With all the time being stuck at home in isolation it provides time to ponder over some of those big issues. As there have been no Alfreds cruising on water events, this month’s newsletter devotes some time to the debate what makes a perfect cruising yacht.
The choice of monohull or catamaran as the perfect cruising yacht is one of those, but once you have made this fundamental decision to have one or two of everything, what else would you want on a perfect cruising boat. Of course, it depends on your plans, estuary cruises, long distance coastal cruises or crossing an ocean.
This month we kick off the debate with some choices of sail types.
Let’s start with the main sail, there are three choices
1) A traditional main sail that lowers on to the boom
2) In mast furling
3) A boom furler
The choice would really come down to your individual sailing needs
1. Is your primary requirement for your sail ease of deploying and stowing?
2. Do you want ease of deploying and stowing but you are prepared to sacrifice some convince for improved performance?
3. Is performance your main requirement?
For the mainsail a conventional sail provides arguably the best performance but especially with shorthanded sailing (and cruising is quite often done by a husband and wife) there some other choices. If you have a conventional main sales normally you would have a sail bag that the sail lowers in to but in sloppy conditions there is the risk you will have to go up on deck to flake the sail. Reefing is limited to a number of pre-set sizes of sail.
In mast furling allows the sail to be un-furled and furled from within the cockpit and also allows reefing very easily and with infinite adjustment. In mast furling does have the disadvantage of not being able to have horizontal battens that impact the sail shape.
A boom furler is another option which can be retrofitted to existing yachts by replacing the boom. In mast furling allows infinite sail size adjustment, the sail is raised and lowered either by an electric winch or a motor inside the boom. If something goes wrong the sail can still be lowered manually and you can still have horizontal battens.
Both in-mast and in-boom furling means no more struggling with sail bags and a very neat look when the sail is furled. Also, no sail bag to fill with water and soak you when raising the sail or providing a home for birds to nest and create a mess.
Head sails come in two basic configurations, a conventional set up with two jib sheets and a self tacking headsail. Self tacking headsails make changing tack very easy and require no input from the crew, so they do not need to put their drinks down.
A self tacking headsail needs to be smaller as it needs to be less than 100% of the foretriangle to allow if to automatically move from one side to the other. The compromise of a smaller foresail is usually offset by the balance with a larger main sail. For cruising this means it is challenging to sail with only the head sail as there is a big performance compromise.
A conventional head sail especially a genoa (more than 100% of the foretriangle) provides much better performance when sailing with only the headsail and as most cruising is done with longer tacks the need to winch in the sheet may not be such an issue.
Next month we will continue the debate of what other features your perfect cruising yacht would have.
