I would like to hear opinions on the effect on boat speed with and without a "headfoil" and/or "Tuffluff" system. I just discovered a crack in my 2 year old "tuffluff" and my friends on "Allegro" have a crack in their 1 year old "headfoil" system" . Using the headfoil system is just a pain (travel and storage). I am thinking about coverting my headsails to hanks. I know two boats at Wayzata that seem not to suffer at all from hanks. They are usually at the top of the 7.9 fleet.
Hi Ron,
We have raced with both hanks and a Tuffluff and find advantages and disadvantages with each. On the foredeck I love the way hanks fly up and down. We have never changed sails upwind so we haven't needed the second track on the Tuffluff. We did however go with the Tuffluff on our latest boat, because we were ripping so many spinnakers during less than perfect take-downs. The spinnaker can catch on the hanks as it is dragged across the forestay and sometimes is pinched as the jib is raised. Hopefully, someone can address issues of sail trim better than I can. We seem to get a little better entry with the Tuffluff, but that may be due to other factors as well. If your spinnaker work is pretty sound, you may really like the hanks.
Ron, I will leave the discussion of the advantages/disadvantages to the experts. but in case you want to fix your cracked tuff luff, I will pass on my experience patching mine with West System. My tuff luff had a 3 inch crack on back side starting at the very top. I sanded the area and then 'flash' oxidized it with a propane torch, then applied a one inch by five inch strip of glass cloth coated with a mixture of West System resin and 404 (adhesive) filler. I was skeptical, but the patch is almost two years old and when I last had the rig down in July, it was still holding just fine.
and my friends on "Allegro" have a crack in their 1 year old "headfoil" system"