: Heck Bill you've got me looking at used wind surfing sails. Put a bid on one
: this morning. I know they slip on the mast with a pocket along the luff
: which I'm guessing is sealed at the masthead like a sock. If that's so,
: then for lowering and raising the sail in bad weather conditions I would
: cut the end of the sock off and raise and lower with a rope.

: John

Hi John

First the bad news.

If that sail you purchased is not a decade old it will be a fully battened affair which needs a very stiff mast and hundreds of pounds of nownhaul tention to set properly. the way these sails are designed to cope with gusts is for the leach to open at the head and wind to spill out of the top of the sail without causing the turbulence that occours with sails that are depowered by sheeting out.

Without proper downhaul tension this will not occourr. In fact batton tension and downhaul tension cause these sails to rotate at the luf into a hard wing shape. The luff will not feather even in irons. These sails will give you forward drive even sheeted out and be awkward oversheeted. For their size they are very powerful.

These sails are just not reefable.

For the luff exhaust to work it is also essential that the mast is stayed at the boom and not at the masthead.

: then for lowering and raising the sail in bad weather conditions I would
: cut the end of the sock off and raise and lower with a rope.

I can gaurantee that you will not be able to apply anywhere near enough force on a pully system while at sea to give you the required tension.

Now for the good news.

Since the sail you got was so cheap you will be able to adulterate it without too much concern.

I would suggest that you consider cutting the battens down by about one quarter or so and sewing the pockets to enable you to support the leach and at the same time take the fixed rotation out of the luff. You might consider leaving out one or two battons all together.

This will enable you to luff the sail as usual and still fill it more or less normally when sheeted properly for the wind.

Without the required downhaul tension the sail will not set as perfectly as it would normally and will not exhaust through the head, but you will still have a powerful rig, with a fuller luff and larger angle of attack. Great for reaching. Not so optimised for beating.

It should now be possible to arrange some sort of reefing system provided you mast is thin enough. The cut on the sail will make it hard to adjust on a full thickness mast.

If you are staying the mast at its head you will need it to be strong.

After all this you may consider the merits of a golf umbrella.

The pic is me at tahilla. That is a 4.5 sq mtr sail (small) moving me (200 lbs at the time) at perhaps i5 - 20 mph in the bottom end of a force five.

Et