In monohull sailing, when you leave too much sail up in a building breeze the signs are clear: The rail is ­underwater, the dishes are on the floor, Grandma is terrified. The boat is dealing with ­excess energy by trying to ­lever a 5-ton lead weight out of the water; in other words, it’s heeling, spilling breeze, slowing down and rounding up.

Multihulls don’t behave that way. When you overpower a cat, it can only accelerate, dig a hole in the water or bust gear. No-heel sailing has a lot of advantages, but one drawback is the temptation to sail badly. You might easily go sailing with breakfast dishes on the table and postpone reefing until you’ve cleaned things up. In the meantime, the breeze is on, the boat’s impossible to steer and you shred a sail. One key to safe catamaran sailing is to learn when — and how — to reduce sail.

The best place to learn how to tuck in a reef is at the dock. Pick a morning with zero wind, and hoist. Practice reefing and un-reefing till you can do it in less than three minutes, blindfolded. If something jams or snags, stop. Find the source, figure out the cause and fix it. Look for inherent weak spots, chafe areas and jammed lines or sail slides. Study the whole system in slow motion and ­imagine how it will behave in howling wind, thrashing seas or on pitch-dark nights.

With the main down and flaked on the boom, go to the mast and haul up the main halyard, hoisting the sail as far as you can with two hands and no winch. Let it drop. Repeat and get a feel for the amount of friction built in to this most simple system. Then, if your lines lead to the cockpit, go back and repeat the procedure from where you would normally hoist the sail. Note how every bend and turn adds friction.

It’s important to have a solid understanding of your boat’s base-line resistance. When something jams in the dark, at sea, and you’re alone in the cockpit, you have to know nature’s little warning signs. Your evil inner voice will say, “You’re just tired. Put that thing on the electric winch!” You have to be able to argue back, “No, this is not the normal amount of friction. Something’s wrong.” Remember: There are no snag problems an electric winch can’t make worse.

While you’re at the mast, study the gooseneck. With the first reef in, look at the way the reef line is led to the deck and back to the cockpit. Look for friction and chafe. Push the boom out and back, making sure the reef line doesn’t change tension. Look back at the tail end of the boom, where the reef line passes through the leech. The reef line should pull both reef points in two directions: down and forward at the luff, and down and back at the leech. It should run through all its turns, from boom to cockpit, with minimal resistance. It might appear to be all clean and peaceful at the dock, but on big seas, everything is in motion. The slightest chafe whittles line down to bird-nest fodder in no time.

Next, work out your own checklist for reefing. It should be a simple list of the basic steps, in an order that goes something like this: 1) Ease mainsheet. 2) Set topping lift. 3) Ease halyard. 4) Tighten and secure reef line. 5) Re-tension halyard. 6) Trim sheet.

Reach for It

Once you’ve got it down pat at the dock and you’re ready for a test run, pack a lunch and look for a steady 15-knot breeze with plenty of sea room. Set a heading on a close reach, check sea room again and punch in the autopilot. Watch the autopilot drive for five minutes while you review your checklist.

When you’re ready, ease the mainsheet and let the traveler down until the main is completely de-powered. Adjust jib trim and autopilot heading until the boat stays on course, powered only by the jib; don’t fall off and let the luffing main fill again. The speed will go down sailing only on the jib, but the boat should balance, still on a close reach. Now go through your checklist and practice it step by step for both the first and second reef, hauling the sail up and down until you have it down cold or run out of sea room.

Reefing on a close reach has its own tricks and hassles, but I find it far easier than starting engines, pushing the bow into the wind, leaping off wave crests, pounding in troughs, watching for stray lines in the props and minding the ­flogging boom.

In the distant past, when mainsails had short (or no) battens, the sail flogged when luffing. This was considered hard on the sailcloth. The full-length battens on modern ­catamaran mainsails take the flog out of the sail but put it in the boom. This is considered hard on skulls, should they be in the way. An out-of-control boom also flails slack lines, which snag, bend, remove hardware and tie themselves in weird knots. It’s a deadly menace to life and property. I try to avoid it at every ­opportunity. Still, it’s good to ­practice reefing nose-to-wind, and also heaving to. It’s difficult, it tests boathandling skills and it helps prepare you for the toughest challenge: reefing while sailing on a run.

Before we head off downwind, let’s heave to for a ­minute and review. We like to practice at the dock, in dead calm, because, well, it’s calm. Everything’s easy.

So how to know when to reef? The first obvious answer is the wind-speed indicator. If your boat has an owner’s manual, it probably recommends reefing at 18, 28 and 35 knots or so. Every boat is different, and no rule fits every situation, but take it on faith that these are ballpark figures. Pick your own numbers, but be conservative, watch the wind speedo (hopefully it’s been calibrated) and stick to your rules till you know your boat well.

Do you put in the first reef at 18 knots true or apparent? Great question. Most cats pick up a lot of speed when they head downwind. This exaggerates the difference ­between true-and apparent-wind speed. You’ll especially notice this if you have set a gennaker or spinnaker and the wind is building. If you head up even a few degrees on these sails, the apparent-wind speed builds so fast you might have a shredded sail quicker than you can say “snap fill.”

Write your reefing-guide checklist with true-wind speed in mind, and make a note to clearly understand how your boat’s speed and heading affect apparent-wind speed and angle. Then make a note on the dashboard for downwind drivers: “Steer down in a puff.” The deeper downwind angle you sail, the less the apparent wind. And vice versa.

Most catamarans have shrouds placed far aft, and no backstay. That means the boom cannot swing out as far as on typical monohulls, and therefore the jibe angle is smaller. The boat has a narrower range of downwind sailing angles. For this reason, and a few other architectural ones, cat sailors don’t often sail dead downwind, at least not with the main up. It’s a big sail, with lots of roach in the leech; long, heavy battens; and, on many boats, a traveler that’s 10 or more feet long. When you jibe one of these accidentally in 25 knots, it’s like lifting a cat by the tail: You discover new things that can’t be learned any other way.

