Bet jib/spinnaker setup on a bluewater cruising 35-2

[RedHerring]

Best jib/spinnaker setup on a bluewater cruising 35-2

I'm getting my 35-2 ready for more ocean sailing, some of which is going to be upwind. What I have:

* an ancient and unreliable roller furler that I need to either replace or get rid of (leaning towards "replace") .
* a genoa which is HUGE (135 or 140, methinks), doesn't let me point well and is cut to sweep the deck, which means no visibility and lots of chafing on the pulpit.
* a newish asymmetric spinnaker. We've only flown it for maybe 50 out of ~3000 miles I've sailed on this boat so far. This sail is too small for the conditions where you'd really want to switch to it from a poled out genoa. I don't know if it was originally cut for the Ericson, about right height, but seems narrow (foot barely stretches past the mast).

What I'm asking for: some sage advice on what furler to put in, and what to do about the sails. As in, if you had to replace the whole shebang, what would you think is the best genoa / spinnaker combination for sailing a 35-2 on the ocean with one person in the cockpit?

 

[Loren Beach]

'Sage' Advice would be great, but until then I would pass along some advice on furlers (and head stays) that i heard from a sailmaker several decades ago.
We were discussing how long to keep an existing furler and also the life of a standing rig. I recall asking about what to do when/if I bought a boat with a furler on it.

As for the rig, it was his experience that most boats had the furler serviced, i.e. removed for total inspection two times ( insert eye-roll.....) , when the boat sold or the owner died.

So, he was making a little -grim- humor out of it. But the point was that most owners would put up the furler and forget about it. And the head stay was truly out of sight and out of mind.

Now we have to decide the fate of the "new" furler and stay that we put up in '95. It's a Harken mk2, and another rigger tells me that parts are very hard to come by if anything breaks. It's a quality product and durable from what we can see. Of course the condition of the stay underneath is 'assumed' to be good... and there's that word "assumed"...

Next season will probably see a replacement done. All the rest of the standing was done in about '04.

Aside: change comes very slowly to the sailing world, but in looking over the approx 150 boats in our marina, only two or three have hank-on jibs. There are also one or two ancient (Hyde?) Stream stays from the 60's/ 70's... most are much newer. The oldest rigging parts are on the larger older boats that never leave the slip, as you might suspect.

What kind of furler does your Ericson have at present?

 

[Christian Williams]

I find a 120 percent high-clew genoa all I need. On the 38 that's 420 square feet, still larger than the mainsail.

The genoa needs to be fairly new, and with a padded luff, so as to hold its shape from 5 knots to 40 knots reefed to 10 percent.

I have no need for any specialty reaching sail, or any light-air sail. If boat speed declines to a knot or two I turn on the diesel.

(That's what the diesel is for, and besides, the drag of my big three-bladed fixed propeller negates the benefit of specialty sails.)

I would not go offshore shorthanded without a thoroughly reliable roller-furler. Much depends on that marvelous piece of gear, which is in use all the time.

 

[RedHerring]

My current furler is an early generation Harken, late 1980s vintage. The rigger who made my new stays and shrowds three years ago told me to replace it sooner than later.

> I would not go offshore shorthanded without a thoroughly reliable roller-furler.
Yup. I have, and here I am, working on not repeating it.

The "at under 3 knots, just hoist the iron genoa" is a good principle for coastal sailing, for sure. When it takes you 20+ days to get to point B and you only carry ~two days worth of diesel, equation changes somewhat. It's nice to have a decent chute or a code zero then, not to mention they are fun to fly. We would have used ours a lot more, if it was a little bigger, more stable and not so bloody much labor to deploy.

110-120 high cut with a padded luff is what I'm currently thinking of, genoa-wise.

 

[supersailor]

Hmm, the program deleted my reply all by itself when I was nearly complete. Frustrating!

The 35-2 is a very different boat than the later Ericsons like the 35-3, 34-2 and the 38-200. It has less beam and a very different keel combination along with drawing less depth. Because of these differences, it would be best if some 35-2 experienced sailors joined in the discussion.

That said, my 34-2 is extremely happy with a 130 and a 70 and a drifter and symmetrical spinnaker. The best combos are different from boat to boat.

If the furler fails, I have found the jib very difficult to lower in a strong breeze. If your furler is a Mk 2 replacement would be wise for blue water work. My top swivel failed in a 30 knot breeze when I had he dingy on the foredeck (crossing the Straights). It was extremely difficult to lower the sail to the deck. I wouldn't want to try it in 50 knots of wind. Switching from the large sail to the small one is difficult. This is particularly true with the bow jumping up and down in a seaway. A second jib stay for a hanked on small sail makes sense. I was thinking of a stay that is permanently attached at the mast head and normally stowed at the mast on the protector for the hatch. It could snap on behind the forestay and use a lever to tension it. I was going to play with it this year before the medical crash. Oh well, there's next year. Be sure your standing rigging is new or almost new and that your chain plate anchors are good. Look at the chain plates with a magnifying glass and replace if there are signs of fatigue or cracking.

Above all else, reef early and reef often to keep the fatigue lower as the wind increases.

Safe journey!

