Reposted : 20/06/2000 14:11:29
You may find she won't go as well to windward.
I have a Rotostay and large cruising Genoa on my 22. In spite of having more hollow cut into the Luff by my sailmaker (but not yet tried a foam luff insert), I find it difficult to prevent too much fullness being blown into the sail as the wind increases - thus ruining windward performance and causing unnecessary heeling. This appears to be mainly due to the luff sagging due to the weight of the luff spar and the lack of a backstay. I have tightened the cap shrouds to the point where the leaward one is not slack when sailing hard - little improvement. I was considering trying a change to a conventional non roller furling rig with less overlap as an experiment - since the genoa becomes even fuller when reefed anyway. Perhaps roller furling (without a spar) would be a compromise - Barton make the the bits needed.
Can anyone else add to the hanked/roller headsail debate for non backstay fractional rigs?
Phil Longhurst