BoatBanter.com - Headsail size

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On Sun, 26 Nov 2006 09:16:07 -0500, in message

DSK wrote:

Ryk wrote:
Since the numbers are calculated as LP/J*100, it also depends a lot on
the rig design, ranging from small foretriangle fractional rigs to
older masthead boats with a huge J dimension and a short boom. A 135
is a small sail on the former and a great big sail on the latter.

Good point. The Yankee 30 is a masthead, with large but not
extreme J dimension. I'd lean toward a larger genoa for
normal sailing and a staysail for the heavy days.

My
boat fits into the latter category and I would probably choose about
110 for cruising comfort and ease of tacking, then hoist a spinnaker
off the wind if it isn't blowing.

Go see your sailmaker for advice based on local conditions, type of
boat, and the kind of sailing you want to do. It's usually free...

A good sail inventory is a basic necessity, and I don't mean
large numbers of blown-out racing sails. It's amazing to me
how many people are cruising with crap sails. But then,
diesel fuel is still relatively cheap....

Depends on the local racing fleet... Non-competitive racing sails may
still have years of performance cruising capacity left in them. Still,
I agree that cruising with bad sails is not fun for me.

A cruising spinnaker, a 120 or 135 (depending on where & how
most sailing is to be done, I might even go to a 145 but
then I like to go fast) on a roller, and a staysail, would
be a good set-up.

I carry a good inventory, but sail changes tend not to happen a lot
when cruising, and then not until far after they should. Unrolling a
big genoa and getting it down on the deck can be nasty work if left
too late while the wind is rising. Most cruisers around here seem to
hoist sail at the start of the season and leave it on the furler until
the fall.

It's great to fly my mylar 150 until the wind gets up over 7 knots,
but I would never keep it on the furler. If I wanted a general purpose
cruising sail I would go smaller than my standard 135 that I use club
racing.

Again, it's hard to generalize over different rigs and venues

Ryk

On Sun, 26 Nov 2006 16:01:13 GMT, in message

"Roger Long" wrote:

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.

Getting the chute up off the wind is definitely more fun.

Ryk

"Matt O'Toole" wrote

Also, sorry to be a pain, but your last two wonderful messages were
almost unreadable with a text-only newsreader. There were no line breaks,
so I had to scroll horizontally. Outlook Express is famous for such
problems. I recommend turning HTML off and posting text-only, plus maybe
using an add-on like OE-Quotefix. Or changing newsreaders.

Sorry, I didn't realize, and wonder why, anyone would still be using a plain
text only reader. Seems like those who want to cling to the Gutenburg age
should perhaps make the adjustement instead of everyone else posing to the
lowest technology denominator. I appreciate being able to click on links
provided in these posts and you can't do that in plain text. Isn't there
something you can click to force word wrap?

I'm sure there are many opinions out there on this and I'd be interested in
hearing them.

-- Roger Long

A good sail inventory is a basic necessity, and I don't mean
large numbers of blown-out racing sails. It's amazing to me
how many people are cruising with crap sails. But then,
diesel fuel is still relatively cheap....

Ryk wrote:
Depends on the local racing fleet... Non-competitive racing sails may
still have years of performance cruising capacity left in them. Still,
I agree that cruising with bad sails is not fun for me.

Depends on what you mean by "non-competitive." A lot of
racers are flogging their way around the course with crap
sails, too. By "crap" I mean a sail that is blown into a
baggy shape that will not respond to tuning, that has had
the seams stressed & cloth weakened such that it is at risk
of coming apart in a hard blow.

A sail with a full season on it is not competitive but
should be fine for good sailing (cruising or otherwise). A
sail with two full season on it will need to be recut to be
competitive and restitched to be any good for anything else.

I don't see cruising as all that different from racing, in
terms of demand on the sails & rig. In fact, when cruising,
one is likely to leave sails up longer and in slightly
stronger wind since one is likely to be shorthanded. Of
course, the racer's daily bending on, all that tacking, and
taking them off & folding them, is also hard on the sails.

One of the problems with hi-tech racing sails is that they
don't really lose much shape, they get unresponsive to
tuning adjustments (which you can live with) and weakened
(which is a problem). The sail will have a nice shape and
just look a bit tired, and suddenly disappears in a gust.

A cruising spinnaker, a 120 or 135 (depending on where & how
most sailing is to be done, I might even go to a 145 but
then I like to go fast) on a roller, and a staysail, would
be a good set-up.

I carry a good inventory, but sail changes tend not to happen a lot
when cruising, and then not until far after they should. Unrolling a
big genoa and getting it down on the deck can be nasty work if left
too late while the wind is rising. Most cruisers around here seem to
hoist sail at the start of the season and leave it on the furler until
the fall.

Same around here. A big light air genoa is nice to have but
taking it on & off is a PITA, so is stowing it... you don't
even want it on the boat the rest of the time. That's one
reason why I thought a 145 (for areas with lots of light
air, smaller for areas where the wind is more dependable)
with one of the reefing options would be good, with a
staysail for when it really blows. The staysail would be
easier to set, easier to stow.

It's great to fly my mylar 150 until the wind gets up over 7 knots,
but I would never keep it on the furler. If I wanted a general purpose
cruising sail I would go smaller than my standard 135 that I use club
racing.

