That's quite a wardrobe, Don. I'll be interested to see how the Doyle square top mainsail turns out. I bet it's your favourite.
I'm particularly keen to know how you manage the headboard on the square top mainsail. The sails from the factory have a clever system whereby the headboard is drawn towards the mast by the halyard. (see pics below from a US sister ship) The alternative is to clamber part way up the mast in order to pin the top batten to the mast track before the sail is hoisted. Or else use the Doyle 'Anomaly' headboard http://www.doylesails.com/anomaly/ which adds another $900 to the cost of a mainsail. Personally, I think the factory system as shown in these pictures is fine.
Hi Gravy
Not sure what the plans are but hopefully the anomaly headboard will be used as i am to old and fat to be climbing masts 
Regards Don
I love how the old Gaff rig has regenerated. How does the anomaly headboard look when your down to the third reef?
Hi All,
We have had a couple of races on her so far and she is a nice thing to sail
We raced on Saturday in a shortened race due to no wind at the start but eventually when the sea breeze came in we had a good run up the river with the symmetrical spinnaker and clocked her at 8.8 knots and tonight we did a twilight in a 5 boat race and started 22 mins behind a Marauder 27, 17 mins behind a Doven 30, 11 mins behind a Swanson 36 and 3 mins in front of a Elliott 7.8
Winds were mostly steady at around 10 to 15 knots with a few lighter patches but we managed a win after approx 65 mins of sailing by about 2 mins with standard Dacron sails
Regards Don
Hi all
Her new square top main was fitted today and Nick the sail maker was on board to see how it and the modified head sail off the previous boat worked in today's winds of up to 24 knots and to offer as bit of set up advice
Also the top diagonal batten needs to be removed to stow the sail as she has a conventional headboard
The boat will be racing tomorrow (Sunday) but unfortunately i wont be on board (i don't do the 4 Sunday races we have each season as we go to church) but the forecast is for around 5 knots and it will be interesting to see if the extra 3 square meters of sail area over the standard main makes a difference in the light stuff
Regards Don
Great looking sails Don. Can you confirm the dimensions and area of the new mainsail please?
The standard main is 30.7 sqm and the factory square-top has a 1m chord at the head to produce 34.1 sqm. Is the new main the same as the factory square top which is 11% bigger?
I'm looking at stretching the envelope with a 1.4m square top to create a 125% mainsail for my 349. Sailmaker arrives on Tuesday to measure the rig.
I took delivery of my new square-top mainsail the week before last. Here is the sketch from the sail loft - Hood Sails of Brookvale, Sydney, the sail as delivered and an action shot of my crew at work. The 25% bigger mainsail makes up nicely for the smaller self-tacking jib. We have only had a chance to sail in light and variable winds so far but already we are keeping pace with and overtaking other yachts in our mixed fleet that would normally leave us in their wake, especially off-wind.
Select to expand quoteGravy7 said..
I took delivery of my new square-top mainsail the week before last. Here is the sketch from the sail loft - Hood Sails of Brookvale, Sydney, the sail as delivered and an action shot of my crew at work. The 25% bigger mainsail makes up nicely for the smaller self-tacking jib. We have only had a chance to sail in light and variable winds so far but already we are keeping pace with and overtaking other yachts in our mixed fleet that would normally leave us in their wake, especially off-wind.
How does the larger main effect your sail balance? Weather helm? Do you have any way of adding underwater area, like a centreboard?
Good questions Yara. I did think that there might have been an increase in weather helm with most of the additional area being added to the roach of the mainsail. With the old conventional 'pin head' main the Jeanneau 349 is so perfectly balanced that she will sail upwind in gusty conditions for 10 minutes at a time without having to lock or even touch the wheel.
So I was very pleasantly surprised to find that, at least in winds in up to 15 knots which is all we have encountered so far, she still has the same balance and fingertip control with the fat head main.
As far as adding a centreboard goes, no, we have just the fixed fin keel and twin rudders.
Gravy,
Very nice mate, she looks great.
Do you find you need more mainsheet tension (stop the leech opening up the top) compared to the pinhead sail?
Interestingly both sails have too much luff round in the mid luff with the mast set up.
