Richard, and others

When we went ocean sailing years ago (now it seems) we discovered all sorts
of problems running with battens and a boom topping-lift. So we chose to
scallop the main and remove the battens and add the lazy jack. This
renovation developed through problems and solutions. Evolution. It worked
well most of the time. One can argue that we lost sail area but much of the
time we were running with a reef anyway, and reefs, being arbitrary, do not
usually match the exact wind conditions with the appropriate sail area. This
is not an argument against heavily-roached, battened mains. They work
exceptionally well on the bay and in racing especially for those light wind
conditions. But at sea with minimum crew-we're talking one person doing all
the work alone on a cruising boat with a couple only. One has to rest and
constant sail management requiring both members at all hours is not good for
a happy crew-or very long cruises.

 We examined our options after about 15 years of trying different rigs at
sea. One rig plan strong in consideration was the roller-furling boom used
by Bill and Gary (Amadon Light). We noted the need for an electric winch for
boats in the 40-foot and above range required to raise the sail. The sail
only goes up as fast as it can be winched-hand or electric. After a lot of
research, we finally chose the in-mast furler understanding the trade-offs.
Sail management ease has exceeded any expectations with unexpected benefits.


First, that sundown decision-time where we try to decide if we want to begin
the night with reefs or no main at all is now history. (I don't recall that
we ever made the right sundown decision, anyway.) The person on watch now
with the roller furler main can adjust the amount of main desired anytime
and alone while the other sleeps. Rather than reduce sail area by slabs,
only the amount of sail needed is extended with the furler. This usually
means a lot more sail up through the night than in the original
configurations. Memories of trying to capture cold hard wet Dacron flying
everywhere while hanging over a swinging boom, slipping on sailcloth, while
trying to tie in reef-points, and hang on at the same time during a stinging
cold rain-shower on bare skin with 30-knot wind-gusts are just tales now for
cockpit gams. This evolution usually took place three minutes out of a deep
sleep on the off-watch, too.

Setting of the roller-furled main is a topic of another discussion. But I
would like to note that, despite the reduced area due to the loss of a
roach, I feel the main is more efficient. We sailed one from Hong Kong to
Japan then on to Hawaii, San Francisco and back to Hawaii. We had
exceptional service. Our present Moonshadow has roller furled main. We
noticed that most of the modern cruising boats (charter fleets?) in the
Mediterranean carried roller-furled mains.

And we never went as far as Bill and Gary by even trying to set our trysail.
It just chafed away beneath dunnage in the bilge.

Tom, Moonshadow



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Received on Fri Jun 10 13:24:29 2005