Hi, and here we og again. I have a fully instrumented race yacht, and can read from the instruments the speed into the eye of the Wind. Thus I can Experiment With Wind angels vs boat speed vs speed against the Wind. With the sail set up right, taut, no bellying from the mast,minimum twist (!) Taut front edge of sail, hard sheeted to get a sub 30degrees against the relative wind the boat is a very small fraction slower when the mast is exposed in the Wind. Another benefit is that the sailarea in front of the mast tells me when I og too Close to the Wind when it starts to "bulge" the other way.

Sailing in regattas has taught me a lot in respect of getting the most from the sail, and the Junkrig is much more powerful than believed. Set up right, fine tuned and sailed With the knowledge gained, I use to end up in the top Third of the fleet I sail against. Nobody from Bergen to Stavanger will put their name under the statement that Junkrig dont go to Windward.

David

Sail is on port side, starboard tack performs much worse - I confused the issue calling it the 'good' tack as per myth.

Chris

It had occurred to me, though Robin advises against it.

As I plan to re-rig her this winter the point is moot, though it would be an interesting test.

Might try it if I et the time.

Chris

Having read Arne's article some while ago, I hadn't given very much thought to it since. A couple of weeks ago whilst on a demo sail with a new member aboard China Girl, he raised the question. I have since given more attention to this aspect of my sail and can say that the performance is not only better on the "bad tack" but very much better.

My sail appears to be a pretty standard Sunbird rig from the late eighties/early nineties, with hinged battens. As such, it has no fixed batten parrels except on the 'boom', and relies on the upper and lower luff hauling parrels to keep the other battens close to the mast on starboard ('good') tack. They do not achieve this very successfully, and the sail bellies away from the mast significantly. This may well be a contributing factor.

Although there are scattered references to this around the fora, I though it might be useful to pool others' experience in one place.