I don't see how.
The thing about off wind sailing and a pole is that the pole puts the clew of the jib closer to where it should be given the angle of the sail with respect to the wind. You just can't do that with moving the lead or even an outboard jib lead position. If you imagine the wind flowing over the sail upwind, that is what you would want to happen off the wind. Only, it can't happen with the clew sheeted to the deck in any off wind sailing angle greater than maybe 60 degrees. That's what a pole can do. You can maintain the sail acting as a foil off wind. This can work up to a beam reach when the sail/pole would be forward of the forestay. As we sail further off the wind the sails acts more like a barn door than a foil. But you can still have the jib acting as a foil because the front, maybe 1/3, can be to lee of the headstay and you will see from the tell tales that there is flow over that part of the sail. And with the pole fully extended more of the jib is presented as a barn door to the wind.
I'm a big fan of using a pole. And for cruising it can make a downwind leg so much less annoying from the jib flopping around.
What an excellent post by shemandr, great description!!!!!
You can do the same with a whisker pole and obtain increased jib benefit and efficiency when going
upwind too.
A 'poled out' jib going upwind at less than close hauled will be better shaped along the foot, and if downhauled at the outboard end so that the jib's tack angle is close to the sail designers intentions (the angle that the luff makes with the foot) will have no 'adverse twist'.
Other than its easy to break a whisker/spinnaker pole when going upwind, especially if the boat heels over and the pole / foot of the sail goes underwater, you can really hold the curvature along the foot close to 'perfect'. Without a pole when the jib eased out, there is no physical way to hold the sail to its intended aerodynamic design shape.
In the 'olden days', racing rules permitted the use of a reaching strut (similar to a whisker pole but used for 'upwind' or close/broad reaching). For some obscure reason, in accordance with todays racing rules, the use of a jib 'pole' was eventually prohibited for use ON THE LEE SIDE of a boat and the reaching strut, etc. simply disappeared, probably because the old 'heavy' poles were slow to take down during close quarter maneuvering and thus were the cause of more than a few collisions.
The 'hoyt boom' is one of the only current 'jib pole' still being used with modest widespread usage; but only found on heavy 'cruising' boats and never found on 'racing boats'. The hoyt boom holds the
proper TWIST (damn little !!!!) at
all sailing angles !!!!!!!!
So, if youre on a long straight line tack and want to experience MUCH MUCH BETTER jib performance when at
less than close hauled, try your whisker pole - to keep that correct foot shape of your jib; dont have/use a pole and you will ALWAYS have the foot section of a jib 'overtrimmed' (probably the reason that large LP jibs are 'passe' on modern maxed-out boats). Do so and you'll immediately start to strongly question the current 'vogue' discussions and recommendations about 'twist'.
The only thing with a poled-out jib (upwind or down wind) is ... have a means to quickly drop/disconnect the pole and be instantly ready to tack/gybe. Do have means to 'pull down' and also a means to 'pull up' on the outboard end of the pole to get the 'best' shape/speed. Set the poled-out 'shape' of the jib sail according to proper tell-tales flowing ... and you'll be 'flying'.
