I dont know how to post a link, but there is a recent thread about 3 sailors being towed in from heavy seas of off the Washington/
Oregon coast that should probably be read by people saying you dont need a trysail. A broken boom doesnt make an inmast
furler any more useful than any other type of sail. If the folks had a trysail (independent of booms,main sheet, any other
rigging that is for the main) they probably would have been able to carry on. They had a series of failures such as loss of
rudder control and a blown out roller
genoa, but they had an inner forestay, but no sign of a staysail or
storm jib on it. Catastrophes are often a series of breakage that overwhelm people, but a trysail is just another backup to keep going. There is another point about not having a staysail up. They may not have been regularly using one and by the time the
wind got high enough to shred the
genoa, it was too dangerous to try to feed a luff tape into a foil without the sail getting away from the crew. I feel that of all
sails, the staysail should be hank on, not roller. Feeding luff tape in high winds is dangerous. The other thread is a good read about how things can go wrong. _____Grant.