Thanks everyone for the replies! Lots of great thoughts and input here. I have not made up my mind yet. I asked this same question on some other online groups recently too and recieved a lot of feedback there are well.
A few point of clarification.
I’m 42 and in good shape, the workout of going up front is, if anything, probably a good thing for me.
I realize I can reconfigure the
Harken to let me use it as a foil or for hanks, and then put it back together afterwards.
I do like being able to furl the
jib without leaving the
cockpit. It is very helpful both when
single handling the
boat, which I do pretty often, and when I have non-sailing guests, which is pretty often also. I do both things a few times a month.
I normally have a 115 job up front. It’s brand new. I have a 37 year old
jib that came with the
boat and both a brand new partially battened main sail and the original fully battened
mainsail. I sail in San Pedro Harbor near Lobg Beach which is famous for getting consistent very high winds in the afternoon. They had the Sailing Grand Prix here last year because of the
wind. It’s also an industrial harbor that requires a lot of maneuvering, so being able to sail close to the
wind in high wind, 25+ kts is both very useful and a
safety thing. My
current 115 has foam but it gets a big pocket in it when furled in during high winds. This heels the boat a lot, creates an unbalanced sail plan that causes a lot of rocking back and forth, and I can only point 60 degrees or less off the wind, which makes it almost impossible to make ground to windward.
This is a major reason I want to be able to swap out the headsail, because where I sail the conditions change a lot in one day. I also go near
offshore in lots of different
weather.
I am picking up a
storm jib and a trisail this weekend from a guy who I’m getting a good deal from. The
storm jib has tape, not hanks. I’m going to convert my
Harken to “foil” mode and see how changing the
sails single handed and shorthanded goes. I learned to sail
racing so I am used to changing them out in different conditions. I haven’t done so out on the backside of
Catalina yet but I’m not opposed to trying. Of course a foil has different considerations from hanks and will be a lot harder to raise and lower single handed, even with a pre-feeder, so it won’t be quite the same thing (it’ll be a lot more difficult I think). But we’ll see what happens.
I’m hoping that the storm jib will solve the heavy
weather performance issues. I have a standard double reefed main and could have a third reef point added, but if winds were that high I feel like it would be better to swap the main out to protect it. On the other hand I’m certain that I will be less likely to set up the trisail than to use a third reef point. Perhaps both would be appropriate so I have options. Part of this is due to my
boats handling characteristics. IB30s have high rigs, higher than the I30 MkII, and they weigh less, so they are tippy initially before setting up very sturdy. I’m also trying to make her a little more stable initially in high wind by doing all this.
One other thing. As regards inner forestays, I still have no been able to find a single online example of an internal set up that connects the inner stay directly to the
hull, either through a tie rod or any other system. There are some reinforced
deck systems but I think those are bad for the
deck and wouldn’t go that
route. I am thinking that maybe this is a job that a professional rigger might need to do for me, if I were to go this
route? It would be a removeable Colligo Dux forestay and live on the
mast until needed, and it would be a slutter rig attached right behind the
windlass and
anchor locker, where there is bulkhead attached to the
hull, coincidentally.
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