A lot of good sailors will say you can’t reef that big sail when it’s loaded on a run. But something about turning into a huge following sea is a motivator to try. When you turn into the wind to reef, and start taking big waves on the beam, even though you know that in ­theory your boat was designed not to capsize, all your senses will scream, “We’re going over!”

So before you get caught out in 20-foot seas with too much canvas up, it’s best to learn how to reef the big main while sailing hard, downwind.

Downwind Basics

You can work out the basic moves and hardware at the dock. But to feel the pressure, the friction you’re up against when sailing on a run, it’s good to have a long stretch of wide, flat water and at least 15 knots of steady breeze.

If you have the luxury of crew, this is the time to put your best downwind driver at the wheel. If you are cruising alone, or with a mate, your autopilot is your best friend and the most important piece of gear on the boat. Most autopilots have a wind function; instead of a magnetic heading, they will steer to an apparent-wind direction. This is where you learn to use it, adjust it and trust it. The boat has to maintain a rock-solid wind angle, and you need to be able to tweak it a few degrees, up or down, and trust it won’t lurch into a round-down wild jibe.

Before you punch the autopilot into duty, set your heading and sail trim on a deep downwind angle that’s balanced and easy to steer. If you’re struggling, zigging off and zagging back, fighting a heavy wheel, the pilot will struggle too. Eventually something will break. If your ­heading swings too far, the autopilot may give up trying to hold course and eventually switch itself off. (There’s a Catch-22 to all this: If you’re overpowered and out of balance, it’s hard to safely reef because it’s hard to hold course. But this is when you need that reef the most. Practice in lighter breeze and work up to the big stuff. And learn to reef sooner rather than later.)

Even in lighter wind, with the main sheeted out and traveler down, there’s plenty of friction on the mainsail’s luff cars. The sail likely won’t come down on its own, and even the reef line on a winch won’t feel effective. The simplest solution is for someone to stand at the mast and pull down on the luff of the sail. If you can safely get there in the dark and reach the sail, this method, being the simplest, has beauty.

But regardless, you already thought about this back at the dock, and you have rigged some kind of downhaul that lets you pull down on the sail from a position where you feel safe. It can be as simple as a separate line, tied to the top luff car, that is led to the base of the mast, or better yet to a manual winch either on the mast, cabin top or at the helm (to be used as a last resort!).

There are times when even an athlete at the mast, using a well-rigged downhaul, won’t budge the sail. Try bringing the mainsheet in 2 feet and try again. No? Alter heading slightly and try again. Bring in a couple more feet of sheet. ­Double-check the main halyard. No snags? Keep tinkering with sheet angle and heading, downhaul and reef-line pressure in tiny increments — but don’t jibe! Try even moving the traveler up a foot or two. ­Remember, the reef line has to pull the boom up a bit to meet the lowering leech cringle, so changing the sheet geometry can help.

If all else fails, you might have to put your downhaul on the (manual!) winch. Here, again, all your dock practice pays off because you need a good feel for how much friction is too much. You need to know if something is about to break.

If you keep tweaking the sheet and heading in small bites, and you don’t break something, the sail will finally move down an inch or two, and that’s all you need, a start. From there you can keep ­inching it down.

When you have the reef point locked down, give the autopilot a break. Steer the boat to see if it’s easier and better balanced with less sail. If you still have sea room in your practice space, take a break, open the lunch bag, review your checklist and then practice reefing the jib. You’ll find challenges there too in big wind, even though it rolls up.

Practice Makes Perfect

Every boat and every sea condition is a little different. Experimenting in all kinds of settings is the only way to learn the personality of your boat. There are devilish details: lazy jacks that snag battens, sail covers and Biminis that block the view. Besides their sails, catamarans have lots of sail area in fiberglass and gelcoat. When you’re sailing downwind, all that vertical surface you see from behind equates to sail area, and most of it is aft of the mast. I’ve sailed cats at more than 17 knots with no sails at all! So the dynamic balance of a cat is different from a monohull.

When you start tinkering, you’ll find most cats sail well, even tacking upwind, on jib alone. But they hardly sail at all on just the main. As big as the main is, that seems counterintuitive. But when I’m alone on the boat and both engines die at the worst moment, the first thing I reach for is the jib sheet and furling line. Before the anchor, before the radio, before the life jacket, I roll out the jib. Try it.

Learn your boat! When you understand how it reacts in various conditions, you’ll pick up other little clues that tell you if it’s overpowered. I can tell a lot just from the sound of the water tumbling off the transom. There are lots of cat sailors out there now. Go to school on the stuff they broke. Like electrics, every mechanical system should have a fuse. If you break something, before you beef it up, ask yourself if that was the best place for an overload failure. A raceboat owner summed that up best for me years ago, and I never forgot: “Guys, we sailed hard enough to break some stuff, but it wasn’t ­expensive. Great job!”

Don Margraf is a West Coast multihull sailor, rigger and yacht broker who mastered the finer points of boathandling at Trial & Error U.

The post Controlling Your Sails On A Catamaran appeared first on Cruising World.

3Di Outlasts The Adventure
Francois Gabart and his 30-meter trimaran Macif broke the solo around-the-world speed record in December 2017 with a 3Di mainsail that had 45,000 miles BEFORE the start of his record run. 3Di powered all three around-the-world speeds records currently held.

No Film. No Delamination.
3Di is composite technology, not a sail laminate. All other sailmakers use laminates of which Mylar film is an integral component. Moisture, sunlight, and fatigue degrade both the adhesives used with the film, and the Mylar itself. These cause delamination and film failure over time.

Another Dimension
North Sails created 3D technology and is the only sailmaker to utilize full-sized molds. 3Di uses reconfigurable molds that are set to the sail’s intended flying shape.

Made By Robots (mostly)
The only sewing on a 3Di sail is for attaching details such as corner reinforcements and clew straps.
The majority of the 3Di process is automated and run by computers.

