Re: First Sail / Wind Questions

Gordon (hlg@pacbell.net)
Sat, 17 Apr 1999 08:47:50 -0700


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
West Wight Potter Website at URL
http://www.lesbois.com/wwpotter/
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I was thinking either one, but I could, of course, tolerate a little more
wind with the smaller sail. There were rare occasions when Manatee, with
its original rig, could keep up with the Mk IIs. That was when the Mk IIs
were beginning to be overpowered but had not yet reefed.

I sailed the original rig with no reefing capability for years, but it was
a lot of work in stronger winds - constantly cleating and uncleating the
main headknocker cleat and/or backwinding the main with the jib to depower,
or sailing with main alone. I tried a ratchet sheave on the mainsheet cleat
and increasing the purchase to 3.5:1 from the normal 2.5:1.

I finally devised a main reefing method and was amazed at how it quieted
things down, and the boat was faster. She also balanced well with reefed
main and no jib. A nice thing about reefing my gunter rig is that I also
lower the upper spar a couple of feet, reducing weight aloft.

My lateen rig of about 80 sq ft (nominally 75 sq ft) is comfortable with
more wind than the gunter rig with its combined main and jib of 72 sq ft,
presumably because of the lower center of effort and the flexible spars. I
could lower the rig further but I don't want to have to duck the boom. I
normally have the lateen boom at the same height as the sloop rig boom.

Harry Gordon

>Hi Harry,
>You said:
>
>> With my sloop rig I reefed at about 15 kn.
>
>
>Was that with your original (small) Gunter rig or with the bigger
>Mark II rig?
>
>Aloha, Rich