VoyForums
[ Show ]
Support VoyForums
[ Shrink ]
VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, 3, [4] ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 14:17:09 08/21/08 Thu
Author: Bill
Subject: Re: Neil's Boat
In reply to: Jay 's message, "Re: Neil's Boat" on 11:01:36 08/21/08 Thu

Of Course Jay is spot on here (duh, he wrote the book). But I can't stress enough just how nice it is to have lots of sail (SA/D > 20) without using overlapping sails. What I think is often forgotten is how much the headsail sheeting angle increases when you have to lead the sheets outside the shrouds. It is one of those increasingly worsening situations. Boat gets heavy then needs a big genoa. Because of the weight is not in the keel it needs to have more beam for stability. So the sheeting angle increases some more. And since most beamy overweight boats need their 150% genny to go anywhere they don't point particularly well anywhere they go. And because they can't point, they can't tack up channels, or fight off a lee shore. So... the engine becomes a safety feature.

Contrast that with my new boat with a SA/D = 21 and inboard sheeted jib leads. My working jib sheet leads are about 16 inches off the boat centerline for a sheeting angle of about 8 degrees. In strong winds she will easily tack through 75 degrees. In lighter winds 90 degrees should be easy. And in really light air I tack on a drifter or asym, run the sheets outside the shrouds, and crank off a bit since speed is more important than pointing. I figure that I might loose a tack or two coming into my narrow channel with the new boat.

Jay also pointed out something that the Pardey have mentioned before, bowsprits. Not only do they increase the sail area, but they also allow you to carry a larger non-overlapping headsail and reduce the sheeting angle.

I imagine some of this sounds obsessive but from my experience once you decide to go engineless you can't have enough performance.

I do think that selectively searching out older race boats can be a viable way to sail engineless. In same cases (definitely not mine) it may be easier and cheaper to modify the interior of race boat for cruising than to improve the rig and sailing capabilities of a cruiser. I missed an opportunity to look at a Aphrodite 101 with a blown engine that would have been a sweet engineless boat. I also hear great things about the Laser 28. I will think about your budget and see if anything pops up.

Cheers, Bill

With respect to the Pardey's thought that you need 83 sq ft of sail area per ton, I personally like a whole lot more. It just gives me more choices.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

[ Contact Forum Admin ]

Forum timezone: GMT-8
VF Version: 3.00b, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2019 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.