head foil systems

[megan]

We want to put a head foil sysem on our boat. We have used a head foil 2 on another boat and wonder if anyone has experience with other sysems such as Tuff Luff or Harken Carbo - preferences, likes, dislikes? Thanks Megan

[Gregg]

I have a Tuff-Luff, certainly a user friendly system from my perspective. Especially when doing a peel.

Gregg

[dave]

Megan, without trying to talk you out of it, what's your reason[s] for wanting to go with a foil?

[LarryE-old]

I have said this before, if I went back to a foil, my foredeck person, my wife, would resign.
We find that hanks work much better for us.
Changed over all my headsails.
However we race mostly W/L. If we did distance races I would still have a foil.

[dave]

I have said this before too: If foils had ANY advantage on the race course then all of the top dog J24 sailors would use them [class legal] and NONE do!!!!!! I think that boat owners like them for the "Gucci" factor, but they aren't the ones up there having to pull sails down, lash them to the fore deck and make sure that they are prefed for the next hoist either!!!!!

[megan]

We raced for years with a head foil 2 on our O'Day 30 and loved it much more than hanks. And, I am our foredeck crew. Of course the O'Day was a pretty stable platform with more room on the foredeck. It was always a pain for us to change headsails and with the foil we would pull one up under the other, drop the other and tack or keep going. I think you had posted some info on changing headsails with hanks, We'll try to find it and re-read. We're also not as spry as we used to be.

[Marionete]

I grew up with hanks on a Cal 25 and learned to read the spider webs real well to set halyard/luff tension. Much more difficult to "see" with a headfoil.

But Dave, I am really shocked you have not mentioned all that weight in those darn bronze hanks!

[dave]

Wight only matter when pitching is an issue ans you don't have to use brass hanks. Snaps tabs are light as a feather and actually get the sail luff right behind the headstay! There is not a more competitive racing fleet in the world than the J24 Class, and their Nationals and Worlds are almost always sailed in bay or ocean conditions with lots of chop and waves, which means pitching. Even at that, NONE of them suffer through using a foil for the simple reason that having someone on the bow even for a fairly brief period of time is SO MUCH MORE costly than having hanks on the headstay.

I'm speaking of small keelboats here like the 7.9, J24, etc. The larger the boat and the larger the crew the less damage is done by having one person move from the rail to the bow.

IF I lived somewhere that I was doing lots of point to point and distance races I MIGHT go for a foil for the reasons that Megan gives. The fact remains that having a crew off of the rail and on the bow while going upwind, ESPECIALLY IN WAVES, will hurt you so much that you had better have MANY more miles ahead of you to hopefully break even [let alone make up] for the ground lost by changing to what you think to be the "right " sail.

[megan]

I'm missing something - isn't someone on the bow in either case (hanks or head foil)? Dave, I think you had some description some where in the forum about your changing hanked head sails but can't find your comments???

[dave]

Why would someone have to go to the bow with hanks? The sail comes most of the way down by just pulling on the leech after the halyard is blown. Also, as the J24 sailors know, leaving the headsail about 1/3 hoisted fills the gap between the deck and the chute which adds a little downwind drive, so there's really no reason for the sail to HAVE to come all the way down with either setup.

I don't remember what you're speaking of as to changing, but I NEVER change headsails upwind, PERIOD!!! It's just so much easier and far less detrimental to performance to do it on the run. As I said though, I don't do any long distance/point to point racing either.

[Marionete]

Dave;

Do you ever throw in a reef going upwind instead of a headsail change? How many reef points is your main set up for? I had a larger boat a few years back and two reef points seemed to be a better option with a shoal draft boat. The 7.9 is set up with hardware on the boom for two reefing lines as well, but can be used for reefing or with a flattening point above the clew.

But it seems to be popular to only have one reef point more recently -

[dave]

My strong belief is that you never, NEVER reef a fractionally rigged boat, especially one with a huge main when compared to the foretriangle. Having said that I must say again: I'm speaking of around the buoys racing. When going upwind the problem is usually that the sheeting angle of the Genoa/jib is too tight, NOT that there is too much sail up. Rigging up barberhaulers for both sails gets the boat back on it's feet and moving forward again.

Also for the umteenth time: Most sailors don't pull even close to hard enough on the backstay, vang and mainsheet.

Of course there are conditions in which even a jib and full main with a full hiking crew would be overpowered, but when things are being done correctly on the 7.9 that would be somewhere in the high 20's to 30 mph STEADY, not puffs. You should always set up for the lulls not the puffs. Reefing any boat when the lulls are less than reefing conditions just leaves you in a wallowing pig, ESPECIALLY when going downwind!!!

[megan]

Forgot you sail w/l. We sail triangles and longer distances.

[megan]

Dave. We are also used to sailing masthead rig with 170 and smaller main and had to change headsails when the winds came up. Never sailed fractional rig.

[dave]

You are in for a pleasant surprise................................ 170's went out not long after Columbus's third voyage!!!!

A fractional rig with a really big main is a whole different animal. With the old IOR [also known as POS ! ] designs the whole freeking boat was designed to have the lowest possible rating, and they did this by designing boats with terrible sailing qualities: an engineers DREAM!!!! These boats had masthead rigs with very short booms and huge foretriangles, putting most of the driving force in the front of the boat. That's why you needed to start reefing so soon. This design puts so much emphasis on the headsails that it paid to keep the largest one possible flying and just get the mains to disappear!!

Most modern boats are just the opposite: you never reef until you're down to your smallest jib and even then it's usually better to move the jib lead outboard......................................... but alas.................................. nobody does!