The new book of sail trim by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Sailing, Sailboat racing, Sails -- Aerodynamics
ISBN: 0924486813
Publisher: Dobbs Ferry, NY : Sheridan House
Published: 1995-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

The New Roller-Furling Headsail

On a short-handed cruise > there's no better friend than this sail

Wally Cross

Good sailing products keep coming, and nowhere is this more evident than with today's roller-furling headsail systems and the wide range of furling genoas that are now available to the cruising sailor.

Not so long ago it took a crew of four to handle the big 150 percent genoa on a typical 30-footer. And a boat of this size probably had at least three different headsails to cover the full range of wind strengths; a 40footer had four sails to accomplish the same thing. This arrangement was fine for racing skippers with organized crews, but the cruising sailor, not always blessed with an active and skilled crew, began to get tired of the amount of work needed to sail the boat efficiently.

Then the roller-furling system came into being. Popular acceptance was predictable, because roller furling makes the setting and stowing of the sail much easier. And you can leave a roller-furling headsail up all summer, making it easier than ever to simply run down to your boat and go for a sail.

The reasons that contemporary furling systems are so easy to operate are, first, the units have independent head and tack swivel systems; second, ball bearings are in every moving part; and third, the furling basket/ drum at the bottom of the sail is large enough to work well under load.

In addition, the best sail systems allow the sail to be reefed, or partially furled, as well as completely furled - a situation that allows a sailmaker

to design a single sail that can perform well in winds from 2 to 30 knots. These new "wide-range" genoas come out of a mixture of features that have produced a reefable sail that is strong enough to work in big winds yet light enough to remain properly shaped in the slow going.

What we see today is a "one-person" system, a combination of a rollerbearing furling unit and a radial-cut genoa that is constructed from new materials. This construction allows the sail to be reefed down to a smaller size. The combination allows the sail to give top performance over a wide range of wind conditions and still be easy to handle and provide excellent durability.

The key, of course, as with any good headsail, is to have it light, strong, and capable of holding its shape when it is reefed down. The best fabrics for this purpose seem to be a blend of Mylar and Dacron in a sandwich construction; they produce a light and flexible material.

The sail should be designed in a radial pattern that minimizes stretch and aligns the strongest Dacron material in the leech area, where the greatest loads occur. Using this material, sailmakers can build into these cruising genoas a "racing" shape to get even better performance for the cruising sailor.

In the past, roller-furling genoas tended to lose their designed draft as soon as the sail was being reefed. As the sail was rolled up, it would become very deep in the middle sections of the sail.

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