I am interested in buying new sails for my wishbone ketch. The present ones are wrap-around & are heavy and expensive to replace. Has anyone had experience of sleeved sails? I am concerned that with zips on the luffs they would be unduly stiff & difficult to stow. I understand that such sails have been made for these boats.
Orxy,
I just changed from wrap around sails to fat head single ply full batten with a strong track system on both masts. I have a 28’ ck cb model. I dont know much about zippered luff sleeve sail for these boats. I would wonder though how you would attatch your wishbone booms with an enclosed sleeve. Also if you are changing sails you would want to go to full batten full roach, no? I dont see any way to install full battens with that sleeve style luff. Where would the pressure from battens ride? I thought about a sleeve myself, thinking better air flow around mast. I really think it would be a nightmare. Picture trying to take sail down when it is wet and stuck to mast like a wet T-shirt stuck to your back.
And when you do need to take it down “now” think of the conditions you will be in. Better have a sharp knife on board.
Go with the track system, pull masts and apply the new track to back side while they are out of the boat. If you decide to use spartite buy it in gallon container and most importantly use a barrier better than the vaseline they give with kit as a release agent on fiberglass surfaces around mast.
Regards Numbknots
Numbknots,
I understood from your earlier post that your switchover to track and fully battened wasn’t completely as successful as you wished and not really worth the money. Do you think the performance gain is mostly due to your gain in surface area? Or is it worth the hassle afterall?
Oryx,
I am considering new sails for my f35 ck cb as well, and haven’t checked the costs of 2 ply sails. I did contact Haarstick, they advised me to go for fully battened single ply sails with a track (which would cost around $7000 sails only) . However haarstick doesn’t have experience with 2 ply sails. I am a bit hesitant to make such a conversion. There is such thing as the G10 rig , to be found in the documentation section.
Regards, Martijn
Orxy,
Unsucessful, well maybe I was dreaming. The sails by Knighton Sails here are fine. The problem is the hull, It will never point into the wind very well. I was hoping to be at least competitive in club racing but I can never make up for the time lost going slow upwind even with a fast down wind leg or reaching leg. Its just the math. So now I find the reaching legs and go there before my buddies in the races get there and run with them once they get over the upwind portion. I do stay out of thier way though.
If you decide to buy new sails you will do better, but you will never get that boat up wind. Phildowney replied to a post in racing forum. He described the same situation with his boat but with much more knowledge than I.
In reality I should have sold the Freedom and put the 7k into another boat. There are so many boats on the market right now. They say I have the best looking boat on the water under sail, to bad there are no pictures on the result board. I suppose it all comes down to what kind of sailing you are into.
I can tell you that the sail tracks by tides marine will be close to one thousand for each your mast plus instalation. Good hunting Numbknots
Guys,
There’s an F33 catketch in Oz, Nightwing (owner David Holt) with a new suit of squarehead sails. He just started using them, so his experience with them is limited at this time. But look at it; the beauty of power…
michel,
Now those sails are beautiful. What do you figure 10k main and 8k for mizzen? I have plain dacron and they look good but the “power” in this rig is impressive. Numbknots
David gave me the specs, see below. Sails were made by Ullman sails, an Australian loft for racing catamaran sails. Cloth is Advanced Cruising Laminate (ACL). Total set including batten gear was under US$ 10k. Very competitive price, I think.
Mainsail
Triradial cut mainsail inc 6 full battens, 3 reef points, PNPA 276 luff boxes / PNPA 282 luff slides with M10 links, draft stripes, tell tales and drawstring sailbag.
Triradial cut from Contender Sailcloth ACL 75 Grey
$6,530 (US$ 6000)
Mizzen
Triradial cut mizzen inc 6 full battens, 2 reef points, PNPA 276 luff boxes / PNPA 282 luff slides with M10 links , draft stripes, tell tales and drawstring sailbag.
Triradial cut from Contender Sailcloth ACL 75 Grey
$3,945 (US$ 3660)
Michel,
That is a great price. My sails came to half that but the work in those sails plus the material and size have to be considered. All things considered that has to be 4 times the product in the end. Computer generated you think? They are impressive.
Numbknots
Yes, the sails were computer designed. I’ve seen the development from the first sketches onwards. David first went for a large round roach but later switched to moderate squareheads. A large round roach tends to make the sail fuller in a blow because the leech compresses the battens. A squarehead keeps its designed shape much better.
Thanks to Numbknots, Martijn, & Michel for their imput. The sails on Night Wing are very impressive. I have seen the G10 rig but really want to retain the wrap around to even the flow round the mast & to minimize any alterations to the spars (I had these out about 3 years ago & overhauled the mastheads) & don’t want to do it again). I know sleeved sails have been used on Freedoms & also on the Wharram cats. I spoke to an ex-Freedom 35 owner some time ago who felt it greatly improve the boat (stiffer & easier to handle) but didn’t get down to sort out the important points of detail.