Unique To You North Sails has four versions of 3Di to suit different sailing styles and budgets.

It Has To Be North
3Di is a patented sail technology that is exclusive to North Sails. There are many “black” and “gray” sails on the market, but they are actually Mylar based string sails hidden underneath a cover layer giving them the superficial appearance of 3Di without the performance.

The post North Sails 3Di – What You Need to Know appeared first on Cruising World.

Sails do not last forever, but with proper care, cruising sails made of a high-quality Dacron sailcloth will provide many years of service. I know this because I spent more than 70 years maintaining sails, often turning for advice to Graham Knight, of Antigua Sails, who has been repairing sails in Antigua since 1970. Knight has repaired or supervised the repairs to more sails than anyone else I can think of.

My sailing career began in the days of cotton sails and manila or linen running rigging. It was a good school in which to learn how to repair sails, as there were few sailmakers in the Caribbean in the late 1950s, just a few locals who made or repaired canvas sails entirely by hand. We yacht owners did most of our own sail maintenance, also by hand.

When Dacron sails first arrived on the scene, we thought it was heaven. Dacron was unaffected by changes in moisture. Gone were the days of having to carefully ease the halyard and outhaul as you sailed into a fog, or when rain soaked the sail. Gone were the days of carefully drying sails to make sure they did not get mildewed, and we could forget about putting on the sailcover to keep the nighttime dew off the sail. I did, though, miss the most comfortable place to sleep in a boat: curled up on a dry cotton spinnaker in the fo’c’sle.

Over time, we learned from experience that Dacron sails become damaged in three ways: as a result of weak stitching, from flogging, and by degradation from exposure to UV radiation from the sun. The stitching was a particular weakness in those early Dacron sails, in part due to the sensitivity of the thread to UV exposure.

A Stitch in Time

I quickly learned that when the stitching fails, a sail will split from the leech in, seldom from the body of the sail out. If on Iolaire we noticed a seam opening up in the body of a sail, my crew or I would restitch it by hand at the end of the day. If a seam started to fail from the leech in, it would split all the way to the luff before we could get the sail down. I vividly recall spreading a mainsail across the fuel dock at Yacht Haven in St. Thomas, restitching by hand where it had split from luff to leech — two rows of stitches, each 15 feet long. That taught me to regularly inspect the leech of every sail and restitch the weak points before they failed.

Just before my late wife, Marilyn, and I decided to emigrate to Grenada, I acquired a heavy-duty Pfaff electric zigzag sewing machine mounted in a proper table. We disassembled it and packed it in Iolaire’s port pilot berth so it would be on the windward side going to Grenada. Periodically, I set up the sewing machine in the bar at the Grenada Yacht Club, where I could spread the sails out. I regularly restitched them along the leech and along the seams to 3 feet in from the leech. I did the same along the foot of the high-cut yankee. That ended the weak-stitching problem for Iolaire.

Take it from me, you will substantially increase the life of your sails by periodically taking them to a sailmaker who can inspect them, make any obvious repairs and do as I have described above. Also, have the batten pockets restitched if the stitching looks weak.

Once a sail is two or three years old, it will become apparent where it chafes on shrouds and spreaders. Have your sailmaker glue on reinforcement patches in the way of the spreaders and narrow strips over the seams where they chafe on shrouds. Taking these simple steps will lengthen the life of the sail considerably.

Knight recommends you persuade the sailmaker to use Gore Tenara thread when you have your sails restitched. Sailmakers do not like to use it because it is expensive and the machine must be specially set up for it, but the thread will last longer than the sail.

Shaken to Pieces

Flogging is another major cause of sail damage or destruction. In the days when Iolaire had cotton sails, I had a lot of trouble with the batten pockets or the sail under them tearing when the sail flogged during a tack or when reefing. When I ordered my first Dacron mainsail from Charlie “Butch” Ulmer, I asked for a battenless main. This eliminated the problem of broken battens, and battens fouling in the rigging when sails were hoisted or doused, but introduced another: I always had a fluttering leech unless the leech line was pulled taut, and then I had a curled leech.

When the battenless main was coming to the end of its life I replaced it with a main with battens. To keep the wooden battens (plastic battens did not yet exist) from breaking and tearing the batten pocket or sail, I installed three very thin battens in each pocket. The thin battens would bend more without breaking than a single thicker batten. I also removed the batten pockets, sewed a patch under each pocket, then reinstalled the pockets. As a result, if a batten did break and tear a hole, because of the double thickness, the hole was usually in the batten pocket rather than in the sail. A hole in the batten pocket was much easier to repair than a hole in the sail.

The problem of the flogging mainsail was solved in 1989, when Robbie Doyle gave Iolaire a fully battened mainsail with one of his first StackPacks. I will not get into the debate about which sails are faster, but from the cruising sailor’s standpoint, a fully battened sail beats the battened soft sail six ways to Sunday. A fully battened sail does not flog when it’s being reefed. If a squall approaches and the skipper feels it will only be a brief one, the main can be eased so it’s completely depowered but will not flog. It may take some strange shapes, but it will be depowered. It can be retrimmed once the squall has passed.

We discovered a few problems with the Doyle StackPack as originally conceived, but we sorted them out over time. A fully battened sail installed in a StackPack or a similar cover will last virtually forever.

After six hard seasons in the Caribbean and a transatlantic passage, I replaced Iolaire’s original StackPack with a Street Pack — a Doyle StackPack installed with zippers (see “From StackPack to Street Pack,” page 85). I replaced it not because the sail was worn out but because the cover and the membrane were falling apart and, being all sewn together, were too difficult to repair. Since then, the cover and membrane have been removed and repaired three times, but the sail was still going strong when I sold Iolaire 17 years later!

Many sailmakers make their own versions of the StackPack. Before ordering one, make sure the sail, cover and membrane (if fitted) are all connected with zippers rather than being sewn together.

