Asymetric Thoughts
Two of you can easily handle an asymetric with a sock.Sailed within its limits (Carlos has them right, although we have sailed 60 degrees off the wind in light air) the sail is quite stable, and easy to trim.With careful attention to where the lines need to go, you can set the asymetric in its sock while still flying your jib/genny. Then the changeover is as quick as furling the jib, and raising the sock to deploy the asymetric.Although a full spinnaker is faster dead down wind, the experts and polars tell us that the fastest course downwind is gybing around from 140 degrees on starboard to 140 degrees on port. By the way, this is true for a full as well as an asymetric spinnaker. If you asymetric has two sheets long enough to fly it dead ahead off the bow while gybing, the maneuver can be quickly done.We don't race the Lady Lillie, but we have cruised for hundreds of hours on our Doyle asymetric - its a great sail, adding speed, pleasure, and converting up to 20 percent of our time from motoring in light breezes to sailing.DavidLady Lillie