Oryx,
You should contact Phil Downey who is a member of this board. He owns KUSI a UK built F35 cat ketch. This boat currently has two sets of sleeved sails. KUSIs PO mailed me the following when the boat was for sale some time ago:
"My sails are a modification to the original in that they have a zipped sleeve around the mast. This cuts down the weight aloft by almost half. I notice the difference when sailing as i have to reef less. The sail is also easier to shape using the outhaul and halyard tension as well as being much easier to stow.
I have two sets of sails, one by Dolphin Sails of the UK and one set made by a local sailmaker. In both the profile is about 2 meters so you can get ‘inside’ the envelope to reach halyards etc - which run inside the fold. In one set the wrap is of a lighter material to make stowing even easier.
The single skin also makes reefing more effective."
The “local sailmaker” is Sanders of Lymington where Phil Downey works. He stated elsewhere that he would like to convert to the G10 rig but with squaretop sails. Maybe these can be combined with mast sleeves, but the problem remains the wishbone when reefing.
I have added a picture from my archives to illustrate the sleeved sails.
Regards
Peter
My experience with zippered biminis causes me to shudder to think of what’s going to happen to these sails when the zipper starts “stiffening up” with salt & age, as it inevitably will. I can see using this approach on a dry sailed day sailer where the sails are removed (and maybe even washed clean) after every use, but not otherwise. Nevermind that zipper failure would result in either outright loss of the sail or, at the very least, a situtation where your “repair” would essentially destroy it.
Just my two cents worth
oryx,
Thinking of the wrap around sails advantage in air flow, I would bet that making the largest part of the wing at the leading edge of the foil isn’t a very efficient design. Rotating masts with a proper foil shaped into the entry point
that is another story.
The cost of new double ply sails or ones with sleeves, personally I think your going in the wrong direction. There is still going to be a tremendous amount of disturbed air behind that mast. With a large roach you will get so much more clean sail area inspite of the mast being “unfaired” compared to the “faired” sleeve design. Something to think about. Numbknots
Orxy
I really dont think a double ply sail or a sleeved sail on those round mast is the answer. An efficent air foil does not have its widest demension at the leading edge. Even a rotating mast has the leading edge entry narrower than the thickest part of the mast. There is just so much disturbed air coming off the round mast that the only real power developed is from the aft section of the sail. So a full batten large roached sail seems the way to go. If those sails really worked dont you think Freedom would have stuck with them?
I did put my tracks on using a top climber so it can be done with out pulling masts, but you will wish you pulled them if you go that direction. Numbknots
Oryx,
I read a few articles about rotating wingmasts and aerodynamics and I tend to agree with Numbknots; you loose about 3’ to 4’ aft of the mast due to turbulence, so you need a large roach to make up for that. If you have tell tales, and trim the sails to perfection, the delaminated airflow behind the sail may attach to the lee of the sail again and you might loose just 2’ to 3’ aft of the mast. With our thick round poles that is a fact to live with. There is another reason reason why most new suits of sails are single ply on track: you can mount equipment on your mast. With a sleeve, it’s hard to conceive a way to use full battens.
orxy,
Seems I have lost a post or its floating in some other forum. I was thinking about your leaning towards a sleeved or double ply sails again. I really dont think having a sail or an aerodynamic shaped wing is very efficient with the thickest part of that wing as the leading edge. The diameters of the freedom mast compared to the sail area behind it just doesn’t work out. Now a laser has a sleeved sail but with the stick like mast it is a totally different ratio, as is a windsurfer sail. Just way to much wind seperation even before the air gets to the sleeved part with the round freedom masts.
Now if you were using a rotating mast that was shaped eliptically you would gain enormous benefits. No so much with the freedoms answer to air flow over sail. After all as soon as they fitted a single ply full batten on their boats that was about the end of the 2 ply I beleive. More power more sail area. Full roach full battens, fat heads.
Numbknots
Nice pair of sails, Numbknots.
Congrats Numbnots!
What are the sizes of the new sails compared to the old ones?
Peter
Peter,
I don’t have the exact sq ft measurement right now but Im thinking 1/3 bigger than the original sails. Plus they don’t flag on the leech anymore. I had Greg Knighton, the sail maker, on board sunday to look at sail trim. He has some changes to make with stiffer battens and the possibility of cutting some curve out of the luff as masts dont bend as much as he expected.
If you look at the picture I posted of Clave’ you can see the line that the topping lift scribes from head to clew which the old sails cleared easily. It is quite a difference. I have 3’ sq tops and was thinking of going bigger but with the age of masts and all the drilling for tracks I tempered my enthusiam a bit.
Numbknots
One third extra sail area is quite something. I’m interested to learn how your heavy weather experience will be. How deep are your reefs? Re: the flexibility of your masts: there are two schools here, one that suggests that the masts should bend easily. Wyliecat, Finn, Laser and windsurfers use this approach. The other school suggests that even if unstayed, you should try to make the mast as stiff as possible. Freedom was more on this line, although they always had the depowering story. For my new sails, I will consult a sailmaker with experience in making Finn sails. For Finns, they have standardised bending tests they use before designing a sail.