Jim: It was a fun day for me also, except there was virtually no wind all day. But then again a perfect day to show why I rigged the boat the way I did. In Sarasota the winds are typically under 5-6 mph, and when sailing (or trying to sail) with just the main deployed it get a little boring on a TI (1-2mph headway is about it, unless you want to pedal all day, and bake in the hot sun). As you saw with the massive sails I can get 1 to 1 with the the wind on all points in low wind conditions. I especially like the ability to sail upwind almost directly into the wind with the jib. If you don't mind pedaling a little you can get within 5 points of the wind. I think we had one leg (when the wind picked up a little) where the wind was around 5mph heading into the wind we were able sail about 10 points off the wind at around 4-5 mph, which isn't bad especially with that bad worn out jib. You will be happy to hear I spent all day repairing my jib yesterday (removing the stretched out excess material). That jib keeps getting smaller and smaller, I think I'm under 30 sq ft now, I'll never use rip stop nylon on a jib again, it just keeps on stretching out. I have to admit though that particular sail probably has 2500 sailing miles (and it looks like it does (pretty ratty)), one of these days I will make a better one (using Dacron this time).
If I get a chance, I'm going to cut some of the puffy center out of my G2 spinnaker to see if I can get it to work little better on a reach, if you remember anytime we got close to 90 deg off the wind it lost most of it's power, and collapses quite often. Currently it works best downwind from about 115 to arounf 225 degrees, then looses power and luffs more as get closer to 90 degrees off the wind. Though one of the guys on the forum was telling me the screachers are great in a reach but not so hot on downwind, I might elect to leave the spinnaker alone, and instead make a new jib that can double as a screacher (155 genoa, like we saw on that big boat), then just furl it in some when I don't need it all (really liked your idea on that). It's too bad we didn't have any wind, there is nothing in this world more exciting than doing a really fast downwind run with the spinnaker, and all sails deployed, the boat literally flies through the water. Many days I go out and tack up wind for 2-3 hours just so I can do a 15 minute downwind run to get back to where I started. Actually you got me thinking, I think I'm going to put my hydrofoils back onto this boat, then add a barber hauler to my mainsail. If I can deploy the main to the left side, then the spin to the right on a downwind run (like a bat wing setup, with curved the main accelerating some of the air), I might be able to get even more speed (the boat tops out around 20 mph currently), if I can get the bow to lift out of the water with the foils, if not I'll be doing a pitchpole just like you did LOL. It was a fun day for me also, Hope we can get together again sometime. I would really like to see your AI all rigged out. I had a fun day, and it was really nice meeting you also. Bob
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