Anyone have tips on genoa staysail trim. I am finding that overtrim by just a few mm of sheet on the staysail and undertrim by an equivalent amount on the genoa with the main also trimmed on the tight side seems to give best speed.
Shorthanded or solo sailing so autopilot steers on apparent and only trim with significant wind change (strength or direction).

bullsails.blogspot.com/2018/11/turbo-sailing-using-your-staysail.html

HI Frant,
I haven't tried with my genoa, but with the gennaker I find it's best with staysail eased till its luffing. Barber haulers are forward and out.
Sheeting on slows me down.
Gennaker is trimmed till all leeward telltales flat.
Cheers,
SB

I agree Shaggy, With a Gennaker or assy and a spinacre staysail it seems that trim is loose even if it luffs occasionally. The genoa staysail seems to require a tighter trim which I guess is logical as you are progressively bending the wind as you move aft. I run the staysail on the genoa car and outboard sheet the genoa. Its a ****ty old dacron furling beast but with a few reef turns it almost becomes an acceptable jibtop. Presently doing 8.1 knots in 14.5 knots true and 068 AWS/098TWA.
I can't bring myself to look at the leech on any of my sails Tony. The main blew the leech out on that repair which I managed to stickyback and stitch together to get to Fiji. They spliced a new leech on in Fiji which cost me more than the sail was worth even at Fiji rates. It looks really good (workmanship wise) but has done nothing for the shape!!
Thats why I am flat out to get back to work as you know how much I need to earn.

Sorry, but, what is a genoa staysail?

Gary

Hi Gary,
To my understanding, a Kite staysail is a higher aspect, high clew, as the extra height of the spinnaker halyard sheave allows more height. More for reaching/running.

A Genoa staysail fills the slot more and is a much lower clew positions/ mini jib. More for reaching. Usually used with a high aspect jib like a jib top.

My staysail setup is a bit of a cross breed. It also acts as my downsized jib, equivalent to a number 3. My genoa is my only headsail till about 25 knots and then furled and on to the staysail. Points better than the genoa, you just need wind.

Hey shaggy are you running a jib top on a bowsprit ? as well as a main and inner furler ?

HI SandS,
No proper jib top sadly. From pointy bit....
The bowsprit does the deep running vmg kites in bags or socks, and also the gennaker. The gennaker's my heavy air, and reaching, kite, ie; wire luff/furler, flat.

The forestay is the genoa, or my headsail, on a flat deck furler. It does overlap, but not past the spreaders.

The inner forestay is for the staysail. Hanks on a soft removable inner forestay.

Our optimal speed mode is gennaker and staysail with one or two reefs in the main at 110-130twa. in strong winds we can go deeper but no more than 150 with the gennaker. Which is good, because my deep VMG kites can't go past 30kn which the gennaker can.

SandS,
Pictures work better for me !






Edit: Hmph. Looking at that I'm missing a Code 0. Wonder if Santa will be extra specially nice???

sounds like a good set up . ..... so the geniker has its own wire to tension the luff and its own furler ? is that right ?

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SandS said..
sounds like a good set up . ..... so the geniker has its own wire to tension the luff and its own furler ? is that right ?

Yep, you got it. Hoists on its own halyard with a dedicated swivel, it's a Profurl furler on the gennaker, the spool is really small and light and I like their endless line furl, it works really well.
Edit: Sorry,I should add the tack of the gennaker is the only one to go to a dyneema loop on the bowsprit. This sits right next to the turning block for the tack line for the loose luffed kites. That's my only real gripe about the gennaker, you have to retract the pole to clip\ unclip the tack on.
Edit edit: I just looked up the gennaker furler, it's a Profurl Nex 2.5 in case its of interest!

nice work Shaggy !!! enjoy !!

Hey Frant,
Whilst I was looking for my part no, I found a possible solution for ya mate when you're repairing the luff again! Just bang a couple a these in..
Rob the odd bank or two beforehand, but it does make for a nice clean foredeck.....

Simply put, never oversheet a staysail of either genre (or any headsail for that matter). It disrupts the slot and Venturi effect.
As Frant pointed out, it is sometimes needed to over sheet the Main to keep the dual slots of Main, staysail and Genoa/jib top/ yankee open and even

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shaggybaxter said..
Hey Frant,
Whilst I was looking for my part no, I found a possible solution for ya mate when you're repairing the luff again! Just bang a couple a these in..
Rob the odd bank or two beforehand, but it does make for a nice clean foredeck.....

