Cruising Yachts and Blade Jibs Instead of A Genoa

[Tidewaiter2]

Like a previous poster, wind under 10kts='shake hands with Mr Yanmar', we bought a cheapo cruising chute, but have only used it 2/3 times in 6 seasons, as the wind always seems on the nose, light or heavy.
After the first season, we went from the 120%ish heavy roller furler (original??)genoa that came with T2, to a roller furler No2 high cut Yankee jib for most cruises. We got an off the shelf sleeve storm jib as well. The main is an in mast reef job, it too may be the 1993 original!
We still seemed to get an 4/6 kts average cruising speed in winds 10kts-30kts, the boat didn't luff up so much, sailed level; always good for a long 12+hr trip, tacking was less effort, forward vis was better.
We fitted a mast mounted pole two? seasons ago, and this season, up in the Baltic, we switched to the genoa again, due to lots of light wind on nose days.
It was definitely easier to work the pole out/in, in a Baltic chop, on the No2 compared to the genoa for this foredeck hand of a certain age.
I reckon that for cruising, a high cut jib and a yankee are more useful across a range of sea and wind conditions,than a genoa, but I would love a roller furling asymmetric with retractable bowsprit instead of our chute- but SWMBO has views about how much can be spent on our boat and our cruises in any one year!!

Oh, and if it's green over the front, a high cut sail doesn't stop the boat like our genoa can, through watercrashing onto it- though I confess we try to avoid that sort of weather these days- one day of the Baie de la Somme Northbound in early May was enough for this year thanks!!

 

[Lucky Duck]

Well crashing into stuff is slow....

At the risk of tempting fate - I seemed to have managed OK so far......

 

[PeterR]

I have a 9/10 rig, a 140% genoa and a 105% jib. As others have said upwind you lose very little by using the jib unless the wind is below about 8 knots or there are waves you need to power through. I have virtually stopped using the genoa as the benefits of being able to short tack single handed in the local rivers and not needing to roll the jib until the third reef has been put in the main far outway the slight loss in speed to windward in light winds. However, when racing round the cans you put a chute up as soon as you bear off down wind whereas cruisers tend to live with their white sails and there is no denying that you lose a lot of boat speed on a close reach with just a jib and even more on a broad reach. I'm reserving the genoa for the occasional white sail regatta. For the rest of the time the answer seems to be to go for a furling code 0 or code 1. Cruising versions not flappy leached racing ones. However, when you add in the cost of the furlers and making a strong enough anchorage point for the tack they do cost a lot.