After a couple of season of sailing my masthead rig Endeavour 32 using mostly the 130% roller genoa, I've been astounded to find out how much better it goes to windward with the small working jib. In winds strong enough to need some rolls on the genoa and a reef in the main, there is nearly a knot of difference in speed due to the cleaner leading edge and better shape. In lighter winds, the boat doesn't go much faster but feels better and steers more easily.

The downside is losing the increase in speed when the sheets are eased. I miss that feeling of rocketing away on a reach. Instead, the boat just maintains about the same speed as it was going to windward.

I'm going to sail a lot more with the working jib and am having a leach doubling sewn onto it this winter so I can leave it up more often without suffering sun damage. A cruising spinnaker was low on my list because I was pretty happy with the performance under the genoa for cruising and didn't think I wanted to deal with getting a downwind sail out of the bag and up. Now that I've seen how well the working jib is for windward work, I'm re-thinking.

I end up doing a lot of beating to windward. If I carry the genoa as my primary headsail, I'm now going to want to switch to the working jib for any long windward legs if there is any real breeze. That's an involved operation. Carrying the working jib as the primary headsail and getting an asymetrical spinnaker out for long reaching and downwind legs might be more fun and less work.

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Roger Long