should I cut my headsail down

[joe]

I have a 3year old uk tape drive 155 headsail. Last year I bought a new 3dl kevelar to rplace my tape drive. My sailmaker thought it would be a good use of the old tapedrive to cut it down to 135 and use it as a number two. My question is would it be wise to do this or should I just keep it for 4or 5 years and start using it when my 3dl gets tired. I am trying to put together a winning combination for this summers long distance Mackinaw race.

 

[Bill Colombo]

Recuts

Joe, A lot depends on the condition and cloth weight of the sail you want to recut. A good #2 should be relatively flat since it needs to perform in a higher wind range. Also, a #2 probably requires more kevlar than you have in the TapeDrive #1 genoa. My guess is that you probably wouldn't be happy with the result. One of the problems with recutting any "string" sail such as D4, 3DL, or TapeDrive is that you would have to cut off a corner where all the yarns converge to a point. The structural load map is compromised at that corner and the resulting sail usually does't work quite as well. I think your best bet would be to continue to use the old sail as is for practice and "beer-can " races. In this way you will extend the life of the new genoa, saving it for important races like the Mac.Bill C.