Rig
As I write, we are closing in on revealing the Adventure 40 design, but before we get overwhelmed by all the cool details in the renderings, and the resulting discussion, Maxime and I think it’s important to finish writing about the specification that drove the design—we gotta know where we were heading to understand if we got there.
We have already covered:
So that leaves the rig. Let’s dig in.
Overlap or Not?
The last time we went through the process with the boat that Erik de Jong designed, we ended up with a masthead sloop with a non-overlapping (blade) jib, which, in turn, allowed the chainplates to be placed outboard on the side of the hull, which:
- Simplifies the engineering.
- Reduces the compression on the rig, which allows for a slightly lighter section.
- Gets rid of the pretty much inevitable leaks around inboard metal chainplates on a fibreglass boat.
However, there are also tradeoffs with that option:
- When we get rid of overlap, the mast must get taller so as to have enough sail area.
- Low-overlap “blade” type sails are:
- Harder to trim well.
- Reduce visibility to leeward.
- Don’t roller reef or furl well.
- To maintain decent trim as the wind speed changes, they must either be reefed or the jib sheet block continuously moved.
- When bearing off to a reach, the crew must re-reeve the jib sheet outside the shrouds to get a decent set.
The Effect of Mast Height
The worst of these problems is the first. Increasing mast height has a surprisingly large negative effect on pitching moment, which, in turn, makes the boat slower and less comfortable upwind, whether sailing or motoring.
For example, Maxime and Pascal—they analyzed these issues before Pascal left the project—calculated that a meter of increased mast height on the Adventure 40 would be the same as putting 140 kg (308 lbs) on the bow.
Think about that for a moment. That’s like two medium-sized people up forward, which, on a boat this size, is really noticeable, and not in a good way.
Wait, it gets worse. Not only does pitching moment get worse as mast height goes up, but stability goes down as the boat becomes more tender, and so she must be reefed earlier, particularly since the centre of effort of the rig moves upward with mast height.
But if we just cut sail area willy nilly to deal with the problem, we end up with an under-canvassed slug that’s no fun to sail and ends up pushing her crew into motoring a lot.
So what to do?
The Carbon Option
One way to have a tall mast, decent stability, and low pitching moment is to fit a carbon mast. Not only is the material way lighter for a given strength and stiffness, but carbon also allows the mast designer to decrease the wall thickness in the higher parts of the mast, further moving down the centre of gravity.
No question, carbon masts are a whopping performance win and I’m a huge fan, having owned and sailed with one for 16 years.
That said, carbon is just plain wrong for the A40. Here’s why:
- A big jump in expense. I would guess around US$20,000, when compared to a production aluminum mast.
- Every carbon mast is in effect a custom mast, since good ones are laid up by hand, making consistent quality control much more difficult.
- In my experience, carbon mast builders will insist on using rod rigging—a lot of reasons, but one is that shroud termination is easier.
That’s all bad enough, but the bigger problem is the fragility of carbon masts. The A40 is an offshore cruising boat that will frequent places with, shall we say, rather agricultural boatyards, with probably no professional riggers in sight.
We just don’t want to be messing with a carbon rig where, for example, just giving it a good hard knock with a crane or dropping it off the sawhorses after unstepping could write it off.
Wait, it gets worse. The biggest drawback of carbon, that I have never seen mentioned anywhere but is still very real, is damage ambiguity:
A robustly-engineered aluminum mast that has experienced either of those assaults is generally either dented and/or broken, or fine. A five-minute inspection, will, in most cases, tell us if it needs replacing or not.
Not so carbon. For example, dropping it or a lightning strike can do damage that only a skilled technician, probably flown in from the mast builder and equipped with ultrasound scanning, can accurately assess.
And, worse still, that damage might be done when we were not present to see it happen, perhaps by a careless boatyard while moving our mast to a storage rack, so we might never know…until things end badly at sea.
And the last thing an A40 owner needs is to be dealing with rod rigging, where, once it’s on the ground, even a careless foot can bend it, requiring replacement that can only be done by a skilled technician using specialized equipment that is only available in big sailing centres.
The Adventure 40 is supposed to be easy to maintain, even in remote places, and carbon masts are anything but.
By the way, one of the biggest reasons we selected a J/109 as our retirement-from-cruising boat, is that it was one of the few performance boats available with an aluminum mast—I just did not want the stress of dealing with carbon anymore, particularly unstepping and stepping every year.
And, better yet, when we replaced the mast damaged by the trucker, we specified anodized, not painted—there is no easier mast to maintain than anodized aluminum. I would really like to see anodized as standard on the A40.
Back To Overlap
The other obvious way to keep the mast shorter but still have enough sail area is to increase jib overlap, but that only works well to about 120%. After that sails get hard to tack, don’t furl or reef well, and are generally a pain in the neck to deal with.
The other problem with overlapping headsails is that, to be efficient upwind, they need to be quite low cut, and that gets us back into many of the problems of blade jibs.
On the other hand, once we crack off on a reach, a high-cut sail becomes way more efficient, because the leech hooks less, and also reefs and furls way better. And, better yet, high-cut sails work way better than low-cut ones when poled out downwind.
The Best Answer
So is there a solution to most all of these problems? Yup, the cutter rig:
- The jib topsail (yankee jib) is high cut, so a great reaching and running sail.
- The staysail fills the gap under the jib topsail for efficiency upwind.
- The combination of the staysail and modestly-overlapped jib topsail give us as much area as a substantially-overlapped single headsail, but without the problems.
- A properly setup cutter is surprisingly fast, particularly in swell offshore.
