Fitting a Genoa to a Hunter Horizon 272/273

[sharmajm]

I have a 1994 Hunter Horizon 273 with a self tacking jib. Great boat and I love her dearly.

I am looking to add the option of a Genoa for times when I need the extra power.

I am looking for diagrams, advice or any help available to design and cost up this project to see whether I can afford it.

Any help gratefully received

 

[Derm]

I did this on a Hunter 245 and it improved the performance enormously, particularly off wind.
I would suggest as a starting point that you get a local sailmaker to come and measure up and give you advice as to what size of genoa would be best. Probably something around 110%.

There are two ways you could do this;
1) Sheeting inside the shrouds on to the coach roof. This is the simplest solution but it will restrict the size of the genoa to perhaps 105%, which is still a healthy increase on the 90% of your self tacker. You will point higher but loose out off wind as the slot will not be able to open as much owing to the restriction of the shrouds.
2) Sheet outside the shrouds down onto the side deck. This is probably the better overall solution as you can carry a bigger headsail which will keep you powered up off the wind where boats with self tacking headsails lose out.
Both solutions will require sourcing and fitting tracks and genoa cars and two size 8 Lewmar winches. In addition your sailmaker will happily advise you and quote your for a new headsail. In price terms you will need to allow for the headsail (circa £650) two winches, track and cars and longer genoa sheets and loads of fixing bolts. However the upside of you near on grands expenditure will be to transform your boat into the lively little cruiser racer that David Thomas intended in the first place.
If you come to Southampton Boat show, come to the pontoon and I'll be there with the Dehlers.
Derm

 

[[3889]]

Can't advise on the conversion but I had a 125% genny, outboard sheeted, made by Goacher which worked well on my 272.

 

[sharmajm]

Derm, many thanks this is really useful. I think that outside the shrouds is the one for me.

 

[sharmajm]

Quiddle, many thanks, sounds like a good start.

 

[JimC]

Last year I got Goachers to make me a conventionally sheeted genoa for my Hunter Channel 31. On this boat the shrouds come down to the gunwales so sheeting outside them isn't an option: the tracks go on the outer edges of the cabin roof and the sheets are led via jammer turning blocks to the existing coachroof-mounted winches. My boat's handbook included a drawing of the layout and I'm sure there will be such a drawing for the Horizon 27. The Hunter Association would be a good place to start and is worth joining http://www.hunterassociation.org.uk/ Goachers sent someone to my boat to measure, the amount of overlap is restricted by the spreaders (we're inside the shrouds remember) but the sail is very usefully bigger than the standard self-tacker at about 110%, also, unlike the self-tacker it keeps its shape when you free off the sheet to come off the wind. Steve Goacher explained the importance of maximising the leach area and strongly advised having leach battens, a suggestion I followed - he is a many times Sonata National Champion and knows a thing or two about sailing Hunters

I've now been using the sail for two seasons, the boat can sail in lighter winds and is faster and better balanced in all winds. In stronger winds she can be sailed under jib alone and she heaves to more reliably. Single-handing is obviously more difficult than with the S/T jib as the long cockpit of the Channel 31 makes it hard to reach the winches from the tiller (this may not be the case with the Horizon 27). A dodge that improves this is to take the sheet to the windward winch which is easy with the turning blocks. Lately when single-handing I've been making use of the auto-tack feature on my Navico tiller pilot: make sure there's nothing to windward then just press the button and step forward to the bulkhead to tend the sheets.

All in all a change worth making, I've never used the self-tacker since getting the new sail.