Tell me about drifters (etc)

[Sea Change]

Our boat (Sun Kiss 47) has white sails only- genoa, staysail, main.
Last season we spent too much time motoring in light winds. We've also got an E-W Atlantic crossing coming up and I'd like to be able to fly two headsails while running. We can do that with the staysail but it's very small.

We're lightly crewed and have had conventional spinnakers on previous boats- and rarely used them. They're called the divorce sail for a reason.
One previous boat had a massive lightweight dacron genoa that hanked on to a solent stay. I loved that sail. It was much easier to handle than a spinnaker, you could just bundle it up on the side deck as you dropped it. It could actually get you slightly upwind. And with a pole, it made a fair substitute for a spinnaker.

Would it be right to call that sail a drifter?
Regardless of what it's called, I think I'd like to add something similar to the current boat. It should help our speed in light winds, maybe keeping a few hours off the engine, and should be able to fly wing on wing with the genoa when running. I'm hoping to pick up something secondhand rather than have it made.

So my questions are:
- what weight of sailcloth should I be looking at?
- nylon vs dacron for this?
- if the sail I find has a luff tape, is it straightforward to convert to hanks?
- how do I determine the best size? The forestay is 56ft, the pole is about 16ft, if that helps at all. Obviously I want it as big as practical otherwise I may as well just keep using white sails.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

We had a nylon sail like this on our Strider cat, it was loose luff, not hanked on. We now have the modern equivalent, a carbon loose/tape luff code 0 on a Karver furler. The code 0 is like having a button on your car dash labelled ‘Nitrous oxide’. And dangerous if you had no furler. You’re presumably looking for less tech than that, on cost grounds. Otherwise it’s exactly what you’d want. The previous nylon one was still a useful sail, though you’d never get the boat to go to windward with it. We can get to about 60 true with the furling sail, if the wind is below 10kn. If it’s below 5kn that might be quicker than pointing higher with the jib. Downwind, up to 15kn it's great. Over 15kn, unfurling it is a ‘moment’. So to speak. As is the bit where the airflow goes laminar. It won’t be quite as dramatic on your boat, but that’s a lot of power. Your sail would be 20% bigger than our asymmetric kite. I’m not sure nylon would do the job, and I’d ask a friendly sailmaker about weight of Dacron, and the mechanics of flying it.

 

[Sea Change]

We had a nylon sail like this on our Strider cat, it was loose luff, not hanked on. We now have the modern equivalent, a carbon loose/tape luff code 0 on a Karver furler. The code 0 is like having a button on your car dash labelled ‘Nitrous oxide’. And dangerous if you had no furler. You’re presumably looking for less tech than that, on cost grounds. Otherwise it’s exactly what you’d want. The previous nylon one was still a useful sail, though you’d never get the boat to go to windward with it. We can get to about 60 true with the furling sail, if the wind is below 10kn. If it’s below 5kn that might be quicker than pointing higher with the jib. Downwind, up to 15kn it's great. Over 15kn, unfurling it is a ‘moment’. So to speak. As is the bit where the airflow goes laminar. It won’t be quite as dramatic on your boat, but that’s a lot of power. Your sail would be 20% bigger than our asymmetric kite. I’m not sure nylon would do the job, and I’d ask a friendly sailmaker about weight of Dacron, and the mechanics of flying it.

Thanks, useful insight, despite the differences between our two boats!

I like the idea of it being hanked on, so that I can drop it without any drama. I'd use a spare (possibly dyneema) halyard as the stay. I think a free flying sail would be too similar to a spinnaker.
My wife is a very competent sailor but this realistically has to be a sail that I can work single-handed, otherwise I'm not going to get to play with it!

The second hand sails in looking at are up to 4.5oz Dacron. Does that sound a bit heavy for this kind of use? Obviously it needs to be pretty light to make the most of light airs, and I also need to be wary of stowage space and general ease of handling.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

I’d say less than that weight won’t be useful in anything but light airs. Hopefully you can do most of the handling behind the main, as we do. But it’s gojng to be a handful sometimes, that is why code sails are almost universally on furlers. Get it down in good time, is my advice.

 

[RobbieW]

Sounds like what your looking for is a twistle (twizzle) rig or some variant of that