Again, it's hard to generalize over different rigs and venues

And different tastes.

One thing I'd like in a cruising and "fun sailing" genoa is
one that allows somewhat better visibility. A high-cut foot
is deadly to a racer but desirable for any other type of
sailing.

Diesel fuel is still relatively cheap. Of the cruisers I
know, 99% of them motor 99% of the time when they are trying
to actually get somewhere. Crap sails is one reason for
that, but then you can buy a lot of fuel for the price of a
set of good sails.

DSK

Roger Long wrote:
:"Matt O'Toole" wrote

:Also, sorry to be a pain, but your last two wonderful messages were
:almost unreadable with a text-only newsreader. There were no line breaks,
:so I had to scroll horizontally. Outlook Express is famous for such
:problems. I recommend turning HTML off and posting text-only, plus maybe
:using an add-on like OE-Quotefix. Or changing newsreaders.

:Sorry, I didn't realize, and wonder why, anyone would still be using a plain
:text only reader. Seems like those who want to cling to the Gutenburg age
:should perhaps make the adjustement instead of everyone else posing to the
:lowest technology denominator.

USENET is a text-only medium. Keeping it so keeps it efficient; using
a text-only newsreader, I can keep up with groups with much less work
and expenditure of time.

If you want flashy crap, go somewhere else. There are plenty of
mostly worthless web fora that will allow you to have flashing text
and animated smileys.

:I appreciate being able to click on links
:provided in these posts and you can't do that in plain text. Isn't there
:something you can click to force word wrap?

Being able to click on links is a function of the newsreader software,
or perhaps the terminal emulator software.

"David Scheidt" wrote

If you want flashy crap, go somewhere else.

Wraping lines of text is flashy?

-- Roger Long

Roger Long wrote:
:This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

:------=_NextPart_000_000A_01C71209.4488F360
:Content-Type: text/plain;
: charset="iso-8859-1"
:Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

: "David Scheidt" wrote=20

: If you want flashy crap, go somewhere else. =20

:Wraping lines of text is flashy?

The html bloat is certainly crap. I've left intact the text/html
section of your response. For your 32 character response, the html
and mime requires 1331 bytes.

:-- Roger Long

:------=_NextPart_000_000A_01C71209.4488F360
:Content-Type: text/html;
: charset="iso-8859-1"
:Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

:!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"
:HTMLHEAD
:META http-equiv=3DContent-Type content=3D"text/html; =
:charset=3Diso-8859-1"
:META content=3D"MSHTML 6.00.5730.11" name=3DGENERATOR
:STYLE/STYLE
:/HEAD
:BODY bgColor=3D#ffffff
:DIVFONT face=3DArial
:BLOCKQUOTE=20
:style=3D"PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; =
:BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"
: DIV>"David Scheidt" <A=20
: "dscheidt@panix. com/A> wrote =
:/DIV
: DIV /DIV
: DIV>If you want flashy crap, go somewhere else.  /DIV
: DIV /DIV/BLOCKQUOTE/FONT/DIV
:DIVFONT face=3DArialWraping lines of text is =
:flashy?/FONTBRBR-- Roger=20
:Long/DIV
:BLOCKQUOTE=20
:style=3D"PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; =
:BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"FONT=20
: face=3DArial/FONT /BLOCKQUOTE/BODY/HTML

:------=_NextPart_000_000A_01C71209.4488F360--

That's very interesting and it certainly does seem inelegant and wasteful
although I can't imagine bandwith is really a problem with all the video's
being sent around.

I agree that attachements, embedded pictures, animated signatures, etc. have
no place here. It's odd though that the only complaint I've gotten about
posting since signing up as the twelth internet user in Maine (outside of
educational institutions, anyway) was for my line feeds producing broken up
text. The concensus then was, "leave the line wraps to the reader".

I recently had to reinstall Windows and OE. I don't know at this point what
format I was posting in previously. I've set it back to plain text to see
how it works. I'm curious though how it handles links like this one:

http://home.maine.rr.com/rlma

-- Roger Long

So, plain text works with the links. I'm sure now that I was using plain
text before and that my settings defaulted back to html with the reinstall.

Thanks for pointing it out. I'll sleep a little better knowing I'm saving a
few bytes to make room for all the porn videos and spam the net has to
carry:)

Happy now?

--
Roger Long

"Roger Long" skrev i en meddelelse
...
So, plain text works with the links. I'm sure now that I was using
plain text before and that my settings defaulted back to html with the
reinstall.

Thanks for pointing it out. I'll sleep a little better knowing I'm
saving a few bytes to make room for all the porn videos and spam the
net has to carry:)

Happy now?

--
Roger Long

Hello Roger,

I'm reading this newsgroup on a daily basis with great interest -
without really contributing ...but learning ... not least from your many
projects ... and illustrations on your homepage ...

For a while, however, I have really missed your contributions to this
newsgroup, and was wandering if you had left the group ...
Maybe that has something to do with your settings? ... I could however
see someone respondig to some of your remarks, but they did not appear
on my screen as coming from you, but just imbedded in other comments ...
Good to "see you again" ... Keep your settings as of now please!

Best regards
Flemming Torp
Denmark