Anybody ever used a Genoa as a mainsail?

TernVI

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If the sail was ripped above the third reef, you could chop the top off and set it as a gaff or sprit sail?
 

AntarcticPilot

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I'm with all those who say use the genoa as a genoa! certainly my Moody 31 goes perfectly well under genoa alone; perhaps not quite as close winded as with the main, but perfectly adequately. certainly she sails better under genoa alone than under mainsail alone.

I'm also with those who say turn back and sort things out in port. I'm with Roger Taylor of MingMing! You avoid going on deck like the plague, especially in bad conditions. Anything that required prolonged effort on deck in bad conditions would be a no-no as far as I'm concerned. I'd sail with what I had rather than try and do a complex and difficult "fix" that required a lot of work on deck.
 

oldmanofthehills

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We managed quite well after ripping our mainsail tacking to windward in F6 with choppy seas, with defective engine (otherwise we would have motored). I ran a staysail up the mast by clipped the luff clips to spare sliders and loose footing it by running cordage from clew to end of kinked up boom. Sailed pretty well and hardly worse to windward than with the mainsail - which was just as well.

A genoa would be hard to set even if it had luff clip as too long for the mast unless genoa is for a fractional rig. Setting a rope luff genoa "flying" along the line of the mast would seem impossible without over stressing it, and even then it would work poorly
 

Slowboat35

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I had a main blow out midway betwen Bermuda and NY on a Sparkman and Stevens aluminium 42footer. The boat was crank and unpleasant to handle, especially into wind and sea so we turned back as headwinds were forecast for the remainder of the trip.
At dawn I examined the damage and realised it wasn't mendable on board (the fabric was rotten) . The skipper confirmed the decision to return to Bermuda, imo a good call.
I lashed spare slides onto the piston hanks of the N01 jib and canibalised the wrecked main for the rest. This resulted in a somewhat shorter loose footed main with a high clew. The No2 Jib went on the forestay and the No1 stays'l where it was supposed to be.

12hrs later the wind turned and we had to beat all the way back to Bemuda - knowing that NY was now an easy downhill ride but the skipper again reiterated that it is not wise to reverse a critical decision made in a critical situation.
The boat performed just as well as it had with it's standard sails.
 
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