The Rock - Part Two - To Furl Or Not To Furl
….stupid title must think of a better one for the next article…
So in the last article I talked about the Fastnet Race and what was involved for the crew. We are now one month into our campaign. Our boat is back in the water and we have had a couple of weekends out on the water so we know what does and doesn’t work.
We have been sailing Jengu now for 7 seasons; albeit with two COVID disrupted years in the middle. Each year we learn a little more and become a little more sophisticated in our sailing. Some weeks it might not look like that but we try to repeat the things that work and understand why the things that don’t work don’t. We strongly believe that it’s foolish to expect a different result if you keep doing the same thing.
So what’s different this year ?
Fastnet is a different proposition to the round the cans racing last year. We will be further from shore and on the boat much longer than than usual for the race so there are a lot of potential changes to make.
We talk about one example here and will explore some of the other changes over the coming weeks.
To Furl or not to Furl ?
J109’s were in general originally supplied with a Harken MKIV furler and foil. There is a lot a conflicting opinion as to whether headsail Furlers are evil when racing. If you hit the internet and Google “drop versus furl jib downwind” I can guarantee there is no consensus.
For most of the last 7 seasons we have run the jib on the Furler. We put the sail up at 9am in the morning sail all day with it like that and take it down at the end of play. It works well if you have an inexperienced crew with a couple of people doing most of the work.
This is our thinking other opinions are equally valid !
We have now reached a level of crew confidence where we think the that dropping the sail is worth the added complexity in the manoeuvres.
We are doing this for the following reasons;
First; on a longer leg you can quite easily transition between 10knots of wind and 25knots. We have headsails on the boat in something like 0-10knots TWS; 10-20knots; 20knots plus wind bands.
When you go back on the wind the last thing you want to do is a sail change before the boat is up to speed. So our logic is that we hoist the spinnaker, drop the jib and maybe even stow it. When we come to drop the spinnaker we can either hoist the original jib or we can swap for something more appropriate to the conditions.
Second; you are reducing windage downwind, you don’t have a jib on the forestay interfering with the airflow to the asymmetric spinnaker and secondly you are reducing weight aloft because the top spinner for the jib can be lowered to deck level with the sail.
There are quite a lot of implications for the way that you sail the boat which we talk about here.
Whats Involved ?
The switch from furling to dropping is relatively straightforward.
If you remove the feeder at the bottom of the foil on the Harken Furler you can drop the top spinner of the Furler down to the top of the furling drum relatively out of the way. If you then refit the feeder in the foil you are ready to go.
Sounds simple but so far this season we have dropped one feeder and one set of Allen keys into the harbour. So we are ordering spares …. Harken will do well out of us this season at the current rate.
How to handle the both Vertical and Horizontal Battens
Most of the Jibs we use have leech battens.
If you have only ever used the Jib on the Furler you will probably only have vertical leech battens (or in a few cases North put roller battens in their Jibs). We asked Elvstrom to add a second set of horizontal batten pockets to all our Jibs. So now the same sails can be furled on the Furler or dropped to the deck.
We have also modified the sail battens themselves.
Elvstrom sail battens are generally held in place with a Velcro strip at the end of the batten pocket.
You can work the Velcro free reasonably easily with a batten pusher but removing the batten itself either involves a multi-tool to drag the batten out of the pocket (see the comment earlier about dropping stuff in the harbour) or waggling the pocket backwards and forwards to persuade the batten out.
Both these processes are time consuming and prone to error so we’ve drilled the ends of the sail battens and put a loop of string through. Its a simple modification that significantly speeds the process of removing the battens; particularly if the bow person has cold fingers and the boat is moving around.
How the sail is flaked into the bag.
We use deck bags so the sail is flaked into the sail bag with the tack at the forward end of the bag.
With vertical leech battens you can’t flake the sail into the bag the as battens are in the way; you have to take the battens out.
With the horizontal pockets in use we can in theory now drop the sail straight into the bag and fold it (carefully) in half. I think are more likely to remove the battens and roll the sail bag into a brick; but it does give us the option to get the sail off the fore deck quickly so that it can be dealt with below.
We now need to make sure the flaking results in the luff of the sail and the luff tape being in line with the forward end of the sail. That will make it significantly easier for the bow person to feed the luff tape into the feeder and up the foil. So we will need to rework the flakes/folds in each of the Jibs a task that is a great deal easier to do on dry land.
How the sail is secured on the foredeck
When the sail is dropped but not stored in the bag or below it needs needs to be restrained !
We really really don’t want to have a Jib fall off the boat; they are expensive and it would slow us down. So we have bungie cord on the foredeck to keep the sail in place. It makes a great day bed for the bow person.
Crew tasks are more complex.
The crew tasks are significantly different.
The Pit and the Bow need to do more work on the hoist and drop. It effectively takes the Pit to hoist, the Trimmer to trim and the Bow to feed the jib into the foils track; so we have added complexity. With the Furled sail even the helm could at a pinch set the Jib at the downwind mark.
Summary
So we’ve made the decision to go completely with hoists and drops while racing for the whole season.
We want to drill the same approach into all of the crew, even those not doing the Fastnet so we have a consistent Jengu way of doing things.
Our home club, London Corinthian, are running a number of club race boats this year in various events taken mixed ability sailors from the club offshore. They have taken the decision to develop a club play book that defines the way that the boats will be sailed and how each manoeuvre performed. Its been developed with the club coaches and makes a lot of sense.
We want to take the same approach with the 20 or so people that rotate through Jengu over the year; we will have a consistent Jengu way of doing things.
So there is more to write about as we progress. I might even write something about the collection of multi coloured dry bags we’ve purchased to ween the crew off their carrier bag habit or the 50Litre baggage allowance; try getting all your sailing gear for a weekend into a 50Litre bag, its not as much as it sounds.
But that’s for another day…