Sailmaker steers your boat?

[Quoddy]

The sailmaker cuts twist into the sail. Upwind, for the present wind speed you sheet in until all telltales are flying. Now the twist is right. Without a traveler or powerful vang, for vang sheeting you cannot ease or trim without changing the twist. So if you maintain the right angle of attack you can steer one and only one heading.
If due to windage or waves that heading can’t be maintained with any speed, your out of luck. So without vang sheeting or a traveler the sailmaker steers your boat.
Is this basically how it is?

 

[Jackdaw]

I think you are asking if it is true that without vang and/or traveler, you will quite often have less than optimal mainsail shape?

That's true.

If you cannot change the angle of attack and twist of mainsail independently, your shape will suffer as the wind pipes up.

 

[cephius (Dave)]

It all comes down to design compromise. In a low cost trailer boat like the H260 you won't have the controls / sails for high performance. If you add them to this boat, you will see minimal improvement.

I'm a big believer in getting the type of boat that meets your sailing needs.

 

[Gunni]

Tuck a reef, ease your sheets, bear off to a better angle to the waves, an easier motion, and more speed.

 

[Joe]

what's the alternative? you can't blame trim limitations on the sailmaker. he's just going to try and give you the best compromising shape for your boat. If I were you and it bothered me that much, I'd add a vang or a traveller..... or both.

 

[Quoddy]

Thanks for suggestions

Thanks for the responses. I was taking a humorous look at how the sail design is the base of all our trim efforts. Most tutorials and instructions leave this out.

 

[RichH]

Yes, essentially you are correct in that the sailmaker cuts the sail to have the normally expected 'twist' for sailing in 12-15kts. of windstrength when (computer) designing the sail.... and this assumes 'normal' tensions in mainsheet or jibsheet, etc. This also depends (can be or should be included in the calculations) on the normal expected wave height and wave shape/period, the crew weight, boat weight and bow shape, ability of the helmsman, etc.

Sail 'shaping' (most cruisers never do this) brings the sail to the optimum design shape that the sailmaker intended. 'Trim' is entirely different as it only attempts to get the optimum performance based on the 'present' sail shape, and if that 'shape' is wrong you'll never get to 'optimum'.

Simple speak: an off the shelf/stock sail will usually be 'cut' to be flown in 12-15kts in 2-3ft. waves and the boat steered by an inattentive or inaccurate helmsman.