UV and Polyester

We discovered the hard way in the tropics just how susceptible to rapid degradation polyester fabrics like Dacron are when exposed to UV rays. Knight showed me how to determine how severe the damage was. He pushes a sail needle through the cloth. If it goes through cleanly, all is well and the sail can be restitched and repaired. But if the needle goes through the material with a pop, the cloth is toast.

We also discovered that the light, easily handled Dacron sailcovers were not the answer; they did not protect the sails from UV damage. The solution was to make the covers out of mildew-proofed Vivitex or, later, Sunbrella. The life expectancy of boom-stowed sails on all rigs was greatly increased if the crew put on the sailcovers every day as soon as the sail was dropped. The StackPack took care of the UV problem to a great extent, on Iolaire’s mainsail anyway. Headsails were another matter.

On Iolaire, we fought the problem of UV degradation on roller headsails for 50 years. In 1961, I installed a jib and a staysail that roller-furled on their own luff wires. We made them work by setting them up on two-part halyards led to a winch. The luff wires were the same diameter as the stays, and we tensioned the luff wires until the head and staysail stays were slack. The system worked well, but the sails were all the way out or all the way in. To minimize damage from UV rays, any time we would not be sailing for two or three days, we lowered the sails and stowed them coiled in bags.

Eventually, the leech and foot of the yankee, which remained exposed when the sail was furled, were shot. The body of the sail was fine, so my crew and I laid out the sail and removed the luff wire. I then had a sailmaker cut 18 inches off the leech and foot and rebuild the head, tack and clew corners. My mate and I shortened the luff wire to suit the new luff length, fed it through the sail and tensioned it between two palm trees with a four-part tackle. We then adjusted the luff tension of the sail, secured the head and tack cringles to the ends of the wire, and secured the sail to the luff wire. We now had a good J2 and bought a new J1.

This same operation, cutting the sunburned material from the leech and foot of a high-cut jib, can also be done on a genoa, reducing a 150 percent genoa to a 135. With headsails fitted to a roller-­reefing foil, this operation is much easier than with the old sails with luff wires.

Roller Reefing

In 1986, Olaf Harken offered me a very good discount on Harken’s headsail ­roller-reefing gear. From the late 1960s to the ’80s, bent-up and ­broken-down roller-reefing headsail gear was stacked like cordwood in rigging lofts across the Caribbean, so despite the limitations of my roller-furling headsail rig, I was not at all interested in switching to a roller-reefing headsail on a foil.

What Harken really wanted was for me to test his company’s new gear for larger boats. When he offered to give me the gear and a headsail to go with it, I accepted. The gear worked perfectly for nine hard years in the Caribbean, three transatlantics, 17 years cruising and racing in Europe, and was still going strong when I sold Iolaire.

In one way, though, it was a step backward. To protect the sail from UV rays, we removed it whenever we were not sailing for any amount of time. With the headsail it replaced, one person could slack the halyard, drop the sail and, with some difficulty, coil the furled sail into its bag. By contrast, removing the big yankee from the headstay was a three-person job, as was hoisting it. Thus we did not do it with the frequency we had with the roller-furling sails, and the sail suffered.

To eliminate the sunburn problem, many cruisers have a protective layer of Sunbrella about 18 inches wide sewn on the leech and foot. It looks like hell and does not improve the set of the sail. The better solution for a roller-reefing headsail is a cover of the kind I first saw on German yachts in the Baltic in the late ’90s and is now becoming common elsewhere. The cover, which is a long sleeve, is hoisted, usually with the spinnaker halyard, then tightened with a lanyard threaded through a series of hooks and eyes. It covers the sail completely and does not flap in the breeze. However, friction imposes a limit as to how big a sleeve can be made and still be practical to hoist and douse. Knight says the maximum practical luff length is about 60 feet. A sail with a luff any longer than 60 feet is too big to regularly take down when the boat is not being sailed, so it is left up and the leech and foot remain exposed to UV rays. Some skippers, rather than use a colored protective material, have sacrificial strips of cloth the same color as the sail sewn on the leech and foot. Mark Fitzgerald, the longtime skipper of the 115-foot high-tech ketch Sojana, coats the leech and foot with white emulsion paint, which has proved to minimize UV damage. North Sails has a liquid “ink” that reduces UV damage. It is available in several colors and can be sprayed on existing sails if they are clean.

Be sure when you furl your sail on a roller furler that the drum turns in the ­direction that leaves the Sunbrella cover and not the sail itself exposed.

I have been told by Evelyne Nye, head of Custom Canvas and the North Sails agent in St. Thomas, that the best headsail covers are made by Etienne Giroire, a French singlehanded racing skipper who does business as ATN (atninc.com). This certainly looks like the solution to the UV problem with roller-furling headsails.

With diligent care, Dacron sails can be made to last a good long time: Don’t let them flog, inspect and restitch vulnerable areas on a regular basis, and protect them from sunlight.

– – –

Voyaging legend Donald M. Street Jr. has been racing and cruising on both sides of the Atlantic — and writing about his exploits — for over five decades.

The post Making Your Sails Last appeared first on Cruising World.

North Sails has been the exclusive official supplier to the Volvo Ocean Race since the debut of the VO65 one design fleet in the 2014-15 edition. Now, after analyzing extensive race data,further modeling and listening to feedback from Volvo Ocean Race sailors, North has created a new 171m² sail to fill an apparent gap between the masthead code 0 (MH0) and the J1 jib, boosting the performance of the VO65s in the process.

In the most recent edition of the historic race, sailors reported having to constantly switch between the MH0 and the J1, two of the biggest sails carried onboard, in search of the configuration that gave them the best speed.

Crucially the introduction of the J0 will eradicate the need to change headsails so frequently – welcome news for the sailors, who expend thousands of calories a day manually hoisting the massive sails.

“The most important feedback we got from the last race was that there was a gap between the J1 and the masthead zero,” said North Sails designer Gautier Sergent, a Volvo Ocean Race expert.

