JPK 39FC

[flaming]

Makes me smile just looking at that!

How big is the performance gap between your racing JPK and the 39FC Doris is getting?

Not that big I think. Suspect the offwind performance is fairly similar, but the racing line will be faster upwind.

 

[flaming]

I think its mostly designed for cruisers that tend to 'set and forget' at the start of the season.
Maybe the thinking is that this thing is designed as a fast cruiser?

They are adjustable, but you have to attach a tail to the car to then winch it in or ease it. You could keep a tail on it all the time at the mast winch if you have one, but that would defeat the point of the system.
I know people that probably haven't adjusted their halyard tension on the genoa in actual years, so combined with a low stretch halyard, for them the system would be no different from what they already do.

I can't imagine not adjusting headsail halyard for conditions. Did that for years on my Dad's Dufour 40.

I could sort of see the point if you could move the lock with some sort of mechanism to tension / ease.

 

[Numbers]

Our system, the halyard tail is just long enough to be winched, and obviously sits in a clutch, conventionally.

Is your halyard run back to the cockpit, or is your clutch and winch on the mast.

I'm still new to all this and arranged for all my lines to be lead to the cockpit, cause all the YouTubers say thats safest. What I have found is that it is a pain in the A. My Genoa halyard tail is massive and it doubles the bulk of the lines lying around.

Raising the Asymmetrical from the cockpit I don't see as a benefit, and lowering it with the halyard lead to the cockpit SOLO is exactly the opposite of easy.

Raising the main halyard from the cockpit is OK though

I also got single line reefing cause of listening to YouTubers ... and although I have never sailed anything else, I do question if this is the best option, cause I have no real control over sail shape that I can work out.

I love that everyone has their own way of setting up their boats ... but it does certainly make my mind boggle trying to work out what is going to suite me.

 

[Numbers]

I can't imagine not adjusting headsail halyard for conditions. Did that for years on my Dad's Dufour 40.

I could sort of see the point if you could move the lock with some sort of mechanism to tension / ease.

OK ... every time I read a post I realise how little I know :-(

About 10 months ago I installed a furler and new clutches ... embarrassingly, since first raising the Genoa, I haven't ever touched the halyard. I'll add something else to the list of things I need to know about!

At the risk of everyone saying different things, interested pros and cons of headsail halyard being fastened at the mast, versus lead back to the cockpit?

I also know there could be a different answer depending if it is a headsail halyard, staysail halyard, mainsail halyard or flying sail halyard

 

[flaming]

Raising the Asymmetrical from the cockpit I don't see as a benefit, and lowering it with the halyard lead to the cockpit SOLO is exactly the opposite of easy.

Depends where you're dropping it...

If you're dropping into the companionway then that's exactly where you want it.

Which is sort of the point, most preferred setups also have preferred techniques to make the most of them.

 

[flaming]

OK ... every time I read a post I realise how little I know :-(

About 10 months ago I installed a furler and new clutches ... embarrassingly, since first raising the Genoa, I haven't ever touched the halyard. I'll add something else to the list of things I need to know about!

At the risk of everyone saying different things, interested pros and cons of headsail halyard being fastened at the mast, versus lead back to the cockpit?

I also know there could be a different answer depending if it is a headsail halyard, staysail halyard, mainsail halyard or flying sail halyard

My experience with furlers, which is probably a bit dated as I haven't actually sailed with one made after 2004, was that the halyard tension required for best windward performance in a decent breeze - i.e the most wind you had full sail out for - and the halyard tension required for an easy furl, were mutually exclusive.

And also, that even the best clutches struggle to hold the halyard tension you actually want in your foresail for upwind progress in a bit of breeze. There's a reason we leave the halyard on the winch upwind, and that's despite the fact that we have an extra cover stitched into the halyard at the point it goes through the clutch.
So easing the halyard slightly before furling just became SOP on dad's Dufour. Apart from anything else I didn't think it would do the sail a lot of good to have full halyard tension on it all the time.

For general cruising work, there's no right or wrong answer to where you want the halyard I think. I would absolutely favour bringing it back, but that's mostly because all my practiced techniques use that and I'm very familiar with it. And honestly I can't see a huge disadvantage, with the advantage that you can easily adjust under way. Having a split halyard, as Chiara does is a neat way of reducing the bulk of line in the cockpit whilst still giving you the ability to get the tail on the winch.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

Is your halyard run back to the cockpit, or is your clutch and winch on the mast.

I'm still new to all this and arranged for all my lines to be lead to the cockpit, cause all the YouTubers say thats safest. What I have found is that it is a pain in the A. My Genoa halyard tail is massive and it doubles the bulk of the lines lying around.

