Precision 21: Light wind foresail recommendations wanted.

[JRT]

Cost is mostly driven by size and area of sail. My sail was single color on black Friday special from Precision Sail, discounted to $1,322. The turtle bag was $17.9.99, shipping was $110. I needed 3 blocks and sheets for the sail which was another $160. My anchor extends about 18" in front of my jib with a bail that I have the tack block attached to and some extra line to adjust the tack out. My turning blocks are attached to the aft stern cleats to run the sheets forward to jib winches. This is all new to me so will see how it works out.

 

[DrJudyB]

My total cost was ~$1700. It's itemized in my first sprit / C0 post, with more details in the ~1 page of posts following that.

I made my own sprit. The cost would be considerably higher if buying a commercial A-frame sprit (like the Trogear), but might be comparable or only slightly higher if you could use a Selden sprit instead (I couldn't fit the Selden in around by anchor, but you might manage

That sounds about right. The trigear Carbon sprit is mearlyntwice the price of an aluminum one. And as I recall, you got a shockingly low, close-out price on your furler. IIRC, it was lower than my wholesale price for the same unit!!!

If somebody buys a free flying furler and a bow sprit kit at street prices, my estimate of at least $2000 is in the ball park for a 21-22 foot boat.

 

[Ach616]

The weather will hit 20C here today, so I can get to the boat, take measurements and photos and try to come to a decision. Of course a USD 2000 turns into almost 3000 CDN these days. Thanks for all the input folks, really appreciate it. Stay safe wherever you are. Talk to you all soon.

 

[Hunter216]

Lake Diefenbaker - Wikipedia
Maximum width 3.7 miles, average width is around 2 miles, and length up to 140 miles.

It’s great that you are considering adding a new sail to your toolkit. Sails like this can change a boring - cook yourself slog downwind into something fun and challenging.

Investing in the ability to quickly rig, deploy and douse the sail will encourage you to use it more. It is also some comfort to be able to douse the sail quickly if you encounter traffic on a narrow water body like you sail on. 2 miles sounds like a lot but put a few oncoming boats and you flying downwind could make things a little exciting .

IMHO socks are great, top down furler even better.

 

[DrJudyB]

The weather will hit 20C here today, so I can get to the boat, take measurements and photos and try to come to a decision. Of course a USD 2000 turns into almost 3000 CDN these days. Thanks for all the input folks, really appreciate it. Stay safe wherever you are. Talk to you all soon.

Unless you have a form to fill out from a sailmaker, there is little point to taking a lot of measurements. Maybe get the max hoist from tack to mast of the spinnaker halyard, if you have the halyard installed already.

As I said before, any sailmaker can give you a quote without measurement, after you decide on the approximate length of the bow sprit and where to put the spinnaker halyard on the mast. We all know the dimensions of the rig well enough to do a quote.

I’m pretty sure, as a sailmaker myself, that you will have to remeasure after you get directions from a sailmaker. the sailmaker needs to have a specific set of measurements and pictures, and since every loft uses different design procedures, they need slightly different inputs.

A picture of the bow will help with the selection and specification of a bow sprit. If you have added stuff to the bow, it matters.

Don’t buy a sail before you decide on the sprit and furler. The sail should be custom built to fit the hardware as well as your boats sailing characteristics. If it’s just a few inches too long on the luff it will not work well at all for close reaching. Really.

When you compare prices, be sure to ask what the square footage is, the sail cloth, and the brand of the anti-torque rope is. The area can vary greatly depending on whether the sail is optimized to sail tight angles or deep angles.

Judy B