Where did I go wrong?

[Free2Sail]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

I had a glance around the anchorage this morning. 38 boats , one had hanked on headsails all the rest were furlers

We have a hanked-on jib, self-tacking, and with its own camber spar. Dropping it is easy, though usually unnecessary because it is heavily made and small. One sheet to manage, easily pulled in. Those are the pros.

The cons are reduced bow space, a pain when anchoring or grabbing a mooring, and being taken out by the camber spar if you let the sail flog when working near the bow.

The boat is driven by the huge, heavy main, which is a handful, but drops like a rock when heading up into the wind.

[goboatingnow]

On my current Bavaria dropping the main in anything other then directly head to wind is impossible. There’s way too much force on the sail slides. I be liked at cars but my mast can’t take internal wheeled cars. That leaves external wheels which are a big compromise.

If I drop any thing other then head to wind it all gets caught up in the lazy jacks anyway.



Even rigging a Cunningham didn’t help

I want in mast any way , so next boat !

[Don C L]

As far as quivers of sails go, I am not anti furler but I have hank on headsails and I am happy with them. My quiver is usually a 130 Genoa and a reefable working jib for my coastal cruising grounds. (So only one sailbag below.) And I still have yet to employ the reef in the jib except for practice. I have an old spinnaker and a reacher which are very light and take up little space (they make good pillows), but really the Genoa takes care of light air demands pretty well for my little boat. I don't get much difference in speed The comment about hank-on sails being a problem when anchoring can be true, especially when sailing in to anchor, compared to a furler. My only point is that having hank-on sails does not mean that one needs many bags of sails below.
But... maybe it's just my own experiences in my youth, but I love seeing bags of sails.

Oh and just a late comment about the engine...IMO STARTING the engine is a very good strategy when things look troublesome at all. I think it is best to have that option ready and available as soon as possible. It's engaging the transmission that has to wait until everything is ready.

[Talbot]

modern furling does not stop you having additional bags of sails.
I have a 120% genoa on a twin tracked profurl furler.
I have a staysail also on a furler.
I have an assymetric on a top-down furler.
I have a smaller assymetric that I can swap over on the top-down furler.
I have a slightly smaller genoa I can hoist up the twin groover furler and run with twin genoa set up,
I can easily swap my staysail for a storm sail.
I also have a full sized spinnaker which I have never actually used as happy with the assymetrics, and feel I need more crew if I want to use that big spinnaker.

So no shortage of sail bags!

[wingssail]

I find it interesting, but not untypical, that when someone suggests that a boat have an additional headsail smaller than a large genoa, and the ability to set it, the responses gravitate to:

• He recommends we have a quiver of sails
• He recommends use of hank on sails
• He wants us to go back to 1850

I suppose it makes it easier to ridicule an opinion if you exaggerate it to ludicrous.