- A double-reefed mainsail and staysail with the jib topsail rolled up, makes a snug and efficient heavy-weather rig.
- The staysail stay is the very best place to set a storm jib, and it’s much easier to make the change from a staysail than from an overlapping genoa.
- If the stay is made roller furling, the staysail can be used partially rolled when heaved-to.
Of course, like anything around boats, the cutter rig has drawbacks:
Runners
The biggest of those is the requirement for running backstays to oppose the staysail stay loads and the need to tend them on every tack.
But that can be got around by simply moving the anchor points for the runners forward, so they can both stay on while the boat is going to windward. Our previous boat (McCurdy and Rhodes 56) is rigged that way and it works great. In my opinion, this option works better than having the anchor point way aft so that the runners can stay on at all times once the main is deeply reefed.
Ease of Tacking
The other issue that those new to cutters worry about is tacking two headsails, particularly if shorthanded, and getting the jib top through the smaller slot forward of the staysail. But once you know the trick, which is to leave the staysail sheeted on the old tack (backed) until the jib-top slides across and is sheeted home on the new side, all is good.
That said, there is no question that a cutter takes longer to tack than a sloop, but those who really worry about that can have the best of both worlds by making the staysail stay removable and setting a traditional overlapped genoa when inshore.
Light Air Sails
So is there no other situation where the sloop with an overlapping genoa bests a cutter?
Well, there used to be one: on a broad reach, when the staysail is no longer effective and has been rolled up on the cutter, the sloop with a big overlapping genoa will be able to show more area, although some of that is offset by the poor sheeting angle and shorter J measurement on the sloop.
But that was before the advent of large light-air sails—code sails, asymmetric spinnakers, gennakers, or whatever else we want to call them—made easy to use by being set on removable roller furlers, either top-down for spinnakers (or sock) or bottom-up for gennakers, which more than make up for lost reaching area on a cutter.
Bow Sprit
Wait, it gets better. The Adventure 40 will have a reasonable-length bowsprit for setting these sails, which makes them even more efficient, and has the added advantage that in settled weather the light-air sail can be left in place on its furler, ready for immediate and easy deployment.
There is also another benefit of the French team assuming while designing the A40 that performance-oriented owners will fit light-air reaching and downwind sails: They can get away with a bit less sail area and, therefore, a bit shorter mast than was previously required for decent performance off the wind.
That said, I would not like to see this carried to extremes. See Further Reading for more of my thoughts on optimal sail area for cruising boats.
Inboard Chainplates
All that’s pretty convincing, but it does leave us with a large fly in the ointment, which is that, on a cutter, we are going to need to move the chainplates inboard for decent pointing ability, with all the attendant drawbacks I listed at the beginning of the article.
That said, I’m sure the engineering can be dealt with. After all, most boats have inboard chainplates these days.
And Z-Spars, who Maxime and Pascal consulted on all of this, opined that the increased weight of section required by the greater compression generated by inboard chainplates was far less of a negative to pitching moment and sail carrying capacity than the higher mast necessitated by sheeting the largest jib inside the shrouds.
So that leaves us with the almost inevitable leaks resulting from the different physical characteristics of stainless steel and fibreglass.
To solve that, I’m hoping the boat can be built with composite chainplates, since they can be bonded in and so never leak, and also can be engineered and built to last pretty much forever, rather than the 20-year or so removal, inspection, and often replacement cycle that is required with stainless-steel chainplates.
Slot Rig?
Another option to get the chainplates out on the rail is the slot rig, that has become popular lately in France and is being used by Boréal on their new-generation boats, where the jib sheets run inside the upper shrouds (V1s).
Maxime and I did discuss this option briefly, but he pointed out that we could not get the overlap we need, particularly on a high-cut jib topsail (to keep the mast a reasonable height), without sweeping the spreaders a long way back, which is a bad idea on an offshore boat, particularly one that will make long offwind passages in the trades, where by far the best rig is main out on one side and jib topsail on the other.
Sailing hot angles with an asymmetric spinnaker may be fun for short periods but, trust me, it will get old after 20 days of constant tending on, say, a trade-winds trans-Atlantic with big breeze and swell, particularly with just two people aboard.
The other thing to realize about the slot rig is that the boats so equipped are generally not true cutters with high-clew jib topsails, but rather sloops with staysails that are used alone in heavy weather. So we lose many of the cutter benefits I listed above.
And the final and worst problem with the slot rig is that the jib sheet needs to be moved outside the upper shrouds every time we bear off, and back inside when we come on the wind—trust me, that will get old in a hurry.
Fractional Rig?
Z-Spars also suggested that the rig might benefit from moving the headstay down, say 50 cm (20 inches), from the head, perhaps in conjunction with a slight amount of spreader sweepback (no more than 10 degrees).
The benefits of this move to a slightly-fractional rig are compelling:
- The mast can be tuned with a bit of prebend balanced against the spreaders and shrouds, which makes it more stable in a seaway.
- Increasing backstay tension as the wind comes up bends the mast and flattens the main even more than it does on a masthead boat.
- Doing this right can obviate the need for twin lower shrouds (D1s)—particularly on a boat with runners—which saves a lot of construction cost and aggravation as well as allowing the main to be let further out when sailing dead downwind. (If spreader sweepback is modest, it’s the aft lowers that tend to be the limiting factor.)
- Moving the headstay down, but leaving the spinnaker halyard at the top of the mast, separates light air sails from the headstay, even more than a bowsprit alone would.
The drawbacks of fractional rigs is that they are more difficult to tune well, and require more skill to get the best out of, as well as a back stay adjuster (preferably hydraulic).
