - either add a light weight runner (big shoulders, light cloth) or sail angles on the asymetric

Downwind stronger - either add a heavy runner (narrow shoulders, heavier cloth), or sail deep on the asymetric (use the spinnaker pole to rotate it around the front of the boat).

You can add specialist sails such as code zeros and jib tops to your inventory if you want, but the window (wind angle) where they are efficient is very small and the advantage would be minimal over your 135 genoa.

My advice - buy a smaller jib and a good strong asymetric in a sock. It's enough to have fun racing and you will also use them cruising.

[Stillraining]

Fantastic post Bewitched..Thanks!

Someone still needs to tell me what the heck a MPR is?

[Liam Wald]

Furling Main, Furling 130% Genoa, Asymetrical Spinnaker in sock, Storm Jib (Galesail).

[Bash]

1. furling main
2. 110% jib (winter sail)
3. 80% high-clew jib (summer sail)
4. G3 gennaker

[S&S]

You can collect alot over 45 years:
main
Mizzen
Mizzen stays'l
120 Genoa
150 genoa
170 genoa
3 spinnakers of differing weights
#2,3, and 4 jibs
Spinnaker stays'l
Storm stays'l
Storm Trys'l

Guess which 4 get 90% of the use?

[Stillraining]

Here is my guess

Main, Mizzen,120, Spinnaker stays'l

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by Stillraining

Fantastic post Bewitched..Thanks!

Someone still needs to tell me what the heck a MPR is?

Multi Purpose Reacher

Like an ultralight (1.1 oz. nylon in our case), deep genoa, with high clew and the luff not longer than the max from your masttop to your point (bowsprit in our case). Another take: like a flat genaker.

Use : 65-150 app, 5-10 app knots upwind, 5-15 app knots beam, 5-25 knots app broad reaching.

b.

[Weyalan]

Bear in mind that, for racing, your rating, whether PHS or any other system, is rated on the sails that you have. If you carry bigger sails to improve your performance you will, by definition (in PHS), or by measurement (in IRC, etc) take a rating penalty. So you don't necessarily want to carry an enormous sail wardrobe, because if your rating is determined by your largest sail, you take the rating hit for that sail whether you actually use it or not, so carrying a huge masthead spinnaker that you will use for 2% of your racing will give you arating hit that you will suffer 100% of your rating.

We just got measured for an AMS rating certificate (local version of IRC, only much cheaper) and we actually reduced our sail inventory which, while it does slightly limit our options, gives us a better handicap.

Our potential sail wardrobe was as follows:
Mainsail
Trysail
#1 heavy genoa (145%)
#1 reg genoa (145%)
#1 light genoa (130%)
#2 genoa (125%)
#3 jib (100%)
#4 jib (70%)
Storm jib
3/4oz spinnaker (very large)
1/2oz spinnaker (smaller)
1.25oz heavy weather / reaching spinnaker (smallest)

We declared / were measured with the following
Mainsail
Trysail
#1 light genoa
#2 genoa
#3 jib
#4 jib
Storm jib
1/2oz spinnaker (smaller)
1.25oz heavy weather / reaching spinnaker (smallest)

i.e. no big genoas and no big spinnaker. Obviously your mileage may vary, but the point is that carrying more / bigger sails is not necessarily as advantageous as it might first seem. At the moment, when considering sail wardrobe, our decisions in purchasing sails are more influenced by sail longevity (material choice) and sauitability for cruising than by performance... the new exotic fabrics provide awesome performace, sure, but the penalty is relatively short lifespan (North Sails premier racing sail cloth 3DL has the ironic acronym "3 Day Lifespan).

When cruising we would very rarely pull up anything bigger than a #2 and almost never use a spinnaker (preferring poled out headsail)