Raising the Asymmetrical from the cockpit I don't see as a benefit, and lowering it with the halyard lead to the cockpit SOLO is exactly the opposite of easy.

Raising the main halyard from the cockpit is OK though

I also got single line reefing cause of listening to YouTubers ... and although I have never sailed anything else, I do question if this is the best option, cause I have no real control over sail shape that I can work out.

I love that everyone has their own way of setting up their boats ... but it does certainly make my mind boggle trying to work out what is going to suite me.

We are completely cockpit led. Everything. We can do our asymmetric from the cockpit too, as long as we’ve taken the sprayhood down. However, we usually launch and recover from the forward end of the tramp.

 

[doris]

Raising the Asymmetrical from the cockpit I don't see as a benefit, and lowering it with the halyard lead to the cockpit SOLO is exactly the opposite of easy.

Raising the main halyard from the cockpit is OK though

.

With a winch/clutch on the mast there is the best of both worlds. Solo I’m inclined to drop the asym down the fore hatch whilst sitting on the foredeck. If it all getting a tad fierce and overly exciting then down the companionway via the cockpit.
Ditto double handed and if the aft route then always a letter box. Fully crewed, TBH, I’ve almost forgotten!

 

[Numbers]

With a winch/clutch on the mast there is the best of both worlds. Solo I’m inclined to drop the asym down the fore hatch whilst sitting on the foredeck. If it all getting a tad fierce and overly exciting then down the companionway via the cockpit.
Ditto double handed and if the aft route then always a letter box. Fully crewed, TBH, I’ve almost forgotten!

Showing my "newbie" lack of knowledge here ... I've seen a crew take a spinnaker down the companionway (I think it was a JPK 1080 Psycho Tiller video - smooth as!), but I can't quite work out how to get an Asymmetric down there (in a sock) ... especially single handed?

At what point do you detach the tack of the Asymm from the bow?

It could be the 'dodgyness' of my set up. My 30ft boat is nearly 50 yrs old. It's a masthead sloop. and because it doesn't have a sprit, I use a shackle to attach the tack of the Assym to the forestay chainplate. (there's a short line between the actual tack of the sail and where it attaches to the base of the forestay, and a nappy around the furled headsail - its not pretty, but it works)

Unless I detach the tack before dropping the sail, my only option is to drop it onto my foredeck and then curl it up into its sailbag while I'm on the foredeck.

Watching JP Kelbert raise his Asymm on the JPK39 in the Toby Hodges Yachting World review, he did it from the foredeck, pulled it up in a sock out of a sailbag ... we never saw him drop it in the video.

So Doris, would you drop the sock down the forehatch and worry about putting it in its sailbag when you are below decks later on? (I'd assume there is a way to release the tack from the sprit to do this?)

 

[B27]

So how do you adjust the tension in the halyard when you're sailing?

A 16:1 tackle to a cam cleat.

 

[flaming]

A 16:1 tackle to a cam cleat.

On what, the tack?

 

[doris]

Showing my "newbie" lack of knowledge here ... I've seen a crew take a spinnaker down the companionway (I think it was a JPK 1080 Psycho Tiller video - smooth as!), but I can't quite work out how to get an Asymmetric down there (in a sock) ... especially single handed?

At what point do you detach the tack of the Asymm from the bow?

It could be the 'dodgyness' of my set up. My 30ft boat is nearly 50 yrs old. It's a masthead sloop. and because it doesn't have a sprit, I use a shackle to attach the tack of the Assym to the forestay chainplate. (there's a short line between the actual tack of the sail and where it attaches to the base of the forestay, and a nappy around the furled headsail - its not pretty, but it works)

Unless I detach the tack before dropping the sail, my only option is to drop it onto my foredeck and then curl it up into its sailbag while I'm on the foredeck.

Watching JP Kelbert raise his Asymm on the JPK39 in the Toby Hodges Yachting World review, he did it from the foredeck, pulled it up in a sock out of a sailbag ... we never saw him drop it in the video.

So Doris, would you drop the sock down the forehatch and worry about putting it in its sailbag when you are below decks later on? (I'd assume there is a way to release the tack from the sprit to do this?)

To drop the Asym solo
Genoa out.
Release the sheet and halyard, having closed halyard clutch on mast
Scamper forward and pull snuffer down as far as poss and one turn of snuffer down haul onto fwd cleat
Scamper back and release the tack line
Back fwd, snuffer fully down,
grab halyard at mast, open clutch and fore hatch
Stuff whole shebang down below
Clip halyard, tackline and sheets where they belong
Round mark
Etc etc
Repack down below, Only takes a moment
Worked fine on Dehler 39 with 120sq m kites
The 0.6 Oz with no snuffer was always letter boxed down the main hatch regardless of how light the wind was. Solo, even a small gust would have your fingernails off. A tackline back to the cockpit is an essential IMHO.

