Which sails to take on a circumnavigation?

[KellysEye]

We carried both a spinnaker and a Twistle rig but never used the spinnaker, you have to take it down at night in case the wind gets over the spinnaker's limit, whereas as a Twistle can be reefed. On ocean crossing squalls at night that you can't see are not unusual. The key thing about a Twisle rig it is free flying and cuts down rolling noticeably, with a sail/spinnakes poled to the mast the sail pushes the mast and vice versa increasing rolling.

By the way the post saying the sail with most fibre does not last longer before stretching than other sails is wrong and the reason is blindingly obvious the more fibre a sail has the stronger it is and will stretch less.

 

[mattonthesea]

A full sail locker is like insurance. I moan about the space they took but when I needed them I was very happy!

Your sailing style would affect your choice. I had a number 1 jib that I never used; it was easier to reef the main by stages and then furl the genoa away leaving my storm jib on the inner forestay. That gave me a lot of power control. That was for reaching. I gave up on close haul in the ocean as it was only slightly slower to heave to in a Rival 32; and a lot more comfortable!

For downwind I used goosewing in decent winds. In light winds I used my spinnaker a fair bit. I agree with prev post that, in unstable airs, you need to take it down at night. However, when you spend a lot of time at sea you get very tuned in to the weather. You can sense that it is going to stay calm for a while. I once left the spinny up for 72 hours on the West-East Atlantic crossing. (my take: remove the snuffer - but there was a long debate about this back in 2009 on these forums) On the Westbound crossing I was so glad I had it; it gave me movement enough to be able to steer!

Remember that the stitching needs to be checked. I had a seem go on the main 30NM short of Grenada. Earlier I would have been very glad on my spare! Over there it cost me comparatively little to have all the seems over sewn.

I know that this hasn't exactly answered your question but I hope it helps.

website: ayearatsea.co.uk

 

[Tim Good]

A full sail locker is like insurance.

My sail locker will have 2 paragliders, 2 bikes, climbing gear, 2 sets diving gear + tanks and a partridge in it.