H49 New Sails

[Boiler]

My boat, a Hunter 49, is in need of new sails. The boat is a tall rig version, with a furling mast and genoa.

Any lesson learned would be greatly appreciated.

I will be working with Pedro of UK sails who designed the original sail plans for Hunter. He has made a couple of recommendations, but he started to get into technical aspects that I had not yet researched, I would like to at least ask intelligent questions.

Some of the options,
- Main, go with or without battens. The sails on the boat now lost their battens a couple of owners ago.
- Genoa, as the boat has a fractional sail design additional genoa is not necessary, would different shapes be beneficial?
- Materials of construction, I am in Texas summer heat is brutal, anything other than polyester or dacron?
- Anything any of you have

 

[Georgedoyle]

Go with a laminated sail. It will roll up on the furler better than Dacron. The standard jib works fine with the tall rig. We have battens in our new main. No problems. Go with two reef points on the main. The new sails will be powerful and will allow you to stay upright in stronger wind, but reefing early will give you more comfort. If your existing sails are old and baggy, you will immediately feel the difference with new sails. One other point, if you switch to a folding or feathering prop, your new sails will work way better. We noticed that the boat tracks straight with little helm input and accelerates faster. The fixed prop must set up a weird leverage situation with the keel that makes the boat hard to steer. The Gori that we bought allows us to steer with one hand. It's a completely different boat under sail. If you’re interested we can provide the specs on the correct prop for the boat.

 

[morsail779]

We had a new Dimension/Polyant DCX cruising Mylar in mast furling mainsail made last year form Impulsion Sails in Tunisia. It has been good with the batten arrangement in the photo. Our previous mainsail was similar material and lasted 10 years and 30k miles sailing from west coast Mexico to the Med. The Genoa is made from the same material. Although we are on a 46 foot cruising catamaran, our sail loads are similar to your boat or slightly higher. We have the Selden Mast.

 

[morsail779]

We had a new Dimension/Polyant DCX cruising Mylar in mast furling mainsail made last year form Impulsion Sails in Tunisia. It has been good with the batten arrangement in the photo. Our previous mainsail was similar material and lasted 10 years and 30k miles sailing from west coast Mexico to the Med. The Genoa is made from the same material. Although we are on a 46 foot cruising catamaran, our sail loads are similar to your boat or slightly higher. We have the Selden Mast.

 

[Screen Saver]

I have H49 from new 2008 she does about 10,000nm per year most years and has well above 100,000nm under her keel. As such we have been through a few sails. Many of the Hunters including my H49 carry quite a bit of weather helm and the 110 overlapping jib/genoa is quite high set. So I dropped the clue on my genoa with the view of lowering the center of effort to reduce tenderness in gusts and increase the sail area up front to reduce weather helm. (I have no Staysail) and also tall rig deep keel. Please yourself how far you drop the clue. Originally it was quite high set. I should have probably dropped it more. If money allows go for Raidial cut sails, not crosscut. Us high quaity UV thread, run tripple seems and good UV cloth on the edge Otherwise it was all good. In mast furling is great but the sails wear out quicker. I tried heavier cloth and apart from only just being able to furl it up because the volume in the mast increased it didn't help the longevity. If you run in mast reefed a lot and I tend to in order to get good sail balance in anything over about 14 knots, then the wear point is on the leech. All my mains have warn on the leech. So try to rap an extra layer of cloth down the leach from the top down to where the UV sail cover starts. Again if money allows go Riadial rather than cross cut. If the main loses shap whihc it does quite quickly if its reefed quite a lot then the performance hit is quite noticeable, so the longer you can maintain shape the better. Originally my vertical bitterns were different lengths. I change them to all the same length made sure they didn't overlap when furled. IN my next main I will probably forget about the top bittern of i have run without it now for quite some time without a problem. Reinforce the pocket ends, I have lost a few batters as the ends ware through and they simply dropped out. Make sure the they get the angle of the foot correct as this will cause furling issues if they dont. If your still running a leech line, use a decent wheel at the end of sail where it turns around and make sure it come s back along the boom far enough to reach it. Make sure you get the telltails on both sails.

 

[tkwhalen]

I replaced mine 3 years ago. I went with North 3Di the sail is all one molded piece. I have the roller furling main with the battens. The pockets seem well sealed to me once the battens are in. I have the cutter rig so I asked for a jib/genoa on the forward furler to be cut as large as possible which is bigger then the 110 but not huge due the the fractional rig and the jib car track placement. It's maybe a 120. The biggest change was lowering the clew which added sail area. I do have to skirt the sail over the life lines when sheeted in tight; which takes away from 100% cockpit sailing but I think well worth it. The change is sailing capability of the boat after replacing 15 year old factory sails will blow you away. Good Luck and enjoy

 

[h2o_snow]

Agree with a fully battened main and radial cut. You will appreciate the difference in performance.