That said, given that the A40 will be a standard boat, it should be easy to provide a guide, much like the one available for our J/109, that will make her pretty easy to tune.
A lot of variables on fractional rigs, which the French team are still investigating before making a final call, probably in conjunction with whichever builder and mast manufacturer are selected.
Summary
Lots of detail here, so let’s take a look at what we ended up with for the Adventure 40 rig:
- Cutter rigged.
- Aluminum spars, preferably anodized rather than painted.
- High-cut roller-furling jib top (yankee) of no more than 20% overlap—that last part was from me, the great overlap hater.
- Inboard chainplates to allow the jib topsail to sheet properly.
- Running backstays, hopefully terminated at the deck well forward—I’m not sure Maxime is as big a fan of that idea as I am, and he’s the boss.
- Staysail that sheets inboard of shrouds and will only be used, as is typical with cutters, until the apparent wind gets to about 90° aft of the bow.
- Staysail will be hanked on as standard but owners can add roller furling if desired—we will have to figure out covers for the hanks to stop them chafing the jib topsail when tacking.
- Staysail stay will be removable as standard, for those owners who wish to sail the boat as a sloop, but still have the stay ready to go for a storm jib.
- Fixed bow sprit for light-air sails.
- Possibly a slightly-fractional rig with slightly-sweptback spreaders—this one is still being investigated and won’t be finalized for a while.
It’s interesting to note that the French team independently came down heavily in favour of the above solution in a technical paper they shared with me last November, and I’m a cutter fan based on well over 100,000 miles of sailing one inshore and offshore, so this solution is well supported by theory and experience.
Further Reading
I have not delved deeply into all the details behind every decision because I have already covered that stuff in past articles:
- Three articles on the benefits of the cutter rig and how to set one up right (lots of the benefits I just touched on above explained in more depth)
- Sloop, cutter, or solent, which is best?
- How much sail area is right?
- Carbon masts
- Why a lot of spreader sweepback is a bad idea
- More on composite chainplates
Comments
So what do you think? Please leave a comment. That said, please have at least a scan through the articles linked to above before doing so. A lot of questions and concerns are already covered there.
I have mast head sloop converted to have an inner staysail, not a true cutter. To support the side loads on the mast I have fixed additional, aft lower shrouds. It works well as I can run off wind with minimal loss of boom out angle.
Guess which chain plates started leaking? The starboard new, additional lower aft chain plate, about 20 years in, easy to fix, no big deal at the end of the day.
I never really used my staysail as it was an old Dacron sail, but I bought a new staysail made in Vectron and what a difference, especially in strong winds. I am now wondering about changing my almost new roller reefing head sail, for a “working jib” but with more area than a pure working jib. I reckon that would be optimal for me with the staysail.
My masthead rig is a deck stepped, single set of straight spreaders, cap shrouds, lower forwards and aft shrouds (original standard set up), plus the new lower afts, is raked about 12″ aft, slight bend in mast by inner forestay, 10mm 1×19 wire. I have no adjustable backstay, just fixed. It works okay for me and I use a mini reef when the wind gets up to depower the main sail, in lieu of flattening with a backstay adjuster.
For me, the cutter style works and I don’t miss the backstay adjuster, it is simple but strong rig.
Looking forward to see the final decision for the A40.
Hi Alastair,
Sounds like a good rig. Changing the jib might indeed work out well. Have a read of our cutter chapters first since there are a bunch of details that will make a difference, see further reading. As to not missing a back stay adjuster, you may find it’s one of those things that we don’t miss until we have one, although with a mast head rig, the pay off is not quite as dramatic as with fractional. And, as you say, a flattening reef is a good option too, although it does not flatten the upper sections of the sail like mast bend does.
Hi John,
Big fan of Z-Spars (U.S.Spars in North America) having a 20-year old Beneteau 473 with Z-Spar masthead rig. We completely re-rigged the mast in 2018, and every part we wanted was available ex-stock from U.S.Spars, arriving within one week on our rigger’s shop-floor in NZ (he was impressed). All this at very reasonable prices that we couldn’t match in NZ.
On this alone, perhaps specify the A-40 mast as a standard Z-Spar foil section, to use all standard Z-Spar parts – no deviations. Then require the A-40 mast + boom & pole to have their own rigging diagram page on the Z-Spar / U.S.Spar web-sites so A-40 customers can order spares after market, by clearly identified part-number. And give owners a Z-Spar or U.S.Spar parts login / password in their boat manual.
This reduces costs and yard-time when it comes to rig renewals (which many A-40s will be doing every 10 years or less) – a big cost if any custom parts are needed. For example, we replaced the Z-Spar cast-aluminium mast plate, mast collar and mast shoe in 2018, not because they were worn. Rather, they were so in-expensive, not replacing them seemed a false economy.
Best regards. Rob
Hi Rob,
That’s great to hear and a huge endorsement of Z-Spar. Let’s just say my experience with Sparcraft has been different, even though they are the suppliers of J/109 standard masts. Anyway, I’m all for using standard parts and sections.
Interesting!
Cutter rig, no genoa, no paint on the mast.
I am really starting to consider buying the A40 although it sounds a bit small in terms of accommodation for more than two permanent crew.
I guess that just reflects the fact that 40-ish feet is simply too small for 4 proper bunks in two separate cabins – let alone 6 in three cabins, as typical boat this size has.
At least the designer seems to respect the ethos of seaworthiness, maintainabilty and good sailing characteristics over useless rear cabins.
Hi Vesa,
Yes, she is definitely a two person boat with occasional guests. I’m hoping there will one day be an Adventure 47 to 50 for those who want to cruise with four.
