MacGregorSailors.com

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Trumpetguy,

Be careful not to oversheet (pull in too tight) the genoa or you will loose speed and heel too much. You can go by the tell tales if you have them: the outside one should be flowing back steady and the inside one should be steady or even breaking away a little from the sail. If the outside one breaks away that's bad, your loosing your laminar flow and drive. Another way is to let out the genoa until it starts to luff and pull it back in to just barely get rid of the luffing. In general it's better to have things sheeted out too far than sheeting in too far--"when in doubt, let it out."

Do you play trumpet? I had a trumpet player on my sailboat in a canyon and he played the finale to Haydn's trumpet concerto in Eb. Very cool echo!

Daniel

jib or genoa..........the same question my sailmaker did to me last week, when i ordered a new head sail.
Cause the hull, the shape, ant the kind of sailboat the mac is, i choiced a genoa.
I dont like sailing upwind, the mac doesnt sail that way,im too lazy to mount a spee everytime i want sailing downwind, so the best choice is a 150 genoa.
When i want to try sailig upwind, i roll it and make it like a jib.
Sure a real jib will works better, but i dont mind about it.

I have the 150 genny on the CDI furler for the light winds we often get on the Hudson - its often overpowered when we hit the salt water on the Cape with ocean fetches etc..

If I roll it in to the size of a jib, I often dont lose speed but point better...I dont have track to quantify this but the boat stands up straighter too, which is good for the cruising crew. I think it would be even better with a real jib of course.

One convenience note - I run a spare jib sheet through the front track and cars which helps get the headsail sheeted in tightly this makes it a lot quicker to re-sheet the furled genny - roll it up, switch sheets, roll it out in jib mode.

Dont ever put your finger in the ring to hold the sail while switching sheets...a friend of mine did this once, and only once.

Do you call a furled genny a jib, genny, or other???

This is really a great thread.

Because I don't do any sailing from Oct.-April, this has been a great refresher course.

Thanks Trumpetguy


Ray

NiceAft
Thanks for the points of sail, It gave me something to toy with while monitoring a boring process. I have often thought that to help the sailors who are perceptually challenged aboard to trim things, I would put a chart at the helm like the points of sail, but PoS really isn’t helpful when they are trying to strike a heading and figure out where to put the sails. So I cut up your image and pasted it onto a CD-rom and added an outer cutout (actually a tracing of the bottom of the CD holder). Now if you rotate the inner circle (the CD with images attached) while pointing the heading where you want to go, it gives a quick visual image of where to start setting the sails. Of course I will clean it up, but I like it for showing my family members what’s happening.
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What I've always thought would be real cool is if someone took the time to do some polar charts for the Mac. It's normally only done for higher perfomance boats but it would sure answer a lot of questions if we knew the possible perfomance for various points of sail and wind speed. I gathered a little data once thinking I might try to do this but then I decided I'd rather be sailing and drinking a beer than gathering data!

BB

if someone took the time to do some polar charts for the Mac

These would be great, but I dont plan on sailing that far North soon....

Catigale wrote:If I roll it [genny] in to the size of a jib, I often dont lose speed but point better......One convenience note - I run a spare jib sheet through the front track and cars which helps get the headsail sheeted in tightly this makes it a lot quicker to re-sheet the furled genny - roll it up, switch sheets, roll it out in jib mode.

Hi Catigale,

I'm wondering if, when you furl your genny to working jib size, if you find that the clew is a fair bit higher than the standard jib, making sheeting tougher on the short inboard tracks. IOW - have you found yourself wishing for longer jib tracks when you do this? Thanks,

~ Bob

Tangentair,

It looks good

When you decide to market it, make certain we get a steep discount


Ray

and remember for equivalent sail area... the rolled gennie center of pressure is higher than the center of pressure for the jib, thus more heel with the rolled gennie for a given boat speed on a beat.

only becomes an issue when I have ...er......crew......

I'm wondering if, when you furl your genny to working jib size, if you find that the clew is a fair bit higher than the standard jib, making sheeting tougher on the short inboard tracks. IOW - have you found yourself wishing for longer jib tracks when you do this? Thanks,

You can run the sheets on the inside of the stays for going upwind but it's a hassle because you have to restring the sheets if you go offwind.

BB

BB,

I don't think it's worth the effort. Too much work, even for a sailor


Ray

One convenience note - I run a spare jib sheet through the front track and cars which helps get the headsail sheeted in tightly this makes it a lot quicker to re-sheet the furled genny - roll it up, switch sheets, roll it out in jib mode.

Steph

Could you run that by me again? Are you saying you double sheet your Genny? Running one set aft to the cockpit and another set inside through the Jib cars to the winches at all times?

Hmmmmmm.... very interesting.

G

Before I bought my 15 months ago, I had NEVER sailed before - - - now I sail at least 4 days a week. In Southern California I rarely unfurl my Genoa full out, usually I use it LIKE a jib so it doesn't quite reach the mast and tacking when singlehanded is easier. We pretty much have winds out on the Santa Monica Bay (once PAST the breakwater of MDR) which, with a jib configuration, allow the to sail between 4.0 and 6.5 MPH. very regularly. I usually keep the Genoa unfurled only about 70%, and feel like I have more control that way. When I am out of the open ocean and back in the channel headed back to the dock I will sometimes unfurl the Genoa all the way and go wing and wing, usually at 3.0 to 5.0 MPH..

In any evnt, I think that the furling system for the Genoa which allows me to have choices and control easily is of huge benefit to me, and although I still need a great more knowledge, sailing has now become a passion

Rick