dunedin
Well-Known Member
Potentially interesting article in Yachting Monthly about the downwind rigs used by ARC sailors (oddly all based on views given in Gran Canaria before doing the crossing).
Even more oddly under "white sails" there is a prominent quote that "Our rule onboard is that anything up to 30 knots we will have the spinnaker up, day or night". The same boat's 30 knots spinnaker tactics were again mentioned 2 pages on.
Well my experience from ARC 2018 was that very few of the circa 300 boat fleet had spinnakers up in 25 knots, even during the day - and almost all of the fleet except fully crewed racers sailed under white sail at night. Indeed we sailed under white sails the whole way and finished in the top 5 boats overall on handicap, and finishing ahead of many of the "racers" on the water who had had breakages.
What the YM author fails to mention is that this quote was from the skipper of a boat in the smaller RACING fleet, not the Cruising fleet that most YM readers may be in. And this was a hugely experienced skipper for whom anything other than top 3 would be a failure (indeed he won again in 2019). And unless you carefully correlate the comment with boat details 6 pages later, you might not realise this comment was made of a boat sailing with 12 crew squeezed into a 48 footer. So they would have more crew on deck on a night watch than many/most boats had on board in total. In fact the author never even mentioned the fact there was a racing fleet as well as a cruising one. Perhaps somewhat dangerously misleading.
On the same "white sails" section the featured boat / skipper in a call-out box was quoted with "preferred sailplan - symmetrical spinnaker" - but again no mention of being a racer, though did mention the 11 crew in this case, on a First 47.7. Somewhat un representative of the main ARC fleet methinks.
The article was also noting the use of backstay tension to reduce sail draught, particularly on fractional rigged boats - fair enough upwind, but is that effective with the boom right out downwind? Indeed, is winding on the masthead backstay safe on a fractional rig when powering downwind in big waves with spinnaker (or large poled out genoa) set? And as for "the basic rule is that backstay tension gives the sail more draught", think that is the wrong way round even for upwind?
Even more oddly under "white sails" there is a prominent quote that "Our rule onboard is that anything up to 30 knots we will have the spinnaker up, day or night". The same boat's 30 knots spinnaker tactics were again mentioned 2 pages on.
Well my experience from ARC 2018 was that very few of the circa 300 boat fleet had spinnakers up in 25 knots, even during the day - and almost all of the fleet except fully crewed racers sailed under white sail at night. Indeed we sailed under white sails the whole way and finished in the top 5 boats overall on handicap, and finishing ahead of many of the "racers" on the water who had had breakages.
What the YM author fails to mention is that this quote was from the skipper of a boat in the smaller RACING fleet, not the Cruising fleet that most YM readers may be in. And this was a hugely experienced skipper for whom anything other than top 3 would be a failure (indeed he won again in 2019). And unless you carefully correlate the comment with boat details 6 pages later, you might not realise this comment was made of a boat sailing with 12 crew squeezed into a 48 footer. So they would have more crew on deck on a night watch than many/most boats had on board in total. In fact the author never even mentioned the fact there was a racing fleet as well as a cruising one. Perhaps somewhat dangerously misleading.
On the same "white sails" section the featured boat / skipper in a call-out box was quoted with "preferred sailplan - symmetrical spinnaker" - but again no mention of being a racer, though did mention the 11 crew in this case, on a First 47.7. Somewhat un representative of the main ARC fleet methinks.
The article was also noting the use of backstay tension to reduce sail draught, particularly on fractional rigged boats - fair enough upwind, but is that effective with the boom right out downwind? Indeed, is winding on the masthead backstay safe on a fractional rig when powering downwind in big waves with spinnaker (or large poled out genoa) set? And as for "the basic rule is that backstay tension gives the sail more draught", think that is the wrong way round even for upwind?