Hi John, Maxime,
Your analysis above doesn’t correlate entirely with our own experience of using a jib sloop rig for cruising:
Some extra Pros & Cons on jib / code sail combo:
With short rig, the jib needs the Code 0 to provide the HP in light winds. May be too many $$ for standard A40?
Not sure jib would work with budget Dacron sails – so this may discount a jib for the A40. One reason it works well for us is the optimum designed-in sail shape with low-stretch fibres laminated in place. But Hydranet fabric should work OK with conventional construction techniques?
We have a removable Dyneema inner forestay (encapsulated in a Dacron sleeve) that attaches close to the masthead to take a storm-jib. The storm-jib hanks on using Dyneema soft shackles – may be the solution for your staysail? Glides up and down well!
A high modulus (low-stretch) jib with small clearance between deck and jib foot is somewhat vulnerable to wave-strike. No issue yet even after a number of large waves, but we use the high-clew storm jib in gale conditions.
In any reasonable sailing breeze upwind we’re closer-winded with our jib and with better upwind VMG than similar over-lapped B473, and I am sure any equivalent cutter.
Off the wind the code 0 is fast. It can be poled out to windward for running square in lighter winds. And jib can be poled out to windward for running square in heavier winds, by topping pole at the mast above horizontal.
Jib only needs two cockpit sheet winches (one each side) which reduces cost, frees up cockpit space and allows for large opening cockpit lockers.
Less windage forward when at anchor, with a tightly furled jib.
Previous Doyle genoa remains in our loft after seven years.
Hi Rob,
I think the difference in our analysis is one of degree. For example low cut can mean a bunch of different things. For example the blade on my J/109, even with battens, furls poorly, and the does not reef at all well.
As to not moving the genoa car, as you say it must be moved whenever we reef, and also any sort of reach requires a barber hauler or moving the sheet, as you do. Neither are required with a high cut jib topsail. That’s a big win that needs to be experienced to fully appreciate.
So overall I think the difference between out views in that your point of reference is an older low cut genoa, which has many of the same issues as a blade and some of them worse. For example a high cut yankee furls and reefs way better than either, as we found on our McCurdy and Rhodes 56 when we changed from a #2 genoa to cutter rig.
Also, while sloops are generally a bit closer winded than cutters in smooth water, don’t assume that’s always the case. We won our class twice in the Newport Bermuda race rigged as a cutter, including the second race with a lot of light air windward work in swell where a properly set up cutter can be very fast.
Also, as soon as the sloop starts to reef the headsail, a cutter has a speed and weatherliness advantage since the two sails are rolled less. And then when the wind really gets up the cutter with just the staysail sheeted in hard will slaughter a sloop with a jib deeply reefed.
Anyway, all that said, as I wrote in the article, the A40 can be sailed as a sloop, just as you do, for those who wish to go that way. So the overall point here is we both agree that big overlap genoas suck, even if we come at the solution to that differently.
As the cost of light air sails and better cloth, the savings on a shorter mast should cover a lot of that. But anyway, I think we will find that the cruiser who is willing to go with budget Dacron sails and no downwind sails is not sailing performance oriented and will tend to motor when the wind is down. Also, as I wrote in the post, I would not like to see a very short rig. My guess based on Vincent’s designs is that even with the “shorter” rig she will have more sail than most cruising boats being sold today.
Hi John,
Seems like the A40 keeps getting better with every new article you put out. A mini-fractional, cutter rig with bowsprit, masthead spin halyard, backstay adjuster, and composite chainplates? Now we’re talking! Combined with the smart spec for the keel, this rig sounds like a sailor’s dream.
Seems like this configuration will allow for a range of personalization and performance options depending on the owner’s preferences and how much they want to spend on sails.
With the various affordances being built into different parts of the boat to allow owner customization, and now this more flexible rig concept (if I am understanding it all correctly), the A40 is really becoming a user-configurable “platform”, in a way. Hopefully folks will understand how that goes hand-in-hand with the “no options” principal: They actually have more freedom than they would if they had to choose only from a manufacturer’s options menu, while enjoying the financial benefits of pure economy of scale for the basic boat.
Question regarding the running backstays. Could both sets of anchors you mentioned be provided, the forward set for use with full main/upwind and the aft set for when reefed down? Or would the complication outweigh any possible convenience? Just curious about it, as I’ve never sailed a cutter.
Btw, as a sail trimming enthusiast, I’ll cast my vote for the mini-fractional rig with adjustable backstay. Perhaps a configuration using an economical block system instead of hydraulics can be found, that also preserves access and headroom underneath the arch.
Thanks as always for another compelling article!
Hi Scott,
You are totally getting it on the idea of a “configurable platform”. For example Rob could sail the boat just as he does his present boat. I need to do a better job of making that clear, maybe in a future article about just that.
As to providing both anchor points for the backstays, that could be done, but would add expense and complications. Not only would the French team need to engineer the two high load anchor points, they would also need to figure how the stays should be tensioned in each configuration, so, to me anyway, not worth the agro and expense.
I enjoyed reading the description of the A40 rig-your excitement shows!
A few brief notes from my experience:
We have a true cutter rig on our Dix43. 108% yankee on a Furlex 400 and now the small staysail on a Furlex 300. Originally we had a hank-on staysail, but found that it was rarely used. Now with the furler we use the staysail frequently. It really adds pointing ability and power upwind. Definitely strike it when the AWA is approaching 90. We do not have runners but rather permanent “aft intermediates” as the designer calls them. Granted, they do interfere with the main boom being let out to a super-wide angle, but he trade-off is worth it to me. All sails Dimension Polyant fabric, heavier than “normal”, although I might go with Hydranet next time. But these sails will last me another 3-5 years.
