HULLS

So both of those are much thinner than our rough 3' hull width guess.

  Ahh.  That would explain the light weight and potential ability to fit into small spaces when collapsed or demounted.


SAIL ATTACHMENT

Hoops are easier, but not tight, particularly on a tapered mast.

  I had hoops on a Norseboat 17.5.  They easily went up and down, and really did allow the mainsail luff to slide to leeward on the mast.  Very elegant. 

  But they were heavy, they would grind on the awlgrip paint (particularly once salt got in there), they would look out of place on a high-tech harryproa, and perhaps most importantly, they couldn't be easily installed and removed from deck level.

An endless line tieing the sails to the masts gets messy when the sail is lowered and the sail tends to blow away when lowered.

  Agreed.  That could be ugly if trying to deal with the sail in a storm.  Plus, threading the line through the mainsail grommets can take a surprisingly long time with such a tall mast.  And if the line fails at any point, it then fails at every point.

So individual ties are required.

  Agreed.  I'd go with dyneema webbing/velcro straps to fasten the mainsail luff to the mast. 

    - If they work as traditional mainsail clew attachments, they'll be more than strong enough for the luff.

    - They will be stiff, heavy, and slippery enough to slide up and down the mast unassisted.

    - If they are dyneema, they'll not only be slippery, but also nearly impervious to UV light.

    - Putting the sail on or taking it off will be even easier than with mast cars.

    - And you could carry a complete set of spares for a could of pounds weight.

    - While never having to worry about losing cars or bearings, or breaking the track and being stuck out on the water.

With some means of tightening them, which is not difficult.  

  Do you mean making them smaller/tighter at the top of the tapered mast, so the luff can be closer to the mast?

  That gets interesting.  I'm not sure if I'd try, but it would be cool if solutions appeared.

whether the lower cost is worth the lower performance...

If a strap is more complicated, than a string, but less so than than a rotating mast/trucks, that's an important distinction...

My thinking is, if the aerodynamic performance is not great, but the sail area is cheap and can be voluminous, then, unless educated otherwise, I think I would choose that.

  The cost of tracks and cars, their maintenance and repairs, and their risks of failure, are huge when compared to straps.  Another few feet of mainsail luff would cost much less than the performance gain of tracks.

  And that's /if/ there's a performance gain with tracks.  There'san argument to be made that tracks will be less efficient, as Rob points out.  If straps, hoops, or ties, allow the luff to move to the leeward edge of the mast, they'll be better than the tracks.


        - Mike

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Posted by: Mike Crawford <mcrawf@nuomo.com>

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