savageseadog
Well-Known Member
I've noticed that on many of the Vendee globe boats and some other modern fractional boats there seems to be a trend to non overlapping headsails. Has overlap been discredited?
Headsails on Modern Fractional Rigs.No Overlap?
- Thread starter savageseadog
- Start date
exfinnsailor
Well-Known Member
No just away of saving money ... /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
flaming
Well-Known Member
Overlap is seen as being overly punished under the IRC rule, so a lot of new designs are being produced to use non-overlapping sails.
Interestingly we tried a little experiment this season. Our regular sails are about 130%-140% overlap but the boat is starting to do quite a bit of doublehanded racing, so a new non overlapping light jib was built, which dropped the rating for doublehanded racing.
We've been staggered by the speed of this sail, and certainly 2 up it's just as quick in over 6 knots of wind. And with a barbeur-hauler system we're getting amazing height out of it. This narrowing of the slot is, I think, the key to making it work. Just reducing sail size will not work.
It's now being debated if it's worth dropping to the non overlapping jib for fully crewed racing, but as it stands we think we can use the power in the overlappers for greater speed up to about 11 knots when we have weight on the rail.
This is all on a boat that a lot of people own solely for cruising. But one which does have a lot of tunable bits of kit, especially to benefit light winds sailing.
A cruising version would be set up for stronger winds, as this is a good "safe" setup, so will need extra sail area to move in light winds, as opposed to adjusting forestay sag, and will not have deeper cut light wind sails but a general "1 sail fits all" fairly flat sail.
Interestingly we tried a little experiment this season. Our regular sails are about 130%-140% overlap but the boat is starting to do quite a bit of doublehanded racing, so a new non overlapping light jib was built, which dropped the rating for doublehanded racing.
We've been staggered by the speed of this sail, and certainly 2 up it's just as quick in over 6 knots of wind. And with a barbeur-hauler system we're getting amazing height out of it. This narrowing of the slot is, I think, the key to making it work. Just reducing sail size will not work.
It's now being debated if it's worth dropping to the non overlapping jib for fully crewed racing, but as it stands we think we can use the power in the overlappers for greater speed up to about 11 knots when we have weight on the rail.
This is all on a boat that a lot of people own solely for cruising. But one which does have a lot of tunable bits of kit, especially to benefit light winds sailing.
A cruising version would be set up for stronger winds, as this is a good "safe" setup, so will need extra sail area to move in light winds, as opposed to adjusting forestay sag, and will not have deeper cut light wind sails but a general "1 sail fits all" fairly flat sail.
dunedin
Well-Known Member
For the same sail area, a tall narrow jib will tend to pointhigher when travelling at speed than a short-wide sail. Hence open design boats like Vendee Open 60s tend to go this route. They unfurl the larger sails as soon as the wind frees slightly on to a reach. Due to apparent wind they effectively are never on a run.
jb2006
Well-Known Member
We have switched to a non overlapping jib for racing - loss of pace is compensated by a slightly better rating and higher pointing. Definitely lose out in light airs tho'. The big genoa was great in light airs. The smaller headsail is also better for short/single handed sailing.
