Rants & Musings, Rigging & Sails
Index
How We Buy Sails
Don't Forget About the Sails
Keeping The Boom Under Control
Swept-Back Spreaders—We Just Don't Get It!
Spinnakers—Not Getting in a Twist
Mainsail Reefing Blues
How We Buy Sails (John, 11/2009)
Disclosure
Our long time sailmaker, Richard Hallett, and his family are personal friends of ours of nearly 20 years standing. Further, Richard is one of our voyage sponsors, having given us a reduced price on a staysail in return for a small advertisement in the left column of this site. Other than that, we have paid full price for all the other sails, covers and upholstery that Richard has made for us over the years. Though much of this post is a blatant plug for a friend’s business, there is no way we would compromise the quality of our boat’s sails just to give our friend our business. We buy from Richard because we sincerely believe that he provides us with the best sails and value available.
OK, now that we have that out of the way... Why do we give so much thought to our sails? Well, first, as we talked about in this post, good sails equal good speed and good speed equals more fun. Speed also contributes to safety because you are vulnerable to bad weather for less time. Finally, if your sails are slow in normal weather, they will be doubly slow in heavy weather, particularly as your desired course gets closer to the wind direction.
But wait, there’s more: With sails for a voyaging boat, the devil really is in the details. Just one example: take something as seemingly trivial as batten pockets and particularly those for full length battens like we have on Morgan’s Cloud. If the inboard (at mast) end of a batten pocket fails, the batten will protrude very quickly and if that batten pocket is above a spreader you will not be able lower or reef the mainsail until you climb the mast and deal with it. Add the fact that this will inevitably happen in the dark in a rising gale and you can see that a few corners cut in the sailloft can result in a world of hurt for us offshore sailors. It is surprising how often the failure of a critical sail offshore is the start of a chain of events that lead to someone getting hurt, or even abandonment of the boat.
For these reasons, we regard our sails as one of the most important sets of gear on our boat. This is how we go about buying them:
Hallett sails in action: Wednesday night beercan racing on Casco Bay. The red boat is Richard’s, built to his design.
- We Buy From a Real Sailmaker: A lot, perhaps a majority, of the people that call themselves sailmakers are not, they are salespeople. The actual sailmakers are at a different location, and sometimes even in another country. We like to do business with the person that will design and hands-on supervise the construction of our sails. Further, when something needs tweaking with our new sail, which is almost inevitable since we are really picky, we want to talk to the actual person that will fix it.
- We Buy From a Racing Sailmaker Who Voyages Too: Richard, our sailmaker, has successfully raced for decades using sails and even boats that he designed and built himself; he knows what makes for a fast sail. But he has also raced and cruised across oceans and, I suspect, been the guy up the mast at 3:00am wrestling with a sail-caused screw up. I don’t have to explain to Richard why the batten pockets have to be right; he already knows why.
- We Buy From a Sailmaker With Computerized Design and Cutting Capability: One of the drawbacks of buying from smaller local sailmaking firms is that many of them do not have the volume to buy a computer driven cutting table or the experience and training to use it properly, even if they had one. As an ex-sailmaker who was involved in the very early days of mathematical sail shape design, I can tell you that this now mature technology makes a huge difference in how good new sails are.
- We Buy Sails from Laminated Sailcloth That Are Radial Cut: It is true that a simple cross cut sail from woven Dacron will be cheaper, probably a lot cheaper, than one with a sophisticated radial cut made out of a laminated material. It might even last longer before ripping too. But we, like most voyaging sailors that value the performance of our boats, don’t wait for a sail to fail catastrophically before we retire it. Instead our sails hit the store room—why can’t I bring myself to actually throw them away?—when their poor shape starts to result in substantially reduced performance. Using this criteria, the sophisticated, more expensive, sail has a longer useful life and is actually more cost effective than the cheaper option. Our last set from Richard went about 35,000 miles before replacement.
They start sailing early in the Hallett family. If Merle, Richard’s father, had been in the shot (he was driving the photo boat) it would have made four generations. The boat is appropriately named The Family Wagon.