Might need to ease the D2s a very small amount.
Select to expand quoteshaggybaxter said..
Gravy,
Very nice mate, she looks great.
Do you find you need more mainsheet tension (stop the leech opening up the top) compared to the pinhead sail?
Thanks Shags. Yes, the fathead sail is very sensitive to vang, and mainsheet tension. Although we don't have a traveller, upwind we can control the head and the leech quite effectively with the mainsheet which runs from a bridle forward of the companionway. And yes, it does need more tension than the pinhead sail.
The other control that is critical is the Cunningham Eye and it may be that we have too much tension on that in the photo resulting in the draft in the mid-height area being a tad too far forward.
I recently added a fine tune to the mainsheet to make it easier to get the tension required by the bigger sail and eliminate much of the twist.
The 'German' mainsheet system has double end so now one end is terminated with a low friction ring through which a second line is led giving a 2:1 purchase on that end of the sheet. Simple and effective!
Hi Gravy
Your new main looks good
What are the red and grey lines in the jammers beside the yellow mainsheet used for
The reason i ask is that it looks like with the 2 to 1 setup you now have you would need to have the yellow mainsheet on the winch all the time to hold tension and this would prevent you from using the winch for any thing else
Regards Don
Yes, that's true Don. But the other lines are spinnaker halyard (red) and first reefing line (grey) so that means that for round the buoys racing there is no problem dedicating the aft starboard winch to the main fine tune.
Loving the new main BTW. For late summer and winter racing when there is often light breeze, we have reverted to the standard 110% genoa and she fairly flies compared to the old set-up of pin head main and self-tacking jib.
The only problem I have is that the second top batten is often hard to pop after gybing in light air. It sometimes requires sheeting on and coming up to a 90 degree reach to get it to flop into shape. Probably needs a lighter batten for soft pressure days.
Select to expand quoteGravy7 said..
Yes, that's true Don. But the other lines are spinnaker halyard (red) and first reefing line (grey) so that means that for round the buoys racing there is no problem dedicating the aft starboard winch to the main fine tune.
Loving the new main BTW. For late summer and winter racing when there is often light breeze, we have reverted to the standard 110% genoa and she fairly flies compared to the old set-up of pin head main and self-tacking jib.
The only problem I have is that the second top batten is often hard to pop after gybing in light air. It sometimes requires sheeting on and coming up to a 90 degree reach to get it to flop into shape. Probably needs a lighter batten for soft pressure days.
In racing dinghy's, popping the batten on light days is usually done as the boom is coming across the centre, hold the main sheet for a moment till it flicks, then let it out. Will be a bit harder to do with your setup, but a preventer could be used mid gybe just for the sake of popping the batten.
I like the mini adjuster. If you change the orientation of the yellow rope so the clutch output goes to the winch and the other side goes to a fixed point (could even be just a bow line around the base of the winch), it will free up the winch for the other lines.
Select to expand quotelydia said..
Interestingly both sails have too much luff round in the mid luff with the mast set up.
Might need to ease the D2s a very small amount.
Hi Lydia
Is it correct that easing the D2's would increase the bend in the mast
Regards Don
Select to expand quoteGravy7 said..
I took delivery of my new square-top mainsail the week before last. Here is the sketch from the sail loft - Hood Sails of Brookvale, Sydney, the sail as delivered and an action shot of my crew at work. The 25% bigger mainsail makes up nicely for the smaller self-tacking jib. We have only had a chance to sail in light and variable winds so far but already we are keeping pace with and overtaking other yachts in our mixed fleet that would normally leave us in their wake, especially off-wind.
Hi Gravy
On Jeffs boat when we haven't got bags to drop the lines into so we open up the little windows on each side and drop the lines into the cabin . It keeps the cockpit tidy and they don't seem to get caught up on each other
Also when Nick from Doyle's fitted the new main on Jeffs he tied a figure of eight in each side of the bridle to shorten it and give a bit more distance between the main sheet blocks when the main was sheeted in tight
We we have been trying to get the headsail to set a bit better and have fitted lines to move the friction rings forward and aft as well as the standard up down in out adjustment from the factory
Regards Don