 

[B27]

On what, the tack?

No, the tackle goes to the dyneema halyard, where it comes out of the slot in the mast near the gooseneck, then you take the tail off.
The other advantage on a pure cruising boat is you can pull the halyard tail from the foredeck, while feeding the luff up the furler, just by borrowing a block at the base of the mast. Makes it easy to put the jib up in March.

A halyard led back to the cockpit is not that handy when you're alone trying to hoist the jib in slightly more breeze than you'd hoped for...

It's just like a dinghy system, except they'd normally leave the tail on.

I expect one day, I will want to drop the jib in a hurry and find the tail has be 'repurposed'!

 

[flaming]

No, the tackle goes to the dyneema halyard, where it comes out of the slot in the mast near the gooseneck, then you take the tail off.
The other advantage on a pure cruising boat is you can pull the halyard tail from the foredeck, while feeding the luff up the furler, just by borrowing a block at the base of the mast. Makes it easy to put the jib up in March.

A halyard led back to the cockpit is not that handy when you're alone trying to hoist the jib in slightly more breeze than you'd hoped for...

It's just like a dinghy system, except they'd normally leave the tail on.

I expect one day, I will want to drop the jib in a hurry and find the tail has be 'repurposed'!

Ah, so not the Antal system as fitted to the JPK39, but your system. Gotcha. Have to say I quite like that idea for a cruising boat wanting less rope in the cockpit.

 

[Ceirwan]

I can't imagine not adjusting headsail halyard for conditions. Did that for years on my Dad's Dufour 40.

I could sort of see the point if you could move the lock with some sort of mechanism to tension / ease.

As far as I know, there's no quick way to adjust the system. That said, I've not seen one in person, so I'm guessing based on the photos.

I completely agree, about the adjusting, but as evidenced by the chap below, its surprisingly common to leave it at one setting. Which for cruising works well enough, I like to tweak as I guess you do, but others are happy to set the sails 'about right' and leave it at that, if you're not racing, whose to say which is the right way?

I think the prevalence of furlers today contributes to this, on a hank on sail for example, its painfully obvious when the halyard isn't tensioned enough. Because the furler supports the sail along its length, its seems to go a good way to disguise it.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

To drop the Asym solo
Genoa out.
Release the sheet and halyard, having closed halyard clutch on mast
Scamper forward and pull snuffer down as far as poss and one turn of snuffer down haul onto fwd cleat
Scamper back and release the tack line
Back fwd, snuffer fully down,
grab halyard at mast, open clutch and fore hatch
Stuff whole shebang down below
Clip halyard, tackline and sheets where they belong
Round mark
Etc etc
Repack down below, Only takes a moment
Worked fine on Dehler 39 with 120sq m kites
The 0.6 Oz with no snuffer was always letter boxed down the main hatch regardless of how light the wind was. Solo, even a small gust would have your fingernails off. A tackline back to the cockpit is an essential IMHO.

Wouldn’t it just collapse behind the main if you bore off 20 degrees and blew the tack line? Leave it sheeted. The snuffer is easy to pull all the way then. Then you call to the cockpit (or wherever) for the halyard. Dump that, gather the kite in it’s snuffer. I guess you need a lee trampoline to really dump the halyard, you’d need it controlled. You could feed the sausage down the hatch. We do ours into the lee outrigger hatch, unless it’s gonna go up again very shortly, in which case we take a turn of all 4 lines on the kite around a nearby cleat and run back to tend the jib.

 

[doris]

Wouldn’t it just collapse behind the main if you bore off 20 degrees and blew the tack line? Leave it sheeted. The snuffer is easy to pull all the way then. Then you call to the cockpit (or wherever) for the halyard. Dump that, gather the kite in it’s snuffer. I guess you need a lee trampoline to really dump the halyard, you’d need it controlled. You could feed the sausage down the hatch. We do ours into the lee outrigger hatch, unless it’s gonna go up again very shortly, in which case we take a turn of all 4 lines on the kite around a nearby cleat and run back to tend the jib.

Sometimes that would work perfectly but a decent gust or veer and the windage on the snuffer can be huge. Almost lost the lot once doing that hence a nice easy routine. Two up and there’s a margin, solo rather less so.

 

[michael_w]

Snuffers are more trouble than their worth IMHO.

 

[doris]

Snuffers are more trouble than their worth IMHO.

Everyone to their own.
I couldn’t cope with 120-135 Sq m of kite without one.
In 25 years of short handed cruising and racing I have never had a problem that wasn’t pure user f*ck up.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

We’re ok with ours. They are a bit marmite. I guess.