Working alongside a US-based designer and boat building company, Burlington ON’s MarsKeel Technology recently provided a dissimilar metal combination keel for a 68-foot modern classic cruiser/racer.
I was helping teach my daughters to drive a 5-speed manual over the last while, and they have gotten very good at it. The clutch has survived, and they willingly take that car when they need it, so I think that is a win. I only wish my customers would figure out the 3 gears they need to race a sailboat!
Sails are attached to the sailboat rig using several different systems. Let’s begin with mainsails. The most basic attachment is with a boltrope that fits into a mast groove. This is very secure, and the sail is very well supported along the luff edge.
Sailing really is a simple sport, just you and the wind and waves. And the boat, an infernal contraption made of twisted ropes, slipping cleats and flapping sails. Ok, so sailing is simple when you tame Hydra’s nest and get all the ropey bits correct.
Even after 30 years in the business, I still love thumbing through the pages of Canadian Yachting magazine – the beautiful new boats, the latest electronics or sailing gear. I particularly like reading the advertisements describing something that I may or not know anything about. “Lighter, faster, stronger, brighter”.
Many sailors get their sails into the sail loft for inspection at the end of the sailing season for a professional inspection, recuts and repairs. The sailmakers can quickly assess the condition, get the sail hung up on their pulling rig, check the shape of the sail, and easily take care of damaged stitching.
The Weeknight Grand Prix! There are more keelboats racing using a performance handicapping system like PHRF on any given night than all One Design fleets put together. There are some excellent measurement rule systems as well to get a performance handicap, but none are as easy to implement at the club level as PHRF.
Over the last month we have been busy in the loft getting customers sails recut for the next sailing season. Two of the projects were interesting recut jobs. One involved an Asymmetric Spinnaker that wasn’t asymmetric enough to qualify for racing, and the other was a modern offshore one design boat from Europe with a Furling Asymmetric Spinnaker.
Do you really need a spinnaker for your cruising sailboat? Probably not, unless you are prepared to put it up some of the time. Half of cruising customers will never sail with a spinnaker, and that is fine.
Over the last decade, sailcloth weaving equipment has evolved and allowed the production of low crimp warp oriented woven cloth of medium to heavy weights. We have had light weight warp wovens of 200g/m2 (4oz) or lighter for much longer than that, but the finer denier weaves of light sailcloth allowed that with older looms and setups.
Last issue we covered types of headsail UV protective covers. All of these covers can be made of many different cover cloths, and I will give you the low down on how to choose what material is best for your application.
Did I ever mention how much I like headsail furling? I’ve been club racing our 30’ cruising boat lately, and it has been easily the equal to two more crew members on board. When you are double handing with a now 14 year old, with a spinnaker (Asymmetric in a Sock), the headsail furling is the only thing that keeps us from sailing off the course to handle sails.
At the start of the season, many boat owners tend to do some things the hard way. Here are some tips to get you sailing in less time, and with better outcomes. Furling Lines – Furling system rope that squishes flat, tends to bury itself in the spooled up drum if you are sailing reefed.
French multinational Michelin has announced its Wing Sail Mobility project (WISAMO) solution – an automated, telescopic, inflatable wing that can be fitted on all types of vessels, including cargo ships and pleasure craft.
Every boat with a jib attached to a stay has headstay sag. If every boat has it, what does it do, and how do you control it.
Everyone is always talking about mast bend; what is it, and what does it do? There are two types of mast bend. Fore and aft bend, and sideways bend. Sideways bend, in the below photo, is the least common type of bend that sailors talk about, unless they are in some particular racing classes where it can help tune the sails.
