Twizzle Rig - worth deploying?

Tim Good

Tim Good

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We have a twizzle rig with two yankee head sails.

I was curious, for others that have them, what sort of weather forecast you go to the bother of setting it all up. Clearly you need to expect downwind conditions. However they I understand they can be flown together if you have to beam reach for a day or two for example.

If for example you had a passage of 5 days down wind and 3 days beam reach... would you bother?

For us the alternative is a poles out yankee plus main which is effective but less manageable.

Thanks!
 
Is a twizzle rig formed from two headsails on a single foil? We have the luxury of two furlex on two forestays, one very close behind the other, so we have genoa out one side and jib the other. On a bad day it can take three minutes to set it up......
 
Depends whether you really want to go as close to dead downwind as possible, or whether there is an advantage in working one way or the other.
Surely it doesn't take ever so long to deploy a couple of jibs?

It's not like those over-keen instructor types setting up umpteen lines to pole out a genoa just to run a couple of miles down Southampton Water surely?

If you have the kit and it works, use it if it's the best option for the conditions.
Think of the wear saved on the main etc.
 
capnsensible said:
I've learnt something. Umpteen =3. I always thought it was more than that.
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Don't most people on offshore boats have the lines in place ready to deploy the pole in a few moments anyway? Especially single handed.

Quite fancy a twizzle rig though :cool:

Though more set up than poled foresail which can be rolled up with the pole left in place, Azores north think I'd stick with poled genny/main. (& staysail)
 
TernVI said:
Depends whether you really want to go as close to dead downwind as possible, or whether there is an advantage in working one way or the other.
Surely it doesn't take ever so long to deploy a couple of jibs?

It's not like those over-keen instructor types setting up umpteen lines to pole out a genoa just to run a couple of miles down Southampton Water surely?

If you have the kit and it works, use it if it's the best option for the conditions.
Think of the wear saved on the main etc.
Click to expand...

its more of a hassle to setup than you think. Firstly to hoist two sails you have to drop the first. When they’re enormous yankees you need to do this is relatively low wind. Then each clew need three lines attaching. Then the bikes are attached together not on the mast and hoisting two poles while not on a fix object whilst keeping the end up at the clew is not easy. Finally if you do want to drop it all and reach then the poles have to come down.

It’s not like poking our two head sails nor does it function in the same way. A twistle rig dampens rolling while poles out head sails I believe exacerbate it.

Anyway we have used our twistle rig in anger on a long passage so was just curious what others do.
 
I don't have a twizzle rig wishbone so I've never tried it. If I'm doing a downwind leg of more than about three hours, I ditch my main and run under twin headsails, the second sail hung from the inner forestay which is very close to the furler. I've found that this rig is good for upto about 30 degrees either side of the wind using a wisker pole, and my autohelm handles it well.
 
Last tradewind crossing I did we dumped the twin headsails in favour of poled out genoa and mainsail plus the heavy weather jib set on an inner forestay and sheeted hard to leeward. Worked like magic! No rolling your brains out, easy to deploy and reef when the squalls came through. No extra clobber to lug about. Credit to the Oyster after-sales team for the tip.
 
On my last East - West transatlantic on an old wooden yawl, we tacked downwind the whole way, sailing on 140 apparent with the yankee jib poled out to windward, genoa flying loose to leeward, mainsail and mizzen (and occasionally the mizzen staysail as well).
And this arrangement worked very well - ok, we were sailing a longer distance through the water, but with virtually no rolling. We had a few 200 mile days, and took 18 days from Tenerife to Antigua.
 
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On the Azores UK leg the wind is likely to be far from a trade wind passage. You are running the gauntlet of low pressure systems approaching the UK. This gives variable wind direction but if you are lucky, no head winds. Expect some sail changes. I would not bother with the twistle rig
 
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