PaulJ: Johan must be reading my mail as my first thought was why do you want to convert in the first place? RichH is right in that it is easier to adjust a loose footed main especially on older Catalina’s that have an internal outhaul system, which is poorly designed, and the main reason I personally went to an external setup.
The question becomes which is a better system – loose footed or bolt rope? The following opinions are my own and maybe a lot of mates will disagree but I’ll bet most have not spent as much time as I have in the study of both systems.
First, I don’t think there is a wits difference between the 2 systems. The best basis to my conclusion is which system do racers prefer? They are 70/30 (bolt/loose) split between the two systems. Beer can racing is not a good way to judge it but match racing is. In the Catalina30 National Regatta’s I’ve raced loose footed against bolt rope and vice versa and neither boat had the advantage. The deciding factor was WHO WAS THE BEST SAIL TRIMMER!! What I have noticed with loose footed guys is that they tend to induce too much draft depth (belly) into the mainsail, which is very easy to do. Too much of anything is not good for you.
At the Catalina30 events I feel we were just a bunch of common seaman fooling around. On the other hand, the Long Beach Congressional Cup sailors are a group of professional sailors from all over the world who race about 12 exact copy C37’s (I think they are 37’) in a match race format. About 9 of these boats are bolt rope and the rest loose footed. What I was looking for every year I watched them was the 2 boat match up of bolt rope against the loose footed and every time I saw this match up, which I watched from start to finish, I was looking for an advantage of one over the other and you know what I saw at the end of the race? Nothing. Sometimes the bolt rope won and sometimes the loose footed won. Through out the course they were neck and neck and that is the way they finished. Loose footed sails don’t win races or make you a better cruising sailor – sail trim does.
There is one more factor, which you see on America Cup boats, which are all bolt rope, and it is what is called the “shelf effect”. Their booms are long from top to bottom and the reason for it is that they are trying to capture as much air as they can and they don’t want any escaping. With loose footed mains, which are the engine on these boats, the air would escape.
Every cruising sailor and beer can racer I know thinks in the back of his mind that he really is Dennis Conner or Buddy Melges and they want their boat set up like these guys even though the shelf effect has no effect on a production boat. I know I’m right on how guys think about their boats.
So PaulJ, to answer your question, I’d stick with the bolt rope and really learn to use your mainsheet controls especially the outhaul but again that is just my opinion.