“Between ten and 15 knots of wind the crews were forever changing sails as they looked for the best configuration. We wanted to provide a solution for this gap, so we introduced a new J0 that fits perfectly between the J1 and the masthead 0.

“The teams will still have to stack the J0 but they don’t need to tack or gybe every day when they are sailing offshore, so overall it is a net gain with fewer sail changes.“

North Sails has spent a lot of time comparing recent race data with historic weather routings, using software developed with Great Circle, to guarantee the J0 strikes the perfect balance among the VO65 fleet’s sail inventory.

AkzoNobel training

Targeted for conditions between eight and 15 knots upwind and up range reaching, the bowsprit-set J0 is already proving a useful tool in a much wide range of conditions.

Not only will the Volvo Ocean Race crews now have a new sail to play with but they will also get better use of their existing arsenal.

The masthead code 0 will be much more effective while the fractional code 0, which had a very narrow range in upwind conditions in the 2014-15 race, becomes a dedicated downwind sail.

“The addition of the J0 is better suited to the new race course, which has more of a Southern Ocean routing,” Sergent added. “It also allows the fractional and masthead code zeros to become more efficient and the fractional zero to become more downwind-oriented.”

The current crop of Volvo Ocean Race sailors got their chance to put the new sail through its paces during Leg Zero, the four-stage qualifying series that included the iconic Fastnet offshore race.

Early feedback from the teams has been overwhelmingly positive.

Leg Zero, Departure delivery Sanxenxo to Gosport. Photo by Ugo Fonolla/Volvo Ocean Race. 26July, 2017

“North Sails have done a really good job – they listened to the feedback and developed the J0 for this edition, which is what we need,” said Dongfeng Race Team crewman Daryl Wislang. “Upwind it’s a very versatile sail but it can be used at the wider angles as well. It’s going to get a lot of use.”

Dee Caffari, skipper of Turn the Tide on Plastic, added: “It’s the first time we’ve even seen a J0, and I think it’s my new favorite sail. It’s a really interesting space that it fits into so we’ll have a look at that in more detail. It’s a big change for the sail wardrobe for this edition of the race.”

Leg Zero, two boat training with Dongfeng Race Team and MAPFRE in Sanxenxo, Spain. Photo by Jeremie Lecaudey/Volvo Ocean Race. 31 August, 2017

Pablo Arrarte, watch captain on MAPFRE, said each team must decide how best to use the J0. “It is a critical sail, new for everyone, and we have to test it intensely,” he said. “Each team will make their own conclusions while training about how to use it to their best advantage.”

Just like the rest of North Sails’ Volvo Ocean Race inventory, the cutting-edge J0 is made from its unique 3Di technology that pushes the boundaries of sail design.

The patented technology, developed for the Volvo Ocean Race, uses tiny pre-impregnated filament tapes to mirror the load-bearing and shape-holding qualities of a rigid aerofoil wing while remaining lightweight and durable.

The Volvo Ocean Race begins in Alicante, Spain, on October 14, with the opening round of the In-Port Race Series before the fleet departs for Lisbon, Portugal, on the first of 11 offshore legs on October 22.

Learn how North Sails 3Di can transform your on-the-water experience, no matter what type of sailing you do: northsails.com/sailing/en/sails/materials

AkzoNobel

The post New Versatile Sail Completes North Sails VOR Inventory appeared first on Cruising World.

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The Hinckley Dasher was chosen as both the Best Powerboat Under 35′ and the Green Boat Award winner.

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Headsails are getting smaller on the latest generation of boats as designers, builders and sailors embrace the ease of handling and simplicity provided by large mainsails and smaller foretriangles. Genoas no longer exist on modern racing boats, but the day of the overlapping genoa is also numbered for cruising sailors. They will not be missed!

Roller furling has been standard issue for generations and still the go-to system whenever possible. On sails with overlapping headsails this is typically a medium to large roller furling genoa. For the latest designs this can be a non-overlapping sail that is as large as possible but still fits in the foretriangle.

Having the right sized headsail with the right amount of overlap will make all of the difference when it comes to handling and managing it. Here are the factors you’ll need to consider and some options to meet your needs.

Foretriangle vs Mainsail Size

The larger the mainsail relative to the headsails, the smaller the genoa needs to be. Check the foot length of the mainsail (“E”) versus the base of the foretriangle from mast to stem (“J”). If they are equal, or if E is longer than J, the boat relies more on its mainsail for horsepower and the jibs can be smaller. The latest performance cruising boats have huge mainsails and use non-overlapping jibs as the primary sail. On the other side of the coin, more traditional cruising boats have relatively small mainsails and big “J” dimensions. These are genoa dependent, and will need larger headsails.

“J” vs LP

LP is the shortest distance from clew to luff. It is expressed as a percentage of “J” (150% LP = 1.5 x J). It does not relate directly to area, but is a measure of overlap. For a given percentage of overlap, you get a much bigger sail on a boat with a long J dimension. (See Figure 1 below.)

Crew & Conditions

The make-up of your crew and your normal conditions aren’t part of your boat measurements, per se, but they are important factors to keep in mind as you make an optimized sail plan. The larger, stronger and more experienced your normal sailing companions are, the bigger the sail you can manage. Power winches can assist in sail handling as well.

When considering what size headsail will be best for your boat, factor in the average wind speeds for the region in which you will sail most frequently.

Performance

Going larger (say from a 135% to a 150%) is usually only a benefit in under eight to ten knots of breeze. Additional LP is a liability in more breeze. It is also only of marginal, if any, benefit while reaching and running. With sheets eased, most of the back end of a genoa is turned back into the boat. A higher clew is actually the biggest help when reaching because it keeps the sheeting angle consistent so you don’t lose the top of the sail.