Priced one of those for a 60ft ketch with a 1/2" forestay the other day.
NOT including the forestay, about $22k ????????

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rumblefish said..

shaggybaxter said..
Hey Frant,
Whilst I was looking for my part no, I found a possible solution for ya mate when you're repairing the luff again! Just bang a couple a these in..
Rob the odd bank or two beforehand, but it does make for a nice clean foredeck.....

Priced one of those for a 60ft ketch with a 1/2" forestay the other day.
NOT including the forestay, about $22k ????????

Shaggy I think you have found my achillies heel. A pair like that can cost you millions.
I have been fabricating a line of "cruising" structural furlers and will release on the market shortly.
I have left behind a series of "unencumbered" pairs as depicted in my travels!

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Galatea said..
Simply put, never oversheet a staysail of either genre (or any headsail for that matter). It disrupts the slot and Venturi effect.
As Frant pointed out, it is sometimes needed to over sheet the Main to keep the dual slots of Main, staysail and Genoa/jib top/ yankee open and even

HI Galatea,
Out of interest, would you say the same applies if it the boat is a fractional or masthead genoa/jibtop/yankee?
The reason I ask is I'm not happy with my mainsail position, I'm oversheeting too much I think.

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shaggybaxter said..

Galatea said..
Simply put, never oversheet a staysail of either genre (or any headsail for that matter). It disrupts the slot and Venturi effect.
As Frant pointed out, it is sometimes needed to over sheet the Main to keep the dual slots of Main, staysail and Genoa/jib top/ yankee open and even

HI Galatea,
Out of interest, would you say the same applies if it the boat is a fractional or masthead genoa/jibtop/yankee?
The reason I ask is I'm not happy with my mainsail position, I'm oversheeting too much I think.

Shaggy, I think that you have to sail a fast keelboat by the numbers. Unlike a laser or dinghy where you can feel through the helm, mainsheet and boat when you have got it right a fast keelboat with nice sails will have a huge sweetspot where it feels really good on the helm. The trimmers really have to work on what they see is the effect of tweeks on speed. To me that always seems to be sheet the main much closer/harder than is intuative. I think a lot of it comes from looking at the windex/apparent wind at masthead which doesn't account for gradient twist nor the twisting effect of headsail/staysail combination.

Frant is spot on, it is a feel/ numbers game. I have never been on a boat that felt bad that went well!
The fractional/ masthead debate is interesting. The Fractional a bit more difficult as the mainsail above the hounds is the first point of contact for the wind. same as the leading jib luff.
Generally speaking this means a bit more twist is required up high but we don't want to close the slot low down. Usually on a performance boat it takes a bit of playing with the vang to find the best compromise.

I take it that you have a square top main Shaggy? Limited experience from windsurfing and sportsboat with these but I think that agian you will be sheeting closer than intuative to stop the head from falling away.

Thanks chaps, that's good to know and agree re: the numbers, I need to do more baselining.
I think I need to be up on the traveller more, and more mainsheet ease for lots of twist. I think I'm too far down the traveller and too tight on the leach.
Frant, yes , she a square top. It's a good 2mtrs, so more and more I'm thinking getting the top half sweet is more important than the bottom half, which is how I've been trimming it up till now. A vertical flat leach just does not seem to be fast.
Thanks!

Its pretty difficult to see twist with a square top and you probably have to carry more leach tension than you think. Its like the old gaff riggers. The top batten/gaff can fall down way to leeward but the leech is still a straight line from clew to batten tip. You sort of have a structural twist in the sail but cant see it. Again it comes down to numbers.
I have just broken out the staysail/genoa combo and trimmed for max speed. Trouble is my eta to the heads is 8 hours which coincides with a peak ebb tidal stream of 6.2 knots. I think I'll be sitting outside for a few hours.

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frant said..
Its pretty difficult to see twist with a square top and you probably have to carry more leach tension than you think. Its like the old gaff riggers. The top batten/gaff can fall down way to leeward but the leech is still a straight line from clew to batten tip. You sort of have a structural twist in the sail but cant see it. Again it comes down to numbers.
I have just broken out the staysail/genoa combo and trimmed for max speed. Trouble is my eta to the heads is 8 hours which coincides with a peak ebb tidal stream of 6.2 knots. I think I'll be sitting outside for a few hours.

Thanks Frant, and best of luck for the last push, hope the weather stays kind!