[Smaller foresail - depowering my rig]

My previous headsails included a too-big #1 and a too-small #2 and lots of sagging and poor performance in a freesh breeze and when half furled.

 

SO for my new headsail I went for half between in terms of area and with a reasonably high-cut foot, going towards a yankee, but not quite. Benefits of this (for cruising) are higher foot = better visibility under sail. But more importantly it's a better reaching sail (leech less likely to curl in and stall) and also when I start to furl it the higher sheet angle gives me more tolerance as I start to move the cars forward i.e. I can furl it further before I run out of car travel and the sheeting angle becomes inefficient.

 

I've also got the padding you talk about in the luff which takes up more sail in the middle of the forestay than at the ends to improve shape when furled. But North's don't use foam because they said it gets wet and gradually gets crushed and loses it's shape. SO they use xtra layers of bolt rope with only one at the extreme ends and 3-4 through the middle of the luff, I think.

 

Booboo would answer all olf this better than me though!

[Smaller foresail - depowering my rig]

Yeah that can be a suprisingly nasty little piece of water, never really worked it out, nothing remarkable about the seabed e.g. sudden shallowing. Maybe water getting trapped between the peninsula to the south and Orewa beach to the west. But can be much worse than it's counterpart S of the peninsula.

[Yacht Daemon]

Sailing vicariously. As opposed to sailing virtually.

[Yacht Daemon]

Anyone else reading these?