Cruising Sail Rigs

Gary Pearce, webmaster of a multihull forum, wrote recently:
....excerpts from his experiences in the ARC race across the Atlantic onboard his new catamaran..

> Then we have a few more light days with no light sails except this huge spi
which is a bit big to carry at night.
>
> The correct thing to have done was forget the main, use wing and wing jibs
of varying sizes according to conditions. We tried this later on and it was
easy and fast. Not maximally fast but overall you do more miles as you can
keep up a more optimal sailplan without fear. Brigand did this and went South
and caught some _huge_ fish and still came in days ahead of us despite being
on paper a "slower" boat.
_______________________________________________
Brian responded:

First I'll include an excerpt from my website discussion of motorsailers;
"SAIL RIG. Make use of our mast-aft sailing rig as described under'Sail Propulsion'.' This ketch variation is a good small-crew size rig. Boats with moderate rig proportions tend to make faster overall passages because they are sailed at a higher level of efficiency than if they carry a lofty hi-performance or light-air rig."

The substantially lower force centers of this single masted ketch allow for a safer feeling while carrying more sail, and the ease and speed at which this rig can be shorten further add to the safety aspects. Remember the hi aspect ratio plans are primarily for windward work. The low aspect rigs actually perform better on a reach or off the wind.

And as Gary has pointed out, "wing and wing the jibs of varying sizes". Look
at my rig and note how easily this could be accomplished using just the
existing two headsails.

www.RunningTideYachts.com


and a couple of other sites I 'googled' real quick:
http://cruisenews.net/db/pagetemplate.php?cat_id=10
http://www.cruisingworld.com/forum_messages.jsp?ID=554304&categoryID=206