 

[gadangit]

We have a Profurl probably mid 2000s vintage furler that was new in the box on the boat when we bought it. It works fine.
We have two headsails, a 129% genoa and a 100% jib.
The jib is great because we can sheet inside the shrouds for some real upwind work if desired or out to the outside track if off the wind. Being able to change sheet leads easily and quickly are the key. I use a carabiner as a cheap snatch block along with some dyneema to pull the lead forward on demand from the cockpit. I can take a picture if you like, it is easier seen than described.
The 129% is not that hard to manage alone. It has a padded luff and in theory it can be rolled up a bit which we never do. Generally we reef the main first which is good to near 20kts or so depending on point of sail and sea state. It is no deck sweeper, but does catch a lot of water.

We have a reaching spinnaker and light air running spinnaker, both asymmetrical. Both in a sock, easily launched and retrieved as a solo sailor. We intend to bring and use them both offshore.

On our trip across the gulf this spring we had 15-25kts beam reaching for 3 days straight. We knew the wind would be up so we left with the jib on the furler. Full main and jib until 22kts and the boat was asking to be reefed. You could always tell. I lost count how many times I reefed and unreefed, but it was great practice and gave me something to do. We had three 180 mile days in a row.

On the way home we had 2.5 days of broad reaching to dead down wind 15-25 kts. We were wing on wing (jib) with a storm staysail sheeted tight to leeward to stabilize the roll. This was very fast and we didn't miss the spinnaker. We had a half day of wind near 5 kts, but the sea state was still up so the spinnaker would not stay filled. We did what we could to keep the boat moving in those frustrating conditions.

In thinking about it I wish the jib was a big as possible but still able to sheet inside. I think a sail sized this way would allow for all points of sail up to around 25kts with a reefed main in the upper range of wind speed. I'm thinking this would be less of a sacrifice in the 10-15kt range. I am loathe to run the motor and we have a maxprop to minimize drag.

We also have the aforementioned storm staysail hank on to an inner forestay of dyneema dux. We haven't used it in anger yet, but in fun as described above.

That's our sail plan for offshore work for now.

Chris

 

[frick]

My e 29 has a profuler

I too have a profuler... its looks like mid 90s model.
Rick

 

[frick]

http://www.profurlamerica.com/

 

[Christian Williams]

>>>Harken furler, late 1980s vintage.

I wouldn't give up on that without a fight (unless it's trashed). The components are pretty simple, and they either work or they don't.

 

[RedHerring]

I use a carabiner as a cheap snatch block along with some dyneema to pull the lead forward on demand from the cockpit. I can take a picture if you like, it is easier seen than described.

That would be nice. I'm mainly interested to see where on the boat did you attach that block.

Have an inner stay with a storm jib, been running under that thing alone for three days going past Cape Mendocino on the way from Washington to California. You definitely need a way to sheet it inside, which we kind of approximated with two jib sheets to both sides of the boat. It was okay, but ideally should be separate blocks on the deck. That was well above 30 kt.

Huge overlapping genoa + pole (furled as needed) works fine and dandy all the way to 25 kt apparent for downwind and reaching, but my tacking angles with this setup suck like there is no tomorrow. We are talking 100-105 degrees, depending on sea state. Yuck. And not for the lack fo trying, either Besides, 140 genoa needed to be furled in to work with my J-size pole. I'm pretty certain that a somewhat smaller genoa would be a happier option.

About your sail plan, I have one comment: it's a short boat with huge overhangs, practically no stern volume and small tanks. In a long-range cruising situation, you end up filling every nook and cranny with food and water bottles, and storage is quite a struggle. If I were you, I'd try to limit myself to at most two head sails, rather than four.

 

[RedHerring]

>>>Harken furler, late 1980s vintage.
I wouldn't give up on that without a fight (unless it's trashed). The components are pretty simple, and they either work or they don't.

According to the rigger, the weak link there is actually the foil, which consists of several lengths of aluminum profile. Supposedly, the way they are joined together is known to fail catastrophically under stress (as in "can't furl in or lower the sail at the exact moment when you really, REALLY want to").

 

[Christian Williams]

If he inspected your system and found something bad--that's one thing. But I hear these offhanded remarks all the time from passing mechanics and riggers. "Your gelcoat is bad. You got two three years left at most. " That from a painter two weeks ago. My gelcoat is in fact in remarkably good condition.

There's lots to go wrong with furlers of course. But they can be maintained.

Brian Toss is good on this stuff, as you probably already know: http://www.briontoss.com/education/archive/miscnov03.htm

I decided to keep my Harken, which is probably original, after a careful rigger inspection.

 

[ignacio]

80s vintage Harken furler on a 35-2. I can verify that the foil is in sections, joined with a few small screws (which I hear are hard to get). Aside from that, I haven't had any furler failures in the 7 years I've had this boat, with 45 days of those seven years spent under 24/7 load. I'd take it offshore again (and have for weekend cruises). I did replace the head stay in 2016, however. I think the stainless bell for the furling line is probably better than the plastic they make them with now.

On my boat, the torque tube is fastened with 3 stainless screws, and the holes had been enlarged due to poultice corrosion on the aluminum. My rigger in LA installed larger screws to secure it, as the original screws were too loose, but at some point, I'll need to do something else about it. For my offshore trip, I wrapped the torque tube with gas pipe tape over the screws to keep them from backing out.