Furling Ability

Genoas for roller furling are usually sold on the premise that they can be used partly furled. This is true from a structural standpoint if allowances are made in the initial construction. Shape deteriorates with the amount of sail furled. Most sailmakers will quote reasonably effective reduction of up to 30% of the original LP. Beyond this, you have a triangle but not much of an airfoil. When sailing off-the-wind this probably isn’t that important, but it is if you want to go upwind.

The bottom line is that handling and versatility considerations suggest keeping the genoa as small as possible. Build only enough size to maintain the ability to drive the boat reasonably well in light to moderate conditions. The more easily the boat drives, and the larger the mainsail relative to the headsail, the smaller the LP can be.

The Working Jib

Now that we’ve looked at all the factors needed to make an informed decision on headsail size, let’s look at the working jib.

For serious offshore work, a smaller, second headsail is required. The second headsail should be a heavy working jib, with an LP between 85% and 100%. In more than 15 to 18 knots of breeze, depending on the same performance versus foretriangle size considerations which applied to the genoa, this will become the sail you will need.

If the boat were staying strictly in a light air area, it would be the sail of choice in the spring and fall, or whenever windy conditions were anticipated and could be used on the primary roller furling system. However, the difficulty of changing sails on a furling system should be recognized.

For sailing offshore, building this sail for use on an inner forestay installed separately with some type of quick release mechanism should be considered. The stay should be located well forward (unlike the classic cutter layout which puts the stay 40% of J aft), so that the working jib size does not get too small. It needs to remain large enough to be useful. In light air and constricted water, the inner forestay could be secured at the mast most of the time. This setup would allow the sail to be hanked on and ready to go when sailing offshore, and would avoid the somewhat messy change from big sail to little sail on the furling system. Roll the big sail up, attach a halyard, and hoist. The genoa could still be designed to allow for partial furling, but there is no substitute for having a purpose-built small sail for the job. Having the small jib will also protect and extend the life of the genoa, and provide needed insurance against complete sail failure when far from home. Offshore, the working jib is likely to be the correct sail a large percentage of the time. The other beauty of a separate inner forestay is that it is the perfect place to hank on a true storm jib.

The other possibility to consider would be to use a second conventional furling system on the inner forestay for the small jib. This is more of a true offshore configuration because the system will make it impossible to make the inner forestay easily removable. Tacking around the stay is the problem. However, for pure, never-go-up-on-the-foredeck ease, this setup cannot be beat.

There is a third alternative; however: the structural furler. This is a relatively recent development that is now standard issue on Super Yachts and on high performance multihulls and single-handed racing boats. Instead of a permanent stay or a wire stay that connects when needed, the system uses a hi-modulus (aramid or PBO) super rigid torsional rope inside the luff of the sail. The furling system is a free flying top-down or bottom-up model that attaches to the torsional rope. On big cruising boats the sail is hoisted up and locked off and then tensioned from the bottom (usually with a hydraulic ram) to get enough stay tension. You don’t want sag in an inner forestay designed for a heavy air sail. Usually this also requires running backstays to help keep the mast straight and the stay tight. This is not a system you would try to hoist into place in breezy conditions. This should be set up at the dock in light air before heading out on a long passage. All of this, of course, comes at a price and really requires the boat to be designed around the system from the outset.

Be sure to include your sailmaker anytime you look into optimizing your sail plan. Even if the result isn’t incorporating a new sail, having a better understanding of how your sails work together and which one to use when is invaluable. You might also be surprised to find an extra furler or some additional hardware could make all the difference in handling your headsail!

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This cruising tip was brought to you by Quantum Sails.

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“There is nothing new under the sun.”

That idea, from Ecclesiastes, was new just over 2,400 years ago. Woven cloth was new about 25,000 years ago. Polyester was invented in 1941, and since around 1950, woven polyester cross-cut sails have been the reigning technology on cruising sailboats around the world. (Racing sailboats are a different story.)

3Di Nordac technology, introduced this summer by North Sails and created for cruising sailors who truly want to sail, is something new under the sun.

The Trouble with Weaving

3Di manufacturing at the North Sails sail loft in Minden, Nevada.

“The big difference between a good cruising main and a bad cruising main,” says North Sails CEO Dan Neri, “is the twist profile, where the top of the sail is the most open place on the sail. Then it’s progressively less open when you go down.” On a normal Dacron sail, where you don’t have any control of the stretch, the middle of the leech becomes the most open when it’s time to twist the sail, he says. “That pulls the top of the leech in, which gives a deeper head and open middle. And that makes the boat heel more.”

The question for sailors and sailmakers, then, is: How do you create a sail that holds that desirable shape over time — a shape that delivers the most forward-driving lift with the least speed-killing drag?

The history of sail-making is marked by innovations in both fiber and cloth. The year 1851 was a watershed year. That’s when the schooner America trounced 15 British contenders for the Hundred Guinea Cup, later called the America’s Cup. While all the Brits were flying sails made from flax (linen), America demonstrated something new: cotton (canvas) sails. Retaining a flatter shape, the sails contributed to less heeling moment, a drier foredeck and — most notably for an island empire held together by its sail-powered Royal Navy — a pointing angle that was 6 degrees closer to the wind than that of the nearest competitor.

It was another ­transatlantic competition, some 90 years later, that produced the next major innovation in sail-making. This was the quest to commercialize organic chemistry. The result was the British discovery of polyethylene ­terephthalate (PET) — better known as polyester. In 1946, DuPont purchased the patent and called it Dacron.

Since about 1950, cross-cut polyester sails have been the reigning technology on cruising sailboats. Throughout this period, the sailmaker’s goal has been to control stretch. Newer fibers such as carbon, aramid, Spectra or Vectran stretch less but bring other downsides, including cost.

In two-dimensional cloth, warp yarn runs lengthwise and fill yarns run the width. In a fill-oriented cloth, the warp yarns bend, or “crimp,” under and over the fill yarns; such cloth stretches less in the width dimension. “Bias” is the diagonal between warp and fill. The most typical cruising sails are cross-cut sails, made from panels of fill-oriented polyester cloth. Because they stretch least in the width dimension, the panels are aligned perpendicular to the leech, where the primary loads occur. The trouble is, not all of the loads are in that direction, so the sails eventually stretch into rounder, deeper shapes.

