+xI just listened to Kirsten Neuschäfer’s interview on the OCC news page
https://www.oceancruisingclub.org/home/news/2719 in which she talks about using both forestay grooves at the same time for twin head sails. She says that such a configuration might damage the foil and, instead she had her twin sails stitched together. I’m pretty sure many of us fly twin sails simultaneously (one in each groove) and wondered if anyone has suffered foil damage as a consequence?Simon
Hi Simon,
Those of us who are near professional riggers, especially those preparing offshore boats, might ask their riggers the question.
No experience myself, but purely looking at the mechanics of a jib on a foil, one might make the argument that it is not wise to have a sail in each foil slot and pulling in opposite directions. Foils and their bolt rope slot are designed to have the load come directly out of the slot and the load is born by the wall on each side of the slot.
When running with 2 headsails in side-by-side slots the load is going to be born by only one side of the foil slot and at right angles to the expected load direction: not how it was designed to be loaded, I suspect.
Since we are talking about a downwind sail configuration, the loads with be far less, so I suspect that skippers can do so without a problem although damage might occur in an unexpected squall.
For downwind sailing I have run for days offshore with a poled out jib (easily reefed by just rolling in and out) and a mainsail (easily reefed going downwind, but it helps to have slippery mainsail track). This has the helm well balanced and gives me great flexibility to respond to wind changes: more of an issue in the North Atlantic than in the trades of the Pacific.
Random thoughts, My best, Dick Stevenson, s/v Alchemy