Double Headsail for Racing E25

[olsenjohn]

Hi - I was wondering if anyone on the forum had any experience racing with the double headsail factory option offered for racing on a small Ericson. I enjoy racing my current sailboat quite a bit in local regattas. I am fascinated by this option, and thinking of installing it on my Ericson 25.

The original brochure and price sheet for the 1973 Ericson 25 says that "For racing she can be furnished with rigging and hardware for employing double headsails". The factory documentation shows that a second headstay would be installed 42" aft of the forestay. It attaches to the mast about 2/3 up. There are also some minor changes to where the inner chainplates connect, but with all the work I am doing replace the balsa core, I am thinking of adding the optional inner chainplates while the cabin top is open. DavisR has some great documentation on his website that tells how it is installed, but not anything on the effectiveness in racing.

So..... Does the double headsail racing option really work? Any experience with it? What would be the performance in and outs? Know of anybody that has ever used it on an Ericson as a racing option?

Thanks!

John

 

[Christian Williams]

Well, 1973 was the dawn of roller furling. But today's genoas furl very well through a big range. The new cuts, reinforcement and materials are superb.

Maybe somebody else can think of a single reason to consider a second headstay, hardware, and sails on a 25-foot boat.

 

[olsenjohn]

Hi Christian - For reducing sail area I completely agree, that would be crazy on a 25 ft boat. My impression from the literature was that it was used with the main headsail for racing, not in place of it. And the literature specifically calls it out for racing. My wife and I love racing in the local regattas, hence the interest.

But it still may be a crazy idea that flopped in the seventies, and perhaps in 1973 they did not know as much about sail design and it would offer no advantage over a single modern cut sail. But I have no experience with it so I am curious to hear if anybody has or knows about it. I did find one post on this forum with the same question from 2010 for an E29, but it didn't seem to get any answers.

BTW: I enjoy your blog posts.

 

[bgary]

Ancient history...

Way Back When (tm), yes, a "double-head rig" could be a weapon on the race course, in the right conditions. Generally speaking if you were on a point-to-point course with apparent wind about 45-60 degrees, using a high-clew "jib top" with genoa staysail set inside was significantly faster than a normal 155% genoa sheeted outboard to the rail.

For the most part, though, it didn't require an extra stay - the genoa staysail commonly had a wire luff with a snap-shackle at the bottom of it - clip it to a pad-eye in the middle of the foredeck, haul it up (on a spare jib halyard or on the topping lift, depending on how it was cut), and be able to go low-and-fast. At least until the wind backs enough to switch to that other 70s-era secret weapon, the star-cut reaching kite ;-)

B

 

[olsenjohn]

Way Back When (tm), yes, a "double-head rig" could be a weapon on the race course, in the right conditions. Generally speaking if you were on a point-to-point course with apparent wind about 45-60 degrees, using a high-clew "jib top" with genoa staysail set inside was significantly faster than a normal 155% genoa sheeted outboard to the rail.

For the most part, though, it didn't require an extra stay - the genoa staysail commonly had a wire luff with a snap-shackle at the bottom of it - clip it to a pad-eye in the middle of the foredeck, haul it up (on a spare jib halyard or on the topping lift, depending on how it was cut), and be able to go low-and-fast. At least until the wind backs enough to switch to that other 70s-era secret weapon, the star-cut reaching kite ;-)

B

Thanks for the history lesson, much appreciated. You are quite right on not requiring the extra stay. I went back and reread the blog on Oystercatcher by DavisR, and in his discussions around the double headsail he has a picture of a boat outfitted for it. The pic shows a pad-eye in the middle of the foredeck with a snap shackle, clearly intended to be quickly raised and doused as needed.

Question: So if she was significantly faster at a close reach, would that be true for a beam reach as well? And what would happen if you sailed close hauled? Would she be same as with a normal 155% genoa, or slower? Or would you lose pointing ability?

In our local regattas we often have legs beating upwind, then running back downwind. But sometimes we have 3, 4 or 5 leg races with a close reach or beam reach section as well. If it was quick to raise and lower as it sounds, it could be fun to try and squeeze out some more speed. In my research I found that some clubs won't allow the use of them in racing, presumably for the unfair advantage. But our local club does not call it out.

 

[bgary]

different horses for different courses

Question: So if she was significantly faster at a close reach, would that be true for a beam reach as well? And what would happen if you sailed close hauled? Would she be same as with a normal 155% genoa, or slower? Or would you lose pointing ability?

Easy to answer in the historic context, but arguably more complicated today.

Way Back When, a double-head rig was a solution for a fairly narrow set of conditions - too far off the wind to use a large overlapping genoa efficiently, but not far enough off the wind to be able to use a reaching kite. At an apparent wind angle (AWA) of about 45 degrees, a traditional 155% would want to be sheeted somewhere outboard of the rail, so reaching off with it would mean either having it sheeted in more tightly than optimal, or having it loose and living with a sloppy/inefficient leach, both bad choices. The Jib Top solved that by having foot and leach of almost equal lengths, which meant it was much more forgiving about where the sheet was led. Most jib-tops were sheeted through a block at or near the very back of the boat (eg, a spinnaker block). Having the genoa staysail set inside it meant that there was a "double-slot" which noticeably improved the efficiency and resulting drive.

If the AWA went past about 75 degrees, it became more effective to use a flat-cut spinnaker with a low pole. These days, one would probably use a high-clewed A1 (asymmetric reaching headsail), which is arguably the grandchild of the jib-top. On a beam reach, most boats would do better to use a general-purpose spinnaker. And maybe even set a spinnaker-staysail (aka a "Dazy") inside it for some extra slot-effect.

And, yeah, at the other end of the spectrum you'd definitely lose pointing ability if you tried to sail high with a double-head rig. The jib-top was typically shaped for power, not pointing, and if you sheeted it in enough to point you'd be choking off the slot that the staysail was in. So, no, you'd want to go to a "normal" genoa to sail close-hauled....

$.02

 

[olsenjohn]

This is the type of information I was looking for, and it was most helpful. I had hoped that it could be used in a much wider range of conditions helping overall performance and especially light air performance, but what you explain is logical. I would guess that we would need to practice considerably so that we don't spend more time trying to hank on and off the headsail, and raise and lower the staysail, between legs than we would gain in speed. A typical course for us is 5nm, sometimes 10nm, so a leg where we would use the double headsail option would only be 1 or 2nm at most. Not long enough I suspect. And on top of that, we have discussed installing a roller furling headsail rather than hank on we currently use. That sounds like it would make the double headsail point moot.

We usually race in the "cruiser" or "non-spin" class so no spinnakers allowed for us in the race. Although we do enjoy using our spinnaker outside the race, the "spin" class is populated by a highly competitive group of modern boats that practice racing weekly. We celebrate heartily and joyfully when we place in the "cruiser" class.

Thank you again for the information! A great use of the forum!