Anybody ever used a Genoa as a mainsail?

[DownWest]

Interesting question and I will let you know
My little new boat is a cat yawl, with unstayed masts. As it is a bit of fun, I am doing it on a low budget, so bought second hand sails. The mizzen is a jib that is a perfect fit and the main a genoa that needs cutting down. Both have sprit booms (think windsurfer or freedom rig) so the cut of these sails is right. Both have hanks which will be changed for slides on the main and the mizzen is laced to the mast and furled by wrapping round it. Only catch might be the luff on the main, which couldbe a slight 'S', need to lay it out this week and check. The 'sail' loft needs a clear out....

 

[[178529]]

The question asked would you keep going or turn back? The skipper has work to go to. If it were me , I would try to put the work as the least important factor. I wouldn't be that confident in crossing the Irish sea into wind with anything I lashed up particularly if it were for a couple of hundred miles.

I would either do what another poster suggested and go for Milford haven under Genoa or turn left and go for Arklow. Get a taxi to rosslare and get the ferry home.

 

[LONG_KEELER]

Play the hand that's dealt you.

I must write that down somewhere.

 

[Blueboatman]

My two bobs worth:
It’s a god conundrum because of the interwoven pinch points: time , head wind, busy sea lanes, tidal gates at Lands End, fuel limitations.. significance of any possible veeror backing or rising wind...or flat calm /lumpy sea to motor over.. hey ho, way to go..
First question to me would be what is the wind ‘likely’ to do in the next 12 hours ? Will it hinder, help or later work to fritter those precious fuel reserves ?

Then the email “ I am working from home/self isolating “?
Then look at passage ports.

I have once assisted in a “ I MUST be at that meeting tomorrow” get you home and it got pretty weird squeezing the last drops of fuel into an improvised header tank to keep the motor chugging slowly across the English Channel . We partly dismantled the main fuel tank to clear it out, Ugh.
Broken mainsails I have experienced but you reef it down/create a fourth out haul ‘ reef’ by tying a rope to a scrunched up bit of leech, etc, or change it out for the shabby old mainsail..
Having waffles through all that:
I think I would set a course for a port that could be comfortably reached and entered under headsail , acc to the forecast. And take it from there..

Oh and if there is phone reception, order that spare mainsail that any well founded cruising yacht should carry ..
( we really do carry a new, spare main with short battens that I ordered 10 years ago. Because there are no full length battens , cars etc, it is unobtrusively stowed way up in front of the anchor chain in the nose)
And a sewing machine , etc etc?

 

[dom]

A somewhat farfetched conundrum this, but are we to assume that as well as insufficient fuel and no spare main, the yacht is in possession of no means to repair the sail. Do they have enough food and water?

Seriously, presumably the sail is a crosscut and if so the panel will have to go anyway, or perhaps the sail has had it. In which case a repair is certainly possible if a small roll of suitable sailcloth is kept on board alongside some glue - and it certainly should be! Basic sailtape won't cut it here. The procedure would be to get the sail down below and dry the torn region as well as possible. Then mark off an area say 10cm either side of the tear, lightly sand and clean up with acetone or whatever the specified thinner is. Same procedure with the patch strips which could be cut to say 1m lengths or whatever is convenient. Then glue the patches up, fisx them to sail and wait for them to fully cure. Then repair the leech line if necessary, re-hoist and off you go.

And of course 'Jack's' need to get back to work should be studiously ignored; it's got to be the worst of all reasons to head out to sea, at least for those ever wising to work again!

 

[capnsensible]

Repairing sails at sea is often about a billion times harder than it sounds. ?

 

[dom]

Repairing sails at sea is often about a billion times harder than it sounds. ?

Lol, agreed, best to budget a factor of 10x at sea, so what will take an hour on land will take a full day. And in this situation, if it’s too damp inside the repair might not work at all!

Then again, we have to play the hand we’re dealt and in this case if it all went tits, I mean seriously, a genny-alone beat isn’t that awful

 

[Poignard]

After my boom snapped in two whilst at sea, I set the (Bermudan) mainsail without it.

The yacht blew downwind well enough and the main stood fairly well on a reach but on the wind it contributed nothing much. But she will go to windward quite well under genoa alone so it didn't matter.

 

[Iliade]

+1 for I have up until this time always carried a spare mainsail. (Now scouring eBay etc...)

But, surely it would be better to rig whatever foresail was appropriate the right way round and to sheet it off the boom, with or without loads of line betwixt boom and sail, than to rig it backwards and destroy it as soon as the wind blew.

P.S. Has nobody heard of tacking? Or motorsailing to gain pointing angle?

 

[Stemar]

Plan A, if it seems straightforward given the forecasts would be to head for the best port I could manage easily, Milford or Fishguard if I could, Holyhead if I couldn't. If I'm going to end up further from civilization than that, plan B, a swift about turn takes over. I'm not going to risk the Cornish coast with inadequate fuel and little chance of getting myself off a lee shore under sail. "I have to be at work on Monday" has killed far too many people

 

[jimi]

For me it would be a swift about turn to fill up with fuel, attempt to repair main on dockside (or sail repairer) , I suspect that a few hours lost initially will be more than made up by not faffing about whilst on passage. I suspect the gusty conditions which blew out the main in the first place would not be conducive to on board activity derig the main , slot in a jib or attempt an on board repair. I'd give work a call to explain the situation .