Beginning in the 1970s, sailmakers found a way to avoid some of the problems inherent in all woven cloth — particularly stretch in the bias direction. They laminated yarns on a layer of Mylar film (another form of polyester). But with rare exceptions, the downsides of durability, longevity and cost made laminated sails, or “string sails,” more popular for racing sailors than for cruisers. Lamination, many found, was too often attended by its evil twin: delamination. From fiber to cloth, we move from one dimension to two. But sails are three-dimensional airfoils. To create that third dimension of draft, sailmakers cut curved edges into the flat panels of cloth in a technique called “broadseaming.” The placement of the draft is a fundamental difference between good sails and poor sails. When a formerly good sail stretches out, its draft slouches aft.

3Di Nordac Sails

3Di manufacturing at the North Sails sail loft in Minden, Nevada.

North’s 3Di sails were new about 10 years ago and born of yet another transatlantic competition. Neither a weave nor a laminate, 3Di is a composite of flat tapes of fiber layered in a matrix of thermoset resin, much like your boat’s hull. While woven cloth or laminated string sails are “load-path” structures in which virtuous properties align more with some yarns than in other directions, 3Di is different. It’s a quasi-isotropic material — “isotropic” meaning that it exhibits its properties of strength and stretch-resistance in every direction.

During the 1992 America’s Cup event, Bill Koch’s America 3 syndicate introduced a material subsequently called Cuben Fiber. Round yarns, or tows, of fiber (Dyneema, carbon, aramid) are spread out into a flat tape of side-by-side ­filaments. At the time, Cuben Fiber was used in laminated sails. Then, in 2001, Swiss sailmaker Gérard Gautier imagined such flat tapes put to a different use — one that would get rid of the film in the laminate. In Gautier’s version, the tapes were impregnated with a thermoset resin that, once catalyzed, would hold its shape despite heating or cooling. The Alinghi syndicate tried Gautier’s technology in the run-up to its successful America’s Cup defense in 2007.

Before long, North Sails did what DuPont did with polyester: It bought the patent. But the patent was only for the process, which Gautier accomplished in two dimensions before applying the traditional broadseaming technique to join the panels in a concave shape. North Sails’ engineers adapted Gautier’s idea to their own previous innovations in sail-making directly on a 3D mold. The result was to eliminate seams altogether.

Since 2011, North’s 3Di sails — built with such fibers as carbon or aramid — have been the state of the art for Volvo Ocean Race competitors and other grand-prix race boats. Speaking to durability, Volvo boats previously carried 28 sails per circumnavigation, including three mainsails, says Neri. Using 3Di sails, they can do it with 11 sails and just one main. When Thomas Coville set the solo round-the-world record at 49 days in 2016, he left the dock with 3Di sails that already had 50,000 miles on them. That’s two full circumnavigations.

What’s new under the sun this summer is the combination of 3Di technology with tried-and-true polyester for cruising sailors. With this cloth, sail repairs can be done on the dock, using adhesive. There are also no seams, or the stress risers they cause.

Like all new things, we may still have more to learn about how Dacron behaves in the 3Di environment. But it certainly looks promising for cruising sailors who truly love to sail.

Tim Murphy is a Cruising World editor-at-large and a longtime Boat of the Year judge.

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Spinnakers should be dry and free from dirt or salt before storing. Many spinnaker fabrics are woven from the small denier threads. Any dirt or salt left on the sails will get into the fibers and cause the cloth to deteriorate prematurely. If your sail is wet from salt water, fly it upside down, with the clews tied together at the top and the head at the bottom. To rinse saltwater off the sail, use a hose spraying from the top and letting the fresh water flush to the bottom. Using this method the sail will float gently in breeze and dry off pretty quickly. Use this same method for sails wet with freshwater or spread out indoors, inside your boat or in an enclosed space with a dehumidifier running.

Once your asymmetric is clean, fold and store them properly using these tips:

Step 1: Start with the spinnaker open and flat, with one person at the tack and one at the clew. Begin to take flakes in the sail, of equal widths, along the luff and leech.

Step 2: Continue to flake the sail. Make the flakes along the luff, which is longer than the leech, slightly wider so sail flakes evenly on top of itself.

Step 3: Finish flaking by making the head reinforcing patch lie flat in the the center of the flaked sail.

Step 4: Start rolling the flaked sail from leech to luff.

Step 5: Continue to roll to luff. The finished product will look as it does in Figure 5 above.

The easy way to store your spinnaker is just to stuff it in the bag it came with. By taking good care of your sail, flaking and storing it properly, you will extend its racing life and ensure you get the most from your investment.

The post Asymmetrical Spinnaker Care appeared first on Cruising World.

The rage in the market today is the new breed of free-flying furling systems aimed at furling anything from a heavy jib to a running asymmetrical. Specifically, the focus is on replacing the conventional spinnaker sock for downwind cruising sails. More than a dozen manufacturers have designed a furler to address this market. Essentially, the idea is to provide a luff rope with a swivel at the top and a continuous line drum at the bottom to wind the sail around the rope.

Furling units can be divided into two types: bottom-up and top-down. Bottom-up systems work the same way your conventional headsail roller furling system works, except that instead of aluminum foils wrapped around a fixed stay, a torsional rope is used. The tack is fixed to the drum at the bottom. The rope runs up inside the luff of the sail. As the drum is turned, the tack winds around the cable and the sail furls from bottom to top. A continuous line drum is used so you don’t run out of line before the sail is furled because the sail will not necessarily come in at the same rate as with a conventional furling system. This is mostly due to the torsional rope. If the rope twists, the sail will require more effort to furl and may not furl smoothly. (A rope is critical to the operation of any free-flying furling system, and is usually the limiting factor.)

