Adding second reef to main sail?
- Thread starter CowboyWay
- Start date
Yeah, w/o the foam luff, taking in the headsail (partial furling) will not help you much with sailing to weather. Without it the headsail forms is own bagginess from partial furling. Actually, there two designations for the headsail set up: roller furling and roller reefing. With roller furling alone you can just roll up the headsail; don’t have to take it down as with hanked-on sails. If you want to “reef” the headsail on the furling drum you must be set up for roller reefing. That means having a specially designed headsail with the foam luff built in. You must order that as an option when a new sail is purchased if you wish one.
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Good luck with the project. You might also find a used headsail for your boat with the foam luff pad if yours is lacking it.
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For a 150 or so Genoa, yes a foam luff with help. My 155 had one.
But when I ordered my 135, North Sail said it wouldn’t really make much difference (and I don’t have to reef as often) so I didn’t get one.
So far, I don’t miss it.
Greg
I had one installed on a new 135 and it worked great. My current jib doesn't have one; I don't know exactly what size it is, prob a 135; and it's useless reefed! Very frustrating!
I believe sailmakers don’t really like the foam luff pad; at least that appears true of my Ullman loft sailmaker; a championship racer. My earlier 135% Elvstrom Genoa had one, and I saw it as very important to shortening sail to keep sailing. I have the pad on my 120% now, which I use often to reef when the apparent wind starts to get above 20 kt going to weather. With crew aboard, I may keep it unreefed into the low 20s. It’s true though that one loses pointing capability when it’s partially furled (reefed). It would better to switch to a smaller headsail if going far in strong (apparent) wind, say a hundred n.mi. or more, to fetch an up-wind destination. But sail changes are largely tactics of past years for today’s coastal cruisers. Roll it up, fire up the diesel, & get there! Good enough.
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On a related note. With the 310, have others gone about and ran their reefing line(s) back to the cockpit? If so, did you add a block to the mast step for that or do it another way?