This is how we buy sails and it has worked well for us for fifteen years and tens of thousands of offshore miles. Is it the best way for everyone? I don’t know. There is no question that the big outfits that have their lofts in developing world countries where labour is cheaper can and do make fine sails for offshore boats. However, I would suggest that the next time you are in the market for a new sail you give a smaller loft like Hallett Canvas and Sails a chance and carefully evaluate the real value they are delivering. Personal service, particularly when something goes wrong or doesn't fit, can be worth a lot. Better still, give Richard a call and tell him I sent you. I love holding a favor over his head. It’s almost as much fun as reminding him of the Bermuda Race we whupped his butt in using sails he designed and built for us!
Further Disclosure
Well, hopefully because some of you contacted Richard based on the
above post, he gave us a discount on our last sail exam and repair...without
us even asking! What a guy!
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Don't Forget About the Sails (John, 11/2009)
Last fall I got chatting to a couple, new to cruising, on their way down the Intracoastal Waterway in their new-to-them classic Carl Alberg designed Cape Dory 36. When I complimented them on their choice of a good looking and seaworthy boat that also sails well, they expressed surprise saying, “Oh no, she can’t get out of her own way, particularly going to windward. We are really disappointed. Do you have any advice?”
Our friends Kim and Erling use good sails, combined with careful tuning and trimming, to make some surprisingly fast passages.
Now I know that Alberg’s boats, while not speedsters when compared to modern fin-keeled designs, sail well, because I used to own one: a Seasprite 23. After thinking a bit, I asked them about their sails. Turns out that all of their sails came with the boat, were of indeterminate age, and bagged out. When I probed a bit further, they allowed as how they had run through their refit budget long before getting to sails.
The thing is, that as I looked at the boat, I could see a new electronic navigation system and several other electronic gizmos whose price added together would probably have paid for a complete set of new sails for the boat. A pity since there is no question in my mind that they would have been having more fun with their new boat if they had simply bought a hand held GPS for $150.00 and then used the savings to buy a new suit of sails.
Clearly it was too late to point that out, but I did suggest that new sails should be their next purchase when their budget recovered. Again they were surprised saying, “Oh, it won’t make that much difference”.
I suspect that they are not alone in thinking that well cut new sails are only important for racers. This could not be further from the truth. Faced with a full 10 hour day of going to windward in a bit of a sea I would estimate that a well tuned Cape Dory 36 with good sails could be at the anchor with the crew swigging the first libation 3 to 4 hours before my new acquaintances would. Not only that, the crew of the lead boat would have had a lot more fun since there are few things more demoralizing than beating back and forth while getting nowhere fast.
Now let’s apply this to an ocean crossing to Bermuda from the US east coast and keep in mind that it is rare for that crossing to be accomplished without spending a good hunk of it on the wind. In this case the faster boat could make the crossing in, say, six days and be two full days, or perhaps even more, ahead of the slower, while potentially avoiding nasty weather into the bargain.
I know my estimates of the performance benefits of good sails may seem high to some of you, but it really is amazing the difference that going faster and pointing higher makes to velocity made good.
Bottom line, good sails should be at the top of the buy list, way ahead
of fancy electronics, both for enjoyment and safety.
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Keeping The Boom Under Control (Colin Speedie, 08/2009)
Many years ago I sailed on a French boat equipped with a boom brake. Perhaps due to one of those curious national idiosyncracies, such devices were (and remain) very scarce in the UK, although they were popular elsewhere in Europe, and I was intrigued to see how it performed. Very well it seemed, as far as I could tell from such a short acquaintance, although it did seem a rather clunky and cumbersome design.
So when we first rigged Pèlerin we decided to try a new design of boom brake from Wichard called a Gyb’easy, which had no moving parts and relied solely on friction. And since we’ve sailed a few thousand miles since then with it I feel far better placed to comment on its good and bad points.
A great friend who was formerly a big time climber joined me to sail from Cork to the west of Scotland earlier this year, and on coming aboard one of the first things he noticed was the boom brake. He immediately commented that it was a derivative of a friction brake used by climbers called a ‘descender’. He also noted that the control line supplied with it was a technical rope from the climbing world, too, with plenty of stretch and strength, so clearly some of it has some pedigree in safety terms.
The device itself is attached beneath the boom just behind the vang attachment, and the double-ended control line is lead forward and outboard to blocks on the toerail and then back to each side of the cockpit where they can be tensioned when the boom is at the desired angle of attack. The device has three slots in it, through which a bight of the control line is passed, with a single pin to hold the bight of the rope in place at the top. By passing the loop through one slot, you have a simple tensioning device to slow the travel of the control line through it (and thus the boom). By putting the line through one or both of the additional slots friction is increased until it is acting more like a preventer.
