: Last night I was looking around a little at small dinghies that I
: might find a suitable sail and hardware from. The lateen rig on
: a sunfish really caught my eye as simple and plentiful. Short so
: it keeps the leverage a little lower. Of course the sale is 75
: Sq feet or roughly 7 meters so it is a really large sail.

: Plus side is it should be easy to find a cheap sunfish and get all
: the hardware.
: Downside is that is a big sail on a little boat. Wonder how hard it
: would be to add reffing points?

Sunfish are still pretty expensive unless they are really beat, Sailfish can sometimes be found fairly cheap (no cockpit so less popular). There are a whole bunch of knock offs around that often can be had fairly cheap, watch out for Phantoms though sails are much larger. Reefing a lateen sail would be interesting, suppose it could be done. 75 square ft. would be fine I'd think since it's very easy to luff, the sail can pivot completely down wind regardless of wind direction since the mast is free standing. Really easy to set up a lateen rig, might be an easy way. (mast step takes a little planning, lots of torque on a free standing mast's step)

Bill H.