Tacking a cutter rig

[southchinasea]

Probably a dumb question. A new large-ish yacht has appeared in the marina. She is cutter rigged with a self tacking staysail. The forestay and baby stay seem very close together. Question, does a genoa on a cutter rig generally tack easily or does it snag on the inner stay? Mate reckons you'd have to furl and unfurl the genoa every tack change?
Thanks


<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[snowleopard]

remeber that a cutter carries a yankee, not a genoa, so it's a lot easier to get the jib round. i suspect that a lot of cutter owners don't set both headsails when short-tacking

<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[MarkV]

Forgive my ignorance but what's a Yankee?

<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[William_H]

A "yankee" is a smallish high at the clew cut jib vastly smaller than a large overlap genoa.

<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[ubuysa]

Just out of interest; does anyboy know how the yankee and genoa sails came to be so named????

Just curious......Tony C.

<hr width=100% size=1>There are 10 kinds of people, those who understand binary and those who don't.

 

[FWB]

I have a Gaff Cutter. Jib--Staysail--Mainsail. When tacking I attend to the jib ( forward sail) first. The backed Staysail helps the boat go through the wind. The staysail is next. Its very easy and can be done in a hurry or between sips of coffee.

<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[SlowlyButSurely]

Yep, me too. Let the jib/yankee go first. It will then slide over the backed staysail quite easily. Then tack the staysail and sheet it in.

<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[Mirelle]

Dunno, but here is a French pun...

The Yankee jib is named after the J class yacht of that name, I think. An older name for this headsail was "long roper".

The Genoa jib was perhaps first carried by 6 metre yachts competing in the Mediterranean, but at all events it lends itself to a French joke - Genoa in French is Genes, so a Genoa jib becomes "foc de Genes" - "troublesome jib"!

<hr width=100% size=1>Que scais-je?