Ditto the double reefed main/staysail heavy air combo you suggested. We did this for 11 days in 2020, Norfolk to Antigua, sailing AWA of 55 with the resultant increase in AWS to near 30 for 90% of the voyage. It may have been slightly slower than running the headsail, but much easier on the rig and crew. And perfectly balanced, so easier on the AP. Doublehanded offshore and in our 60’s we have found comfort and safety to be paramount over squeezing out an extra knot.
Here in Norway we have been using the cruising code zero quite often as we sail between the skerries and the inner lead, with frequent changes of wind direction and heading. With the CZ on a flex furler it is fast and easy to gybe the sail by simply rolling it in, moving the sheet to opposite tack and unfurling. We even leave it up and furled now when the wind picks up beyond AWS18 and we opt to use the yankee. Our CCZ is useable from 60-170˚, although this latter figure will only be achieved in flat sea conditions.
Finally, regarding weight aloft: Have you considered using dyneema rigging instead of stainless? My pal Barry just refit a Garcia 50 and saved hundreds of pounds aloft by using the fiber rigging. Not sure what the cost analysis is, but worth investigating? Easily field repairable, too, it is remarkably tough stuff.
Keep up the good work!
Brian on Helacious
Hi Brian,
Sounds like a good rig, and very like the one that worked so well for us for 30 years on our McCurdy and Rhodes 56.
As to Dyneema rigging. That would run against a core A40 value of only using widely tried and proven tech, so I would not like to see that, even though I think that some form of rope rigging will one day take over in the cruising world.
More here: https://www.morganscloud.com/2016/11/22/the-unknown-unknowns/
Agree on synthetic rigging. It seems still to have problems with creeping. I don’t fancy retensioning the rig when I go to cold high latitudes, then easing it off again when heading for the warm.
Hi John,
I am always impressed with how much I learn from your articles, especially the compare and contrast aspects.
As to a cutter rig on a 40-foot boat, I have pushing 70k miles of ocean and coastal cruising miles on Alchemy and can confirm all you say about its versatility and ability to move the boat well. Versatility, and ease of use, often goes hand-in-hand with poor sailing characteristics and a dearth of options: limitations the cutter rig (especially where the mast is close to amidships) addresses well. A low-cut staysail and a higher cut jib topsail just plain work synergistically together and a modestly sized and strongly built asym in a sock fills in the gaps. In those miles I have never wanted more than a deeply reefed 3rd reef in the main and the staysail rolled in a bit: so no storm tri or storm jib and the attendant complications.
For a cruising couple, I would say that most will want the staysail to be roller furled: it is just really nice to be able to change gears quickly and easily and let the off-watch sleep when changes are called for.
The one place where I would suggest carbon fiber is in the whisker pole. In many days and many miles of wing and wing sailing, I believe it far better (both far easier and generally faster for cruising boats) to just head for destination (wing and wing) than to tack downwind. And my cf pole is 14 pounds and handling it on the foredeck in ocean swell in no way scares me like my old clunky aluminum pole did.
MY best, Dick Stevenson, s/v Alchemy
Hi Dick,
I agree on all of that, except the need to have the mast near the middle of the boat since I don’t think that’s a requirement for a true cutter. We will, as before, need to agree to disagree on that one. And I agree on carbon poles. That said, we will need to look at cost and given that this is a smaller boat than yours a carbon pole might not be worth it. The other option, and probably the best, would be to deliver the boat with no pole and let owners make their own call on carbon or not and extending or not.
Hi Dick,
thank you for the comment!
“A modestly sized and strongly built asym in a sock fills in the gaps”: yes, in my mind this should be the preferred solution regarding light air sails – although of course owners will be able to experiment with anything else, including code zeros, if they wish.
It seems to me like the points above are trying to get the MOST performance out of the sailplan on all points with the LEAST amount of effort (ie not moving car positions fore/aft, inboard/outboard, not changing headsails, etc).
If that’s indeed the goal, I’m surprised the Solent rig didn’t make it into this discussion yet. Of all the boats I’ve done a bunch of miles on offshore (between Mia & I we did a complete Atlantic Circuit on KINSHIP in 2012/13), the Bob Perry-designed Saga 43 with a Solent rig had what I felt was the optimal setup. Two furlers right at the bow, one just behind the other. The headstay furler was masthead, with a typical 120-135% overlapping genoa; the Solent furler was set just aft of this, and just below the masthead, high enough to not require runners. Then there was an inner forestay, removeable, for heavy weather storm jib, with runners, but only needed in the really rough stuff.
The Solent jib was self-tacking and was the working upwind jib. The big genoa was for reaching and off-the-wind, plus you had your masthead spin halyards for light-air sails. The only downside was in very light wind inshore, where tacking the big genoa was impossible without rolling it in. But for offshore work, this rig was near to ideal (and so was the boat for that matter, I love the Saga 43!).
Hi Andy,
I agree, there’s a lot to like about the Solent, but then there are a lot of downsides too. In the end the downsides outweighed the up.
I also think that a lot of the benefits of the Solent rig have gone away in recent years with the advent of easy to use removable roller furlers.
More here on our thinking and why the Solent did not make the cut: https://www.morganscloud.com/2020/05/28/cruising-rigs-sloop-cutter-or-solent/
Perfect solution – very excited. Cutter rig is the way to go.
