Arne wrote:

When David Ty. changed the rig of Tystie from the first fanned sloop JR to soft wing ketch, I think he found that double sheeting worked best when attached to the leech end of the battens. It makes sense to do the same to the HM sails I have drawn for the Gazelle.

What do you think about it, David?

Arne

Yes, I was thinking exactly that, and was just about to write it! The mainsail needs sheeting a bit closer than the foresail, so port/stbd sheeting makes sense, and I got fewer tangles with sheeting attached at the batten ends than is usually the case with sheeting attached further forward on the battens.

Anonymous wrote:

Maxime, does this boat have davits capable of carrying the mainsheet blocks?  If not, you'd need a boomkin of some sort, to get the sheets clear of the leech.

Hi David,

I'm looking at more than one Gazelle at the moment. Here's the one that best fits geographically: https://www.yachtworld.com/boats/1973/colvin--42-gazelle-3140539/

It has solar panels on davits, so I think I'd have to continue to use double-sheeting.

Maxime, does this boat have davits capable of carrying the mainsheet blocks?  If not, you'd need a boomkin of some sort, to get the sheets clear of the leech.

Although I fancy the yawl rig, I can understand people’s reluctance to tearing down a fully operational rig, with masts and all. In case one has a good original rig and just wants to improve the performance of it to windward, and do away with some sheet tangles and reefing issues, here I have come up with two new sails for the existing rig.

I would give the foresail 10% camber and the mainsail 8%. The wider gap between the two sails may be enough to have central sheeting on the foresail, I don’t know.

Anyway, it could be an idea to increase the balance in both sails a bit at boom level. This will let the sails be canted aft a little bit, which is the best vaccination against sheet tangle.

I would do away with the euphroe (spells?) sort of sheet and rather pick one from PJR or from Junk Rig for Beginners.

Have a look.

Arne

Anonymous wrote:

Max, the Gazelle is a good sailing boat as is, but lacks the drive upwind to push through any appreciable sea state. Tweaking the sail design to get more power close hauled would do wonders for performance offshore. Sailing this boat is all about balance, with two mast it's quite easy to keep her dialed in. One can even get half a panel reefing using the lazy jacks pick up (or not) the outboard end of the sail. My complaint against the jib is having to go out on the sprit to furl it in heavy weather. 

Arne,  the jib is essential for balance. Could it be replaced by a raked forward junk sail in the bow? I don't know how to figure if it would get that sail far enough forward to balance.

Thanks for all these responses, Dave, David and Arne.

I'm not allergic to a jib, especially if it can be rigged in such a way as to not require a trip to the bowsprit, using a block at the end of the bowsprit, or a roller-furler.

Seems like there's no way to spread as much sail area as low-down without using the jib.

It might ultimately be a good idea to make radical changes to the rig, but one might first try using cambered sails of roughly the same area as the original rig, on the original masts, with the jib.

I rather enjoyed sewing up sails for my first Gazelle, even if I never got to use them, so I wouldn't mind sewing up a more conservative rig experiment before moving on to major surgery. If I can reuse some of the battens and change none of the standing rigging, even better.