TiggerToo
Well-known member
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The Joys of Parasails
- Thread starter TiggerToo
- Start date
Minerva
Well-known member
Is it true that you can fly them without need for a pole? I can't get my head around that claim!
Yours looks great though!
Yours looks great though!
dolabriform
Well-known member
Thanks for posting this, I hadn't come across these before. I'm now trying to resist filling in the form for a quote!
capnsensible
Well-known member
Agree, they are a fab sail especially for long distance.
geem
Well-known member
For me they are way too pricey. They have less power than a spinnaker. They are easy to set up and fly as you have no pole but when wind is light the same boat with a spinnaker and main set will be a lot faster. I had a quote ten years ago of £8k. We bought a new spinnaker for £2.5k
RupertW
Well-known member
Aren’t you paying for the stability? A stable 7 knots speed under autohelm with no sheet adjustment is worth a lot to some people compared to 7.5 knots with continuous steering and tweaking.
We have an asymmetric that is very stable under autohelm if the main is down but only to about 150 degrees - more downwind than that and a pole would be needed but a parasail goes a lot deeper I think .
TiggerToo
Well-known member
You can.
If you look at the video, on that configuration, I used the "Tacker", which essentially fixes the windward tack to the forestay ( and can be regulated up/down). It makes the sail much more stable. Obviously, if you are dead downwind, you would be best placed with a pole. In practice it is not difficult to be a bit "off" dead down wind when cruising for leisure/pleasure.
TiggerToo
Well-known member
they are fun even for short distances. More than 1hr... go for it. The only "faff" is rigging the various sheets/lazy lines, etc. Just as with a normal spinnaker, but then that is why we go sailing, innit ;-)
TiggerToo
Well-known member
pricey. Yes. I got this "preowned". It is now entertaining a new crew (us).
I am not sure about the "less power". Certainly they slam less, and are generally a lot gentler on the boat fittings and the crew.
TiggerToo
Well-known member
yes, you can sail dead downwind. Also without a pole, but you need to be at the helm constantly. I have not tried in stronger winds (downwind), as we only cruise for pleasure, and usually very short handed.
Stemar
Well-known member
Too much money for me, but a friend had one that took his Starlight across the Atlantic and thought it was great. Not as fast as a spinnaker? Another matter if you're racing, of course, but I reckon most cruisers would value no faff and decent speed over another half a knot, and constant tweaking.
Besides:
Besides:
geem
Well-known member
We have friends with the same boat. They have a Parasail. We have an asymmetric spinnaker we set on a pole. Having sailed in company with them, we know how much faster our set up is.
The asymmetric spinnaker isn't a cruising chute. It's a spinnaker that is cut for stability. It's super stable.
By comparison with the original symmetrical spinnaker that it replaced, this is in a different world.
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geem
Well-known member
When the wind is super light day after day as our lat Transat was, having the best speed possible from our spinnaker was very welcome. It's not a race but the difference between moving very slowly or just plane old slowly can be quite significant
TiggerToo
Well-known member
out of curiosity, what version of the Parasailor (I or II) do your mates have? We have an older V.I which (allegedly) is less good at very low wind speeds. I'd be curious to hear from "real people" in "real waters", as it were.
Stemar
Well-known member
I've lost contact with the person in question, but his transat must have been nearly 10 years ago, so I would guess he had an older model
Frogmogman
Well-known member
Good for you. I think they look brilliant.
I’m keeping half an eye open for a second hand one, as I don’t think I could bring myself to pay the full price on a sail I’d only use occasionally.
Tomaret
Active member
There were a couple for sale in Rodney Bay after the ARC I was on. Not sure whether it was a case of job done, don’t need it any more or they weren’t liked.
geem
Well-known member
When sailed in company with them it was 2014 so an early one I guess. They took to flying theirs on a pole like a spinnaker with the main up to get more speed from it. They crossed the Pacific mainly using it like that.
laika
Well-known member
The year they launched the new version, the istec sales guy at boot was telling me how the v1 was rubbish compared with the new version. I suspect this was not entirely unrelated to the fact that my question had been why their sail was worth the extra over the ones from oxley which I understand are variants of their v1, the patent on which had just expired. There had been no mention of suboptimal design when the uk distributors had tried to flog my mate the v1 at Southampton 4 months prior and they were still selling the v1 (rebranded “classic” iirc) alongside the v2.
Anyone got one of the cheaper oxley ones?
Being happy to sacrifice speed for an easy life I’m drawn to the concept of these. I recall threads on cruisersforum suggesting that deeper downwind you needed a pole on a monohull but posts here seem to be saying otherwise.
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geem
Well-known member
You do need a pole on a monohull deep down wind if you are flying the main otherwise you blanket the sail. I can't get my head around the whole thing. I didn't buy a sailing boat for an easy life. If I want an easy life crossing the pond I would take a jet.
We find that when the wind drops light and we are running down wind and our twin pole twin headsail set up is under powered we need more power. Up goes the mainsail and the spinnaker. We now have boat speed restored. The motion improves as we have way more power. Why settle for a sail that doesn't give you way more power? When the winds are light you won't hear yourself saying I wish I had less power. I laugh at the stories you hear about people leaving their Parasail up in 30kts and saying it was fine. The reality is the sail has little power if you can do that and everything is fine. The wing built in to the sail is to keep the sail stable and open. You sacrifice power for not having a pole and having a large hole in your sail. If you don't like handling a spinnaker then the Parasail might be for you but don't expect it to be great in light winds. I really enjoy getting the spinnaker out. We fly the 165m2 spinnaker with just the wife and me. It doesn't have to be scary. There are techniques to making it easy and once it's up it stable and a pleasure to use.