Genoa halyard tension

[Neeves]

Stretching the luff of the sail is the whole point, you want to change the shape of the sail. The hanked on sail gives a useful guide by wrinkling, the roller sail needs exactly the same adjustment.

You may not be racers, but transforming the way that your boat sails is incredibly rewarding. Says he after a weekend of humiliation in a one design fleet.

You will never know how badly you sail until you take part in one design racing. It can be quite sobering (and uplifting when you realise the errors). BlowingOldBoots tack tackle allows you to change gears quickly (more effective with a hanked on sail) but still has an effect for one in a foil.

Jonathan

 

[flaming]

You will never know how badly you sail until you take part in one design racing. It can be quite sobering (and uplifting when you realise the errors). BlowingOldBoots tack tackle allows you to change gears quickly (more effective with a hanked on sail) but still has an effect for one in a foil.

Jonathan

Completely agree. I grew up sailing, thousands of miles logged, passed Coastal skipper at 18 and YM at 22. I thought I was a good sailor. Then I got into racing properly and realised quite how mediocre I was... And not just in terms of sail trim and speed, but in understanding properly how the inputs of rudder and sails interact, and how this make manoeuvres that previously were testing my ability, like a MOB drill or sailing onto a pontoon etc, just so much easier. And berthing under engine goes from the most stressful event of the day to a non event.

It is my only real criticism of the RYA's training schemes that so little emphasis is given to sail trim.

 

[anoccasionalyachtsman]

You will never know how badly you sail until you take part in one design racing. It can be quite sobering (and uplifting when you realise the errors). BlowingOldBoots tack tackle allows you to change gears quickly (more effective with a hanked on sail) but still has an effect for one in a foil.

Jonathan

All agreed, but to be fair to myself - I did take on some of the best! I've done a fair bit of od stuff, until about 20 years ago, but finding that missing 2% was a learning curve and a bit.

(We have the luxury of a jib cunningham).

 

[johnalison]

One needs to be careful with releasing the tension on the halyard at the wrong time. It's easy to get the halyard wrapped around the foil and that can be a world of pain.

Richard

That would come under the heading of creative cockupry in my book. At any rate, it has never happened to me. In fact, excess tension is more likely to lead to the upper swivel not turning and taking the halyard with it.

 

[Stemar]

I'm thinking that @Stemar means that the crease appears with the sheet free, which is a pretty good rule of thumb because it allows for the current windspeed.

That's right. And not a crease, just the beginnings of a ripple.

 

[Birdseye]

It may be possible to use a tack tackle to tension the luff downwards. Working jibs used to have this feature, hoist on the halyard and then tension from the tack. genoas have less room and none if a furling genoa.

This is a good point. If the OP uses a smooth slippy kevlar cord or similar, ties it off on the bottom of the sail, runs it through the roller reef attachment point and then back round the circuit a few times he will find that its easy to put tension onto the sail luff. Much of the effort on a winch is simply holding up the weight of the sail - I struggle to carry mine on a 35 footer so there has to be 30kg at a guess. He needs to get to the point where there are no horizontal creases behind the foil.

Its fun playing with sail tension as Flaming suggests but it isnt necessary for cruising and in any case he cant alter tension without the kit to do so.