MacGregorSailors.com

Hi All,

I've been paging my way through all the Mac mods (there are so many!!). Came across one about a Boom-less Main Sail (put up by flyboy26m five years ago) http://goo.gl/Kd8jFK. I can see the advanatages but was what about the disadvantages?

From pictures on the web I have seen that the shape of a Boom-less Main Sail is very different (into the wind) ... Will that work well with the rotating mast?



All the best.
Neo

How would it ever keep any shape??

DaveC426913 wrote:How would it ever keep any shape??

It wouldn't. And there has to be a boom in the bottom of the sail since the line is not attached at the clew.

Click on the link above .... flyboy26m has already done this on a Mac (as pictured) and Boom-less Main Sails have been around for many years. http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.ph ... a-Mainsail
Would be good if "flyboy26m" could comment on his Boom-less Main Sail.

From the photo it looks like there could be a long, heavy duty batten running along the foot of the sail that would help maintain sail shape, though not as well as a boom (?)

seahouse wrote:From the photo it looks like there could be a long, heavy duty batten running along the foot of the sail that would help maintain sail shape, though not as well as a boom (?)

Agreed

Would be so good to have more information on this

I would have expected it to be sheeted at the clew to a point much further aft. Not sure what to make of that pic. As sea house says, they seem to have created an internal boom in that pic - based on sheet location and sail shape. Looks kind of light for my tastes.

Neo- why don't you try pm-ing flyboy.

Jimmyt wrote:I would have expected it to be sheeted at the clew to a point much further aft. Not sure what to make of that pic. As sea house says, they seem to have created an internal boom in that pic - based on sheet location and sail shape. Looks kind of light for my tastes.

And it appears to be in light wind. The sail already has vertical wrinkles and is telling you to put more out haul on. There is not enough of the picture to see if there is somthing on the clew to pull aft.

RGF wrote:Neo- why don't you try pm-ing flyboy.

Will do, thanks

grady wrote:

Jimmyt wrote: There is not enough of the picture to see if there is somthing on the clew to pull aft.

There must be, otherwise the sail would simply hinge on a line from mainsheet block to masthead, and just fold in half.

DaveC426913 wrote:

grady wrote:

Jimmyt wrote: There is not enough of the picture to see if there is somthing on the clew to pull aft.

There must be, otherwise the sail would simply hinge on a line from mainsheet block to masthead, and just fold in half.

If there was somthing on the clew then there would be no need for the sheet control in the center. It appears there is a bar in the sail acting like a boom but not giving you the control you need like a normal boom. That picture is not of a boom-less main sail.

Seems as though I got misquoted somehow.

I agree that the sail appears to have an internal spine or something acting like a boom. It is not what I would consider 'boom-less'.

Mainsail without a boom has been around for centuries now. It's just that nowadays we all call it a JIB.

Back in the olden days it was common for a main to have no boom, in fact they would have SEVERAL mains with no boom. Sometimes even the tack was not even attached to the mast or a boom - you had a line from the tack going down to the deck and another line going from the clew to the aft or to a "gin pole" and the only attachment of the sail to the mast was at the head. There were no such things as a mast slot or mast track - later near the 17th century they started putting wooden rings on the mast to carry the luff like we do with sail slugs but the sail was always footless.


Very common hundreds of years ago.

I enjoyed 7 years of Hobie Wave ownership back in the 90's. The Wave uses a boomless main, but does have a fully battened main which makes it possible.

http://www.hobiecat.com/sail/wave/specs/