To keep it easy to adjust we mounted Harken blocks on Spectra strops outboard and fitted Spinlock clutches to the side of the welded plinths for the staysail winches alongside the cockpit to make the control line fast. In order for the device to work at its best, you need to be able to tension it to maintain a steady level of friction. But it also helps, for example, to ease the tension slightly prior to gybing in most conditions, as this allows the boom to be brought amidships more easily, so it is useful to be able to adjust the line quickly from the cockpit. As it is always rigged we tend to leave ours set up on just the first friction turn, which we’ve found is just about all we need except in very strong winds, and it has performed flawlessly at all times.
On all the boats I’ve sailed on we’ve used preventers extensively, usually pre-rigged along the boom ready to be clipped on whenever necessary. But I have to say that we’ve never yet rigged a preventer on this boat, although I’m sure we still shall for long downwind legs. This is partly because the OVNI is amazingly stable downwind, but also because we’ve developed such confidence in the Gyb’easy that (so far) we simply haven’t felt it necessary.
We like it for a number of reasons. Firstly, because it is permanently rigged, the boom is always under control during the time it takes to haul in the main prior to a gybe—there’s no extra line handling as with twin preventers, great for shorthanded sailing. Secondly, because like all the best things it is simple and has nothing to go wrong at the worst moment, and thirdly, because we find it very effective in damping the antics of the boom in light winds and a swell when set up for extra friction. And it really does slow the boom down during all manoeuvres—no crashing across and damaging gear.
The downsides? It is not a replacement for a preventer in wild conditions, not least because a preventer is normally rigged from right forward on deck and attached to the mainsheet attachment further outboard on the boom where it has more purchase, and there is also less chance of breaking or bending the boom should it dip in. The control line crosses the side deck at a position and height that (at least on our boat) is a nuisance moving up and down the deck. In its current form the maximum size of mainsail that it can cope with is just under 600 square feet, although other makes are available for sail areas in excess of that figure. And it’s another thing to remember when you are cold, wet and tired and about to gybe the boat for the n’th time tonight.
But I was talking to another
OVNI owner on the quay this week and he mentioned that he too had a boom
brake (different make) on his 35. We were discussing what a great safety
feature they were, and found that although we had both found the same small
difficulties, ultimately we had come to the same conclusion—we wouldn’t
be without one.
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Swept-Back Spreaders—We Just don't Get It! (John, 08/2009)
We are all for many of the advances in sail handling systems that have appeared in recent years: roller furling, low stretch exotic fiber rope halyards, solid vangs, and clutches. All these and more have made sail handling on cruising boats easier and, in many cases, safer.
However, every so often we see a trend on offshore cruising boats that just makes no sense to us at all. The latest in that category is swept-back spreaders, often associated with complex three spreader rigs. Why on earth would you fit a rig to a voyaging boat that prevents trimming the sails properly to sail downwind? Isn’t planning voyages so that downwind and broad reaching are maximized the whole idea? I know it is for us.
When sailing downwind, or even just broad reaching, swept-back spreaders will necessitate radically over-trimming the mainsail, which will make the boat difficult to steer, generally squirrely, and slow her down too. This is not just an inconvenience or performance issue, it may also become a safety problem since an over-trimmed main can cause broaches in big seas, particularly when the boat is being steered by an autopilot or vane gear.
Yes, swept-back spreaders have the
advantage of stabilizing the rig without running or, in some cases, permanent
backstays, but these advantages are far outweighed by the disadvantages
detailed above. That is, unless the boat is so fast that she pulls the
apparent wind a long way forward when tacking downwind—true for high performance
race boats but not for most heavily loaded cruising boats, including the
ones pictured above.
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Spinnakers—Not Getting in a Twist (Colin Speedie, 07/2009)
Whilst the rest of Northern Europe has been enduring yet another ghastly summer with high winds and inundations, the Western Isles of Scotland have had a memorably warm and sunny season, with long spells of light winds. And as a result we’ve used our new asymmetric spinnaker on a regular basis.