Mind you, I’m surprised you’re in favour of roller reefing. Most other sailors who care about sail shape and longevity are pretty agin it, even if they’ll tolerate roller furling. Although quite a few would rather drop the sails than leave them up furled, because of windage and it’s detrimental effect on progress to windward. I guess with the A40 we can leave the jib-top on the forestay for long downwind passages and only drop it to the deck on upwind passages with windspeeds above it’s operating envelope.
The proposed rig sounds fine without seeming to require roller reefing:
0-5 knots = full main and code zero
5-10 knots = full main and jib-top & stays’l
10-20 knots = depowered full main, jib-top & stays’l
20-30 knots = depowered full main and jib-top
30-35 knots = 1 reef (77%) main & jib-top
35-40 knots = 1 reef (77%) main & stays’l
40-45 knots = 2 reef (57%) main & stays’l
45-50 knots = 3 reef (36%) main & stays’l
50-55 knots = trys’l (25%) & stays’l
55 knots + = heave too or deploy drogue
The exact transition wind-speeds might be different, but with 3 headsails and 3 mainsail reefing points to choose from is there ever really a need to partially deploy any of the headsails? Can’t they be simply up or down?
Hi PD,
My thoughts on roller reefing headsails are here: https://www.morganscloud.com/2012/03/23/handling-roller-furling-sails/
And here is the other view: https://www.morganscloud.com/2012/03/08/hank-on-sails/
On balance, I think the roller reefing works better for this boat, particularly on a true cutter.
As to your wind speeds and sail combos, in my experience that’s way too high on the wind speed. Even on our big powerful McCurdy and Rhodes the first reef in the main went in at 14 knots true and rolls started to go into the headsails at 17 knots true. By 25 knots true we would be two reefs in the main and and both headsails rolled well down. Three reefs and just a scrap of headsail at 30 knots true, and heaved-to at anything consistently over 40.
Here are some more thoughts on actual usable wind speeds at sea: https://www.morganscloud.com/2007/10/01/gale-force-is-a-lot-of-wind/
Any update on the timeline for the adventure 40? What is the best and worst case?
Hi Stan,
this is difficult to estimate at this point. Just to give some idea, a reasonably fast case would be having the A40 prototype in water by the beginning of 2024, and then the very first of the series by late summer 2024.
But it all depends on the discussion with builders, and on the arrangements we can find (and on the impact of the current economic situation…). This will be the main subject for this fall. And before that, an important moment will be when we reveal the design by Vincent and team, and learn from you whether we’ve gone the right path!
I’m planning on my boat acquisition in the next 2 years and hope that fits within the A40 timeline.
I’d much rather have a new, well-designed boat than retrofitting an older boat. I understand it’s a big undertaking to build and introduce a new boat build.
I will remain hopeful for the A40.
It sounds like it will be really nice rig.
I like the idea that with the buyer choosing sails they can adjust the setup for their own use profile/preferences. Although I don’t think that this flexibility should be at the expense of making one setup close to perfect.
Is it possible to use forward jumpers (I hope this is the correct term) on the mast instead of running backs?
I have seen them on other boats supporting an inner forestay but I’ve no idea what the disadvantages are.
Perhaps cost or not as effective support.
Hi Dan,
interesting question! I fear it falls into “too much complexity and non-standard parts”, and suspect (I’ve never used such a setup) that it wouldn’t allow to tighten the inner forestay as much as running backstays do. But depending on what experience by John and others tell, the question could be asked to the mast manufacturers.
Hi Dan,
Jumpers, there’s a blast from my distant past when we used to get towed out to the start line by a steam launch in Luders 16s which had jumpers. https://sailboatdata.com/sailboat/luders-16
Kidding aside, the only offshore boat I remember with jumpers was the Saga 40: https://sailboatdata.com/sailboat/saga-40
it’s an interesting idea and of course the advantage is that you can get rid of runners, at least in theory. That said, if we do that and are offshore in big seas I think the jumpers will be very heavily loaded. Of course that’s a guess and for the mast builder to opine on.
But there are big issues with jumpers that I do know about:
Thanks I’ve learned more about them.
Sounds like there may be very specific situations where they can work well but for the adventure 40 they will not be an ideal solution.
Now you mention it I can imagine it’s possible to get some very strange mast curves if badly tuned, or backstay tension is adjusted while sailing.
Regarding the necessity of running backstays with the cutter rig: I know the design might be antithetical to your current preferences, but The Lyle Hess-designed Bristol Channel Cutter incorporated an effective and proven alternative to runners. A permanent aft intermediate with upper attachment at same height as upper staysail attachment point shares the aft-most (outboard) chainplate with the aft lower. Also worth noting is that this design does not rely on swept-back spreaders either. Granted, this is an admittedly low-aspect mast by modern standards, and is also a very stout section, but nonetheless is a very proven design with countless ocean miles. Here is a drawing that illustrates the concept: https://capegeorgecutters.com/_boat-designs/bristol-channel-cutter-28/
Hi Scott,
Yes, I have seen that on several relatively traditional boats. It would take a spar engineer to say for sure, but I think that would only work on a very short mast. A rule of thumb is that for shroud or stay to work the angle it makes from the mast must be greater than 12° otherwise the load is just too high—this is why boats have spreaders. The other issue is that if I remember right, as that angle gets lower the loads go exponentially.
Also, I’m guessing that the BPC will have a quite low maximum healing moment, due to her slack bilges and shallow draft. On the other hand the A40 with her tighter turn to the bilge and deeper bulb keel will be way more stable and therefore load her rig way higher.
Add this all up and my guess is that the to make the loads on that stay manageable the chain plate would need to go a lot further aft on the A40 and that would preclude easing the main properly.
All that said, I could be wrong so it’s worth asking the spar builder and hull engineers.