And… good plan to have a pro do the measurement. Have fun.

 

[VanIslandGuy]

We went with a cruising laminate, radial cut, full battens, slab reef main. Also went with a square or fat head on the main, which we really like. In light airs more area, in gusts it opens and spills air. Our sail designer suggested it to take advantage of the B&R rig and I'm thankful we listened to him.

Additionally we went with vertical battens in the headsail. We had our sails done with UK Sails, (now a North Sails loft), in Sydney, BC, Canada and were really happy with the results. Boat points well, and is very easy to trim. We really noticed the improvements when sailing winds are either very light or greater than 20 kts. In both cases its much easier to manage the boat and get the best out of the conditions at hand.

If I were to do it again, the only things I might change is make the stack pack slightly larger to help pack the sail away easier at the end of the day, (about 2/3 of the way back to the leech is hard to reach by hand when tucking the main into the stack pack bag), and add a 3rd reef point. Even if lines aren't rigged in the 3rd reef, having it there with horns added to the mast and boom where I could run lines would have been worthwhile to do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_Ls2tatT20&pp=ygULc3YgZnJlZXdpbGw=

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ez4a_clDUCg&pp=ygULc3YgZnJlZXdpbGw=

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_Ls2tatT20&pp=ygULc3YgZnJlZXdpbGw=

 

[artboas]

I have the perfect solution for the leech line on the Hunter 49

What you really want to do with a leech line is snug it up once the sail is out, and always release it before you furl
Unfortunately, is impossible to do this in most situations because the either the boom is too high, or you can’t reach the small cleat that was installed in the sail.
Here is a great way to do this
Install a small dinghy cam cleat on the aluminum piece of the outhaul pulley. To do this you will need to drill & tap 6-32 screw holes, and cut the screws to the exact length so that they don’t interfere with the pulley

Now, you pre-set the line into the cleat before you unfurl. Set a large knot or loop in the end of the leech line.
Make yourself a “specialty tool”, i.e. a coat hanger with a hook bent into one end.
Then, once the sail is unfurled ...

You reach up with the “tool”, grab the end and pull, pulling the line tighter into the cleat.
Just before furling, reach up, and snap the line out of the cleat
This works amazingly well
I’ve actually had sail makers copy this, as they thought it was a great solution

 

[Boiler]

I would like to thank all of the contributors to this post. I finally had a chance to get with the sail maker. I am going with the tri-radial main sail with battens. With the genoa (also a triradial) it will nominally be a 110 maybe stretching to 115, he knew exactly about the clew being a mismatch (for lack of a better expression) for the sail and will see that it goes where it should. I am also getting foam luff for the genoa. I will let everyone know how they handle once I have them in hand.

 

[JR19454]

One other point, if you switch to a folding or feathering prop, your new sails will work way better. We noticed that the boat tracks straight with little helm input and accelerates faster. The fixed prop must set up a weird leverage situation with the keel that makes the boat hard to steer. The Gori that we bought allows us to steer with one hand. It's a completely different boat under sail. If you’re interested we can provide the specs on the correct prop for the boat.

George - I'd appreciate your recommendation on the folding prop for the 49/50. I have a fixed blade one now and plan to swap it out in the fall.

JR

 

[Georgedoyle]

We went with the GORI three blade folding prop with the overdrive feature. Contact Geoff@ab-marine.com. If you have the Yanmar 4JH4HTE, your recommended prop should be identical to ours: 24”x15”x3 blades. This prop did more than we expected. It works beautifully under power, as we anticipated, but it also transformed the sailing characteristics of the boat. Very light weather helm now and much better performance in low wind conditions. The boat is a pleasure to steer now, while, as you probably know, it was a beast to steer with the fixed blade, especially as the wind picked up. One more benefit is steering in reverse. We can drive the boat backwards into the slip with confidence. I stand at the helm facing aft and drive the boat in reverse as if I'm facing forward. I nudge the thruster a little to bring the bow around and shoot right into the slip. The original prop would always slew the stern to port which made maneuvering in reverse unpredictable and frustrating. I'll look through my paperwork and pass on any other relevant information. You can also look on the AB Marine website to learn more about how the prop Works.

 

[JR19454]

George - Thanks for the info. I've always put folding props on my old boats and been quite happy with them. A few people discouraged me on this boat ('well, it's just a cruiser....'), so your firsthand experience is much appreciated.

JR

 

[Tally Ho]

I went with a 3-blade MaxProp feathering prop and love it. The biggest difference for me between the MaxProp and a folder is the fact that I can adjust the FWD and REV pitch if necessary. Over the winter, I tweaked the REV pitch and have even better REV thrust and I adjusted the FWD pitch to get more bite at a lower RPM.