Bottom-up units work fine as long as the sail is not too wide at the top. Ideally, the sail should be genoa-like. The mid-girth (mid-leech to mid-luff) should not be much greater than 50 percent (no more than 60-65 percent). This is the case for off-wind sails that are built for close reaching angles. Often referred to as Code Zero (or Screacher for multihulls), these are basically big reaching genoas that tend to be flatter than other downwind sails. There should be little to no sail area forward of the straight-line luff. The downside to this type of sizing is that the sails act like genoas when eased out at broad angles. They are too flat and small to be stable, and they project out from behind the mainsail and around the bow. For this type of sail, ideal apparent wind angles are typically between 60 and 130 degrees.

As downwind sails get bigger and the mid-girth increases, it’s harder and harder to get the top of the sail to furl if you start from the bottom. For broader angles (90-155 degrees), downwind sails are bigger, wider, and they have more depth. They also have considerable area forward of the straight-line luff. That is what keeps the sail stable and powerful and allows you to ease the sail out to project area in front of the boat. This is where top-down furling comes into play. Since the sail needs to project and there is a lot of area in the front of the sail, the torsional rope is not attached directly to the sail. The head is attached directly to the swivel and rope at the head. The tack is secured to a free-rotating fitting on the drum. As the furling line is pulled, the tack lags behind and the head furls first. The sail furls from the top down, capturing the hard-to-furl top sections first.

No matter how well the furling system works, or how good the torsional rope is, there are still limits. Full-sized broad-reaching and running spinnakers have mid-girths of as much of 100 percent of the foot length and can be very deep. That can be problematic to furl. As a rough guideline, if the mid-girth is much over 88-90 percent of the foot length, all bets are off. It might furl, it might not. That’s when a spinnaker sock makes the most sense. They’re a good choice for full-sized asymmetrical spinnakers designed for broad reaching and running. They are also more cost effective, since a good top-down furling system with a proper torsional rope can easily cost as much as the sail.

The bottom line is this: for furling systems, smaller and flatter is better. Once you are full sized, think sock.

This cruising tip has been brought to you by Quantum Sails.

The post To Furl or Not to Furl appeared first on Cruising World.

Like your engine and other onboard systems that get special attention in spring, your sails — along with all the gear that lets you raise and trim them — will benefit from a thorough pre-launch inspection and maintenance routine. If you didn’t already do it when the boat was hauled, the first step as you prepare for commissioning is to pull your sails out of the bag and examine the stitching on the genoa’s UV cover or leech areas (also check any other headsails set and stored on furlers during the season). It’s these areas that are exposed to sunlight and weather, and it’s where the stitching is most likely to slowly break down over time. If caught early enough, your sailmaker can make a corrective repair before the damage and repair costs spread.

Also on the genoa, it is a good idea to look at the spreader patch and the area where the sail rubs against the bow pulpit to see if there is any heavy wear and tear that needs addressing.

On the mainsail, look for chafing on batten pockets, and if battens are held in place with Velcro, make sure the hooks and loops seal firmly. Also check where the sail comes in contact with shrouds for any marks to determine if the cloth or stitching there is wearing through.

Storage Tip: Unless you plan to sail over the winter, take the sails off the boat and store them inside rather than leaving the main bent on under a sail cover and the genoa rolled on a furler. Winter weather can lead to a lot of mildew growth, green slime and general pollution finding its way into the sailcloth. After five months, sails can turn an ugly color. Worse, our loft see a lot of jibs shredded by winter storms.

Next move your attention to the leech lines. Look to see if they are working correctly (can be pulled tight) and if the line is holding well in the end fitting, often a jam cleat of some sort. Check the Velcro that holds the cover over the cleat and keeps the excess leech line from flying about because this can weaken over time.

Once you’ve completed your sail inspection, it’s time to move on to sail-control systems. Go over the sheets, looking for any chafe. If you didn’t do it in fall, now is the time to give them a good rinse in the sink or a backyard kiddie pool, and wash them using a mild detergent such as Woolite.

Use fresh water to rinse out all the turning blocks and bearing races in the furler that you can reach. This will remove old salt and any grime that’s collected over the winter. Then relubricate as recommended by the gear manufacturers. Service your halyard and sheet winches to make sure they are fully lubricated and running well before the season starts.

Rerigging

When you’re ready to put the sails back on the boat, wait for a calm day and do it with the help of a friend. When hoisting any sail with a luff tape, like a furling genoa, it works best to have one person guiding the sail into the groove as the other mans the halyard, because it is easy to accidentally catch the tape, tearing or jamming it as the sail goes up.

When bending the main back on, acetone can be used to clean the track or groove in the mast. Rinse off any rollers or slides with bearings to remove as much salt and dirt as possible, but be careful that the ball bearings don’t get dislodged. To make the job go more smoothly, you can coat the track and slides with a product such as McLube Sailkote Dry as they go in. Avoid oil-based lubricants because they tend to collect dirt and turn it into a gooey mess.

If the mainsail is still tough to hoist and you have regular slides, it might be time to look into upgrades such as slides with rollers or even a new track-and-slide system, if your budget allows. There are lots of different options from which to choose. Lastly, just to make sure your sails provide a ­season’s worth of good service, have your local sailmaker put together a simple repair kit to suit your boat and the ­material your sails are made from so you have something on hand if you need to do minor repairs on the fly.

On The Water

Once the boat’s launched and you’re out sailing, it’s a great idea to take pictures of your sails at work. This really helps your loft understand the sails’ shape underway and identify where improvements could be made over the following winter. Many cruising sails are made from Dacron, and can lose their shape as they age. As this happens, sailing performance decreases, and eventually the boat heels more. Short of buying a new suit of sails, a sailmaker might be able to make repairs or suggest an upgrade such as fitting full battens in a main to extend its life.

Dennis LeFeaux is a sailmaker at North Sails Canada.

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