More on the whole stability thing and how it relates to rig loads here: https://www.morganscloud.com/2012/11/30/adventure-40-its-about-displacement-and-righting-moment/
Hi John,
I think that the cutter rig as outlined makes a lot of sense although it is certainly not the only option that would work. To me, it is in keeping with the goal of an offshore focused boat with good performance for a couple. It isn’t the rig that a fully crewed raceboat would use but that is not the point. It also isn’t the rig that I would pick for coastal cruising but the removable inner forestay solves for this nicely. If I were doing that, I would go to a soft stay as storing wire stays is a real pain in the neck and can make a mess of your mast anodizing/paint. You and Dick convinced me a while ago that a roller furling staysail is viable as a heavy weather sail also so double furlers might be okay too, especially in a place with a lot of wind like San Francisco or Buzzard’s Bay. In an ideal world, for coastal cruising if being a bit lazier and less performance oriented, I would take a solent rig and if being a bit more performance oriented, I would take a blade jib and a Code 0.
On our own boat, we have actually been playing around as when our current suite of sails comes up for replacement, we will switch away from hank-on sails. The biggest reason in our case is the storage space they take up, with a family of 4 being down below with several sails is less than ideal. One interesting thing I have learned is just how much variation we like in sail area, our biggest jib is 460 ft^2 and our smallest is 110 ft^2. In truth, the 110 ft^2 is probably smaller than we really need for our sailing which we have intentionally defined as coastal only right now, 150 ft^2 would probably be okay and on the top end, it is a pretty narrow wind range where the 460 ft^2 is beneficial over something like a 350 ft^2 with much less overlap. I am often amazed when I switch from an overlapped sail to a non-overlapped one and the boat speed barely drops but the boat heels a lot less. By far my favorite sail for our boat is what I call a working jib which is like a blade but with a clew cut a few feet higher although not as high as the picture you have of an Outbound. This is an incredibly versatile sail and provides great lift to drag and allows us to be much more close winded than our overlapping sails. I am sure that it is a little slower than a true blade but given that we are constantly steering around pot buoys and other boats, the extra visibility is well worth the tiny performance hit to me. We have inboard shrouds and sheet outside them but our previous family boat had a very similar sail except fractional hoist sheeted in the slot which was equally great and never required moving leads outside the caps. My experience with this actually very closely mirrors Rob’s experience with a blade although I have not found a true blade to be as forgiving as he describes. This sail is a little underpowered in under 10 knots and I want one of the overlapping sails at that point. Our boat has quite a tall rig for a boat its size (52′ air draft for 36′ length) so I am not tempted by lots of overlap but it definitely pitches more than I would like. I think we will either end up with a minimal overlap headsail (115%?) and our current asym or a working jib plus a code 0 depending on where we decide to go on the performance spectrum. With a working jib we probably would not need a higher wind sail just for coastal cruising but with anything that overlaps, it won’t be able to roll down far enough and we will need to figure something else out. My current thinking is a soft inner forestay with soft hanks and soft running backs. I have used this system before and it is great provided that you can put the sail on in its bag well before you need it, trying to put soft hanks on in anger would not be fun.
On the subject of weight aloft, I agree completely that it is a huge deal. Unfortunately it seems that many people who set up rigs don’t fully agree. Some of this is due to how aluminum fabrication works, on a mast the only logical way is to do an extrusion and that leaves you with limited options for tapering. I would never argue for scary low safety factors but this is an example where some analysis time should be spent eliminating material that is not needed to meet your desired safety factor. Similarly, the stuff that gets put up at mastheads can be scary heavy. I know of a few different boats that use sheave axles that must weight 5 lbs each. And I have seen a few lighting arrangements that were quite heavy as well. I hope you guys strike the right balance of being weight conscious and putting more development time and manufacturing cost at the top of the mast without making the boat less reliable. Thankfully anodizing is quite light although that is not the real reason why I would recommend it, it just is the right solution. Our mast is anodized and it is holding up quite well at 36 years old.
Is it safe to assume this will be a double spreader rig? That makes a lot of sense to me with a cutter as it provides a well supported point for the inner forestay. Also, any thoughts on continuous vs. discontinuous standing rigging? I personally prefer continuous but I realize the true performance oriented people will argue with that.
Eric
Hi Eric,
Good analysis and thanks for emphasizing the importance of keeping weight down aloft. Ignoring that fundamental, together with festooning boats with windage causing junk are probably the two things I see out there regularly that make me cringe the most.
I think if I had an A40 I would do pretty much as you are considering: working Jib and A sail for inshore and cutter and the same A sail for offshore.
One thing I’m learning about with my J/109 is that smaller headsails can be made way more effective, particularly in light air, by in-hauling the clew. The standard 109 track is at about 12 degrees (guess) but top racers are in-hauling to as close as 6 degrees and just about everyone in-hauls to 9 degrees. Of course, for this to work well, we need high lift underwater foils.
The point being that modern sail design and construction allows much tighter sheeting angles and that in turn powers the rig up a lot even with small jibs and gets rid of the need for overlap.
We discovered this years ago in the 505. Bottom line, the tracks on many cruising boats are too far outboard to use a working jib effectivly. That said, narrow sheeting angles do require more skill and good sails, so maybe not a good idea here.
In your case, given that your boat leans toward performance, and so do you, I would talk to your sailmaker about cutting the working jib for tighter sheeting angles, and an in-hauler (easy to rig) and see what he or she says.