You either love or hate spinnakers. After years of racing I’m as familiar as most sailors with them, and have endured my fair share of wild broaches whilst under them, so I’m under no illusions that they can bite back when used in the wrong circumstances. But when conditions are right, they are invaluable, and some of the most memorable days I’ve enjoyed out on the water have been under spinnaker.
When we were planning Pèlerin I was very much in favour of carrying a standard symmetrical spinnaker for running, plus an asymmetrical for reaching. On our old boat we carried a narrow shouldered radial head cruising spinnaker, which I loved for its stability and ease of handling, especially once we replaced the original snuffer with an excellent Hood one. Once it was up it could be sheeted off and pretty much left at that, which made it ideal for short handed cruising. But Lou viewed the thing with apprehension, balking at the paraphernalia of spinnaker handling—uphauls, guys, poles and so on—and ultimately believed that the act of hoisting a spinnaker brought either unexpected wind shifts or expected expletives! And whilst snuffers are a huge improvement over what went before them, they can still snarl up when most needed, which didn’t endear them to her either.
We looked at the German made Parasailor, about which we’d heard many good things, but were put off by a very high price tag, so we eventually agreed upon an asymmetrical chute as a starting point. We ordered a standard factory made removable bowsprit to get the kite out into clear air ahead of the boat. Like all things OVNI, it’s simple, strong and effective.
At the last London Boat Show we went shopping for a suitable sail, and finally opted for an asymmetrical cruising chute from a well-established British firm, Crusader Sails, mounted on one of their own furling gears. This simple unit is based on the Code 0 type furlers used on racing yachts, with a top swivel, Spectra luff rope and an endless line furling drum at deck level. The sail is hoisted wrapped around the luff rope, and then unfurled by pulling on the line in one direction, preferably with assistance from the sheet. To assist in making a neat furl, a light line is attached between the central point of the luff of the sail and the luff rope to start the furl from the middle of the sail, and to furl the furling line is pulled in the other direction as the sail is blanketed and the sheet is eased.
The furling line can be led all the way aft if preferred, but we opted to have ours shorter so that the sail can be set from the foredeck. In my view this has two advantages when two-handed sailing: The first being that the whole furling/unfurling process can be watched from deck to masthead as it happens, so that any snags can easily be observed, and the risk of a snarl-up reduced. The second is that tension needs to be kept on the furling line, especially when furling the sail, to stop the line slipping, and this seems more easily achieved when you are close to the drum. It does take a little getting used to, but once you’ve got the knack of it, it’s by far the easiest way of handling a sail like this that I’ve yet encountered, at least for an asymmetrical sail. An additional advantage is that the sail and the furling gear can be stowed in a tight coil that takes up very little space.
The sail itself is a beauty, remarkably stable, and sets over a wider effective wind angle than expected—a true cruising sail in that it can be sheeted home and doesn’t need endless trimming. As a result it has seen plenty of use whenever the wind has been favourable.
We still only use spinnakers in light to moderate winds, which greatly reduces the risk of getting into a mess with one. But this new system certainly fits in with our sailing philosophy that “if a job’s easy—you’ll do it”, and has added another dimension to our cruising. And, if further evidence were needed as to why it might be worthwhile reconsidering your current setup, consider that now it is more likely to be Lou suggesting we hoist the chute.
Reader comment:
I am curious why you didn't choose a Code O for upwind work?
Colin's response:
We're actively considering getting one, especially after our positive
experience with the furling asymmetric. When we took delivery of the boat
we opted to just get used to her with the basic sail plan, then "fill
the gaps" as they became obvious. And after this summer it's clear
that the next gap in the gearbox is upwind and close reaching in light
airs, especially as we have a yankee instead of a genoa. And as we want
to minimise our time spent motoring and we both enjoy sailing the boat
in light airs, the Code 0 looks like the way to go.
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Mainsail Reefing Blues (Colin Speedie, 04/2009)
Updated inhaul eyes and luff block.
As a young guy, one of the first cruising boats I sailed aboard was a lovely little wooden sloop. Originally gaff rigged, some well-meaning previous owner had changed her to Bermudian rig, doing nothing for her sailing ability (as was so often the case), a weakness that was exacerbated by an oversized mainsail that had obviously been inherited from a far bigger boat. This set more like a spinnaker and, with round the boom reefing, was a nightmare in a breeze, pulling the poor old girl over on her ear. In a bid to flatten the main, we piled in sail bags, cushions and anything else to hand as we reefed and, despite my inexperience, it was obvious that there had to be a better system than this.
