Just sailed a buddies E-29, (early 80's vintage). He just bought the boat, and is an inexperienced sailor, so I was at the helm. Had a full main and a 110 head sail up with about 20 knots of wind on the beam. The boat would be sailing along fine, then suddenly head upwind (almost violently) and the only way to regain control was to blow the main. She would do the same thing headed down wind (and the helm was a lot of work!), even with a reef in the main. Sailed close hauled nicely with and without the reef. In retrospect, my sense is that we would have performed much better without any main at all. The wind was a somewhat gusty, and multi directional at times. Even taking that into consideration, the boat was a handful. Thoughts?
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