More on in-hauling here: https://j109.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=911
Hi John,
Interesting thought, I had never contemplated in-hauling on our boat. I think that our current working jib might have just enough clearance to the spreaders to try sheeting inside the shrouds and trying it out to see if it works. We definitely do not have the most modern underbody and do have noticeable leeway so it would be interesting to see if it works outside of a narrow range of conditions. There also may be some benefit to keeping the groove wide for a while with our kids the ages they are, I want them to feel comfortable driving in more than just flat water. I haven’t gotten on a real raceboat in a few years now but I do remember being amazed at the insanely low sheeting angles and high boat speeds with proper sail trim and driving.
On our boat, I actually think the tracks are too far inboard by a few inches for sheeting outside. With all our jibs, they come up against the shrouds with a lot of draft still in them. The overlapping ones are a bit tricky to go hard on the wind in smooth water and often end up with the bottom few feet a little creased around the shrouds if I don’t rig a sheet outhaul. For our working jib and smaller, the large soft shackle we use for sheet attachment just bears against the cap shroud a little and it is actually quite easy to shape once this has happened.
Eric
Hi Eric,
Yes, in-hauling may not work for your boat and only really works for jibs that sheet inside the shrouds.
For example J/109s in PHRF mode with genoas don’t use them. But the interesting thing is that there is now only a 3-6 second a mile handicap difference between a genoa equipped 109 and one with a class blade only. I think a lot of that is that the in hauler makes the blade equipped boat almost as fast on a VMG basis in light air as the genoa boats. And of course once the breeze gets up, the blade boat is way faster.
So I wonder if a really well cut working jib sheeted inside might not be surprisingly fast on your boat, even in lighter air.
As to steering difficulty. Apparently in-hauling does not make a lot of difference up to about 9 degrees. J/109s go in to as close as 6 degrees, but that ups the driver and trimmer skill requirement a bunch and TP 52 go to 4 degrees, but pretty much require pro drivers, although a lot of that is that their foils stall so easily.
Anyway, a lot off topic for the A40, but interesting.
Hi Eric,
thank you for the input!
Yes, there will be two pairs of spreaders, with the upper one at the termination of the inner forestay.
On continuous vs. discontinuous, we’ve not given thought to this yet. To me discontinous feels more stupid-proof, but it may be just a prejudice. Any thoughts welcome!
Hi Maxime,
My preference for continuous rigging is around the ability to do more tuning and inspection from on deck. I find getting a good initial tune on a boat with discontinuous wire rigging to take an awful lot of sailing around in appropriate wind and taking trips up the mast, probably not something that all A40 owners would enjoy. And with a cutter, you will then invariably find the tune is wrong once the wind really gets up and you are using the staysail heavily. Of course you can pin the rig after getting that first tune but for various reasons like replacing the wire, you end up having to do the whole thing again.
With regards to inspection, it has been my experience that by far the most common failure point with wire is right outside the end termination. From this point, putting more fitting at deck level rather than up the mast is good and you also have less total fittings to go bad so statistically that should help reliability.
Eric
Most times when I go forward past the side stays on my twin spreader, fractionally rigged, 26′ racey cruiser I wonder why no-one puts the inners inboard and the caps outboard. Walking through the gap would be so much easier than trying to squeeze past the lowers. Especially if the reason I’m going fwd is to change to a smaller headsail, too late, and there is a lot of heel.
Now I see that it has been done. None other than Vincent Lebailly did it on his Biloup 109! I’m getting excited!
https://www.vincentlebailly.fr/en/biloup-109/
Ho P D,
That’s usually the case with a slot rig, as I discuss in the article above, so probably not going to happen on a true cutter as envisioned for the A40. That said, with the shrouds inboard there should be plenty of room to go forward between them and the lifelines.
Hi PD,
one tradeoff to take into account with this slot issue is that the setup you have (with all shrouds outboard, if I understand well) allows placing the jackline well inboard, where it prevents a fall beyond the lifelines. With your lowers inboard, a jackline would have to go between the shrouds, as often seen, and not keep you as safe, or to go inside the lower shroud, which is safe but adds to the issue you report.
With the A40 rigged as a cutter we get the best of both worlds, since the lowers have quite a large angle to the mast, helping going forward while safely clipped on, and, as John writes, there’s enough space between shrouds and lifelines to walk freely, when clipping on is not required.
2 Questions
Hi Jim,
I would definitely like to see a low friction track and storm trysail track. That said, I would not recommend Tides. I own one on my J/109 an it’s not, in my opinion, robust enough for long term offshore use: https://www.morganscloud.com/2022/04/18/cruising-sailboat-roller-furler-and-track-inspection/
The weight-saving resulting from the decision to build a cored epoxy hull could have allowed for increased ballast within the original overall displacement target, which would have retained hull volume. However, I believe the decision was to reduce the overall displacement instead, which (unless I’m mistaken) reduces hull volume. I hope there is still room to store the light air sails and stays’l somewhere readily accessible when not in use.
HI PD,
Not sure where you got the idea that that trade off had been made in that way. The way the designer and Maxime have come at this is to design a hull with enough volume to satisfy the specification, but no more.
Anyway, yes, there is room for light air sails and it’s easily accessible.
I’d taken the original “target displacement” (8-9 metric ton) as part of the “specification.” And assumed it was as much for for seakeeping reasons as for payload-carrying sufficiency.
All other things being equal, Can a 7-8 ton boat be as seakindly as an 8-9 ton version?
Of course, the lighter boat can have smaller sails & lighter gear, which will be easier to handle (including a smaller drogue to retrieve should the worst come), and easier to build within the target price.
As always, a plethora of pros and cons to chart a path through.
Hi PD,
I’m working on the A40 design “reveal” article at the moment. Let’s leave this discussion until we publish that and are all looking at the design itself.