 

[dslittle]

How often do people who own a storm jib hoist it in harbour for practice, then at sea, for example?

Here's one. If you happen to be on a sailing school yacht with keen fast trackers, try hoisting a storm jib up the back stray using the topping lift and sail backwards around the anchorage where sea horses now roam free. ?

Two days ago, we had an ‘interesting’ downwind sail in 25kn. As we set off, there were two Glenans sailing school boats with students on board setting their storm jobs before going out. We had a two hour sail into another Marina just before the wind really picked up. They came in four hours later looking quite bedraggled but I bet they learned a lot...

Only you would teach folk to sail backwards!!!

 

[E39mad]

Cross channel race 1989 our boom broke just aft of the kicker attachment. We were on a fetch.

We hoisted the No2 headsail up the mainsail halyard loose footed and it gave us another knot towards our destination - Deauville I think it was. I don't think it would have worked as effectively had we needed to go any closer to the wind.

Must go and look in the photo albums as there is a picture somewhere.

 

[Poignard]

Here's one. If you happen to be on a sailing school yacht with keen fast trackers, try hoisting a storm jib up the back stray using the topping lift and sail backwards around the anchorage where sea horses now roam free. ?

Reminds me that John Goode, in one of his excellent articles on boat handling, mentions setting a storm jib up the backstay as an means of getting the bow of a long-keeler to point into the wind when reversing out of a marina catway (to avoid that embarrassing situation where you end up at the dead end of the run and have to warp yourself out ?)

 

[capnsensible]

Reminds me that John Goode, in one of his excellent articles on boat handling, mentions setting a storm jib up the backstay as an means of getting the bow of a long-keeler to point into the wind when reversing out of a marina catway (to avoid that embarrassing situation where you end up at the dead end of the run and have to warp yourself out ?)

I sailed a little bit with Mr. Goode. It's great practising some of those ideas he has about thinking outside tradition. As an example, I spent a fun hour manouvering a long keel boat in Haslar Creek in astern trailing a bucket over the bow on ten feet or so of line. It worked fairly well with a bit of practise.

 

[Poignard]

I sailed a little bit with Mr. Goode. It's great practising some of those ideas he has about thinking outside tradition. As an example, I spent a fun hour manouvering a long keel boat in Haslar Creek in astern trailing a bucket over the bow on ten feet or so of line. It worked fairly well with a bit of practise.

I have great respect for him.

He is a practical man, not hide-bound by stuffy yachting traditions.

Another instructor in the same mould is Duncan Wells.

I will have to try the bucket over the bow next season. It should be fun!

How about two buckets? One port, one starboard, with trip lines so that the yacht can be sheered!

 

[Little Dorrit]

I sailed a little bit with Mr. Goode. It's great practising some of those ideas he has about thinking outside tradition. As an example, I spent a fun hour manouvering a long keel boat in Haslar Creek in astern trailing a bucket over the bow on ten feet or so of line. It worked fairly well with a bit of practise.

I can see how that could work but can also see how that could go horribly wrong. Forgive me for being a bit sceptical but I don't see many swapping their bow thrusters for buckets

 

[capnsensible]

I can see how that could work but can also see how that could go horribly wrong. Forgive me for being a bit sceptical but I don't see many swapping their bow thrusters for buckets

How about swapping a bucket for a bow thruster? ?

 

[LONG_KEELER]

I have great respect for him.

He is a practical man, not hide-bound by stuffy yachting traditions.

Another instructor in the same mould is Duncan Wells.

I will have to try the bucket over the bow next season. It should be fun!

How about two buckets? One port, one starboard, with trip lines so that the yacht can be sheered!

Another fan of John Goode.

Works best with a (clang) metal bucket if you can find one.

Also, hurl it forward of the bow to pull yourself along if conditions suit. Never tried it but sounds like fun.

 

[RJJ]

+1 for I have up until this time always carried a spare mainsail. (Now scouring eBay etc...)

But, surely it would be better to rig whatever foresail was appropriate the right way round and to sheet it off the boom, with or without loads of line betwixt boom and sail, than to rig it backwards and destroy it as soon as the wind blew.

P.S. Has nobody heard of tacking? Or motorsailing to gain pointing angle?

I once lost the main halyard in a flying fifteen, we had to beat back 3 miles or so under Genoa alone. It was feasible but we couldn't point better than 60 degrees. That was in F3 and reasonably flat water - ideal conditions.

I can certainly see how a headsail as mainsail can work , a bit. Yes it will be loose-luffed, and won't point. Will it be better than Genoa only? I reckon yes, but not much, especially if it gets windy. The challenge as some of you mentioned is the luff tension, and whether the sail can take it, which will greatly depend if it has a luff wire or stout bolt-rope.

If didn't like the sail and/or was desperate, I might try to roll up some of the luff around a spare halyard or sheet; put a few stitches around it and Bob's your uncle. Damn hard to do a neat job though....

I am tempted on reading this to look for a undersized low-performance mainsail with short or no battens....