Hi Lou,
I have a little cutter time under my belt starting with a Venture 23 some 35 years ago to my brothers IP38. I sailed Destiny, seen below sitting on anchor on the coast of Baja, from Cabo San Lucas to San Diego. Making a cutter out of a masthead sloop is not a simple as it sounds. A cutter is typically a fractional rig sloop with the addition of a forestay from a bowsprit. While is sounds like semantics there some structural support issues that are addressed in a fractional rig that don't exist on a masthead rig. On the Island Packet the staysail is a self- tacking (90%) jib used to make working up wind easy to single-hand. Since the apparent wind always jumps up going to weather the smaller size is normally not an issue. Both headsails are roller furling and the genoa is typically furled rather than tacked. If you goal is to get to more light wind sail area then maybe your first choice should be an asymmetrical spinnaker. However as simple as you can rig an asymmetrical it's not for everyone and a little challenging to single-hand at times. Another choice is to go to a twin luff groove roller furler. The conventional use of such a unit is to do covered headsail changes but cruisers often rig the boat to fly twin head sails downwind. The result is spinnaker like square footage with a much lower center of effort yet still be able to use the furler. I said cruiser like to use twin groove furler for flying wing on wing head sails but the first skipper I ever discussed this with was Tom Wylie after he had done so in a single handed Pacific-Cup (SF- Hawaii race). I guess there would also be the option of a custom twin headsail on a common luff tape for a single groove furler. Phil Agur <http://www.catalina27.org/public_pages/profile270.htm> s/v Wing Tip Secretary, Call Sign WCW3485 IC27/270A MMSI 366901790 <http://www.catalina27.org> www.catalina27.org Vessel Doc# 1039809 -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, October 03, 2008 5:03 AM To: [email protected] Subject: catalina27-talk: Adding a stay Beachouse a 1975 stanard rig has the orignal standing rigging. Granted we don't have the blow in Oceanside that the S.F. Bay has ,but I am thinking it's time. And while I'm at it why not add a roller fuler.So my question for the group is ,if I add a forstay as well as a fuler will she become a cutter rig ? What would be the + and - of two headsails ,one a fuler and one a hankon. Thanks Lou Muth Beachouse hull # 1917
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