We took my stepson and his girlfriend out today. She wasn't sure about whether she'd get sick, so we took it easy on the bay, we stayed pretty much north of 4 kts under main only, in a nice 10-12 kts breeze. Pretty relaxing, and more evidence on how well these boats sail.
Your right Ed, they do sail easy with one sail up. A lot of times if iv'e been working on the boat or we just want to run out and sail for an hour or so in the late afternoon we just unfurl the 150 and sail with the jib, it's a comfortable sail in those wind conditions and I feel its more like sailing because your using the jib. The biggest positive with this is that there's nothing exrta to do when you come in, the jib gets furled and your done.
Unless I'm going to be under sail for at least 3 hours, I will only put up the head sail. The main is such a pain in the butt to take down, flake and cover, I hate fooling with it.
If I ever get another sailboat, it will have main furling.
Quote from: chuck53 on August 26, 2012, 04:20:14 PM
Unless I'm going to be under sail for at least 3 hours, I will only put up the head sail. The main is such a pain in the butt to take down, flake and cover, I hate fooling with it.
If I ever get another sailboat, it will have main furling.
We have lazy jacks and a full-battened main, so it isn't so bad. I haul the sail up to the top of the mast by hand before winching, so I get the bonus of some excercise. :clap
I'm sure it is 10 minutes on the frontside and 10 more on the backside of a sail, but not too bad.
Either main or jib or both, it's so much fun to get out for a sail. Last weekend I took what I call the "kids cruise". We met a nice young couple and invited them and their two kids (ages 4 and 7) for a sail. We motored out, then unrolled the jib. We looked at sea otters, sailed by the Santa Cruz Boardwalk (a BIG hit with kids), then by the pier where we took photos of their family with the pier - with sea lions - as background. About 8 knots of wind, really calm seas. What a great day. My personal favorite part was watching the 4 year old fall asleep nestled in his mommas arms.
If you want to simplify mainsail handling....look at the Dutchman system. Yes, it will work with a not so new sail. It flakes itself and stays on the boom. You still have to put a cover on and off, thats all.
I have roller furling main, it's nice especialy with a dodger to work over. If I didn't use a dodger I'd perfer the standard sail with Dutchman.
Jim
I second the comment about the Dutchman simplifying sail flaking.
We purchased a new full battened main for Gratitude this year and we went from lazy jacks to Dutchman.
Once the Dutchman was adjusted, it works very well, flaking nearly perfectly on the boom, no sail ties required.
I had our existing sail cover modified with 2 zippers around the Dutchman monofilament lines.
Last winter I also added some blocks under the halyard turning blocks and that marginally reduced the effort to raise the main. So now I can raise it completely without using the winch handle, and use the winch just to get the final tension on the halyard.