Thirty years on I’ve sailed boats with every type of mainsail reefing. All have their good points, but with increasing age and with both of us with dodgy backs, the idea of staying off the deck and handling all lines from the cockpit seemed seductive. But it seems to me that this system only works if it is easy to do and does not involve leaving the cockpit—at all. The last boat I sailed with single line reefing was a disaster, but all the gear—blocks, winches—was undersized, and most of it was cheap kit that was worn out. As a result, it took up to ten minutes to get a reef in effectively, and shaking it out took almost as long, and by the time the job was finished I was exhausted. Suddenly it became clear why we see so many boats carrying their full main and a scrap of jib, or headsail alone in fresh breezes—the old maxim that if a job’s easy, you’ll do it, is always true, and if it's far easier to reef the genoa than the main, that’s the way you’ll play it, despite the fact that the boat may be unbalanced.
But we reminded ourselves that some people swear by single line reefing, so there had to be a way to get around some of the inherent problems, such as friction and excessive amounts of line. Roller bearing cars on a separate track have so much going for them that they are almost a necessity, as are adequate sized winches, and we’ve had no problem in that regard from the outset, but we’ve had to iron out a few bugs in the system to improve matters.
The first of these was to replace the inhaul eyes mounted on the mast, as the originals were pressed stainless steel, and were not only too flimsy, but were sharp edged and chafed on the other lines. We had some hefty eyes made out of round bar, and these are far better.
The second big improvement was to replace the mast base and luff blocks with low friction Harken models, which has taken a considerable amount of friction out of the system.
So now we’ve been concentrating on working on our technique and fine tuning the system. When we started out, on nearly every occasion we reefed, we still had to get out of the cockpit to clear a tumbled block, or to clear a bight of cloth jammed under the leach block. And although we’re still working on it, it’s becoming more and more effective. Hauling in the reefing line(s) as the halyard is eased works well, and marking the halyard and reefing lines, indicating the expected positions when the reef is fully home, has too. Fine adjustment of the block strops has helped so that the blocks at the luff are in the right position for the sail to set well. But still, far too often we end up getting out on deck to sort out one thing or another.
Chief culprit with this is sorting out jammed cloth at the luff end. This is partly because the sail is still new and very stiff and so may, in time, “train” itself a little, but it’s more than a nuisance. Over a long distance a badly pinched or chafed sail is going to suffer and obviously that’s to be avoided at all costs. One thing we have done is to swap over the second reef from the starboard side of the cockpit to port, in an attempt to alternate the lines better on the boom end.
The standard boat comes with a stack pack sail cover and at first it seemed like a great idea, and we can still see why they are popular for day sailing. But over time we like it less and less, partly because it makes it almost impossible to see what is going on with the reefing line at the boom end—Is there a big bight of cloth being pinched? Is the reefing block in the right place?—which generally necessitates a journey on deck! The second factor is chafe, as the stack pack is always on the move when underway, and not only can the pack itself chafe on the main, but you cannot easily lead the support lines forward away from the sail as you can with a simple lazyjack system. So we think we’ll revert to a mainsail cover for in-port use and a very basic set of lazyjacks when the stackpack wears out.
Our last boat originally had a hybrid system (half in the cockpit—half on deck) which didn’t work at all well, so eventually we bit the bullet and shifted everything to the mast. At least that way it was all in one place and we could put a reef in or out in a couple of minutes. You had to go on deck to do it, but it worked really well. We covered everything on deck in non-slip paint, including the coachroof sides (don’t boatbuilders realise that you are often on deck when the boat is heeled?), so it was safe to move around day or night and the only thing we lacked was a set of granny bars at the mast.
We’re going to persevere with the single line system for this season at
least, as we’ve invested much time, money and effort, and there are still
a couple of options we can try, which may be all it needs. But if after
that we’re not entirely happy with the system, then it may be time to bite
the bullet and change back to an at-the-mast system. Which may well seem
a retrograde move, but it is so essential to be able to put a reef in quickly
and efficiently, and, well, the OVNI does have a great set of granny bars….
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