Why does a cutter rig point higher & sail faster?

woodboat interesting idea, I would offer in opposition that multiple headsails developed over time due to the need for sailors to be able to handle them effectively. It was actaully easier to handle a smaller "working" sail than a huge sail. It was also much lighter and you didn't need a suite of different size sails stowed below for wind changes you could just use different combinations and stow on the boom.

In the end, I think it was ease of handling that promoted the cutter rig more than the sloop.

 

So you think in an Americas cup race it would be easier managing multiple sails even though there is a rule limit to available sails while racing and also when tacking moving two jibs. I think that the sail limit alone would be enough to oust a cutter rig even if it were marginally faster. Again I don't know.

 

Thanks to all of you who respond professionally and intelligently including, Brian and Mike, and especially Tom Speer. I appreciate anyone who is intelligent enough to back up their contention with hard science and cutting edge articles.

However, I do not appreciate others who only wish to hear themselves spout off, and so attack my intelligence and integrity, while backing up their mere opinions with nothing more than hype and inuendo. This is especially unappreciated when their entire experience does not include anything but racing sloops.

When we signed up for this forum we agreed to certian levels of decorum. This is supposed to be an intelligent discussion not a shouting contest where the loudest person wins. That kind of shouting and loud-mouthing may have work certain individuals when presenting a protest to a race committee, but it is inapprorpiate here.

If you can back up your contentions with actual personal experience or a scientific study, then present your case and your thoughts will be welcomed, but please do it in a patient and caring fashion.

If, on the other hand, you just want to enjoy a good shouting match then why not go to a pub? At least at the pub the other guy can punch you in the nose when you get out of line.

The truth is that the only thing your shouting will do here is to drive away other more intelligent and patient folks. But, don't fall into the trap of believing that just because you are the only one left standing that it will prove you to be RIGHT. It will have only proved that you need to re-learn some social skills.

Alan

 

At one point the sail number was not limited but it went towards the single headsail as materials advanced and as technology advanced. It took winches to allow bigger headsails to be handled effectively. With a single headsail the sheeting angle could be decreased and as underwater foil shapes advanced this started bringing the boats closer to the wind and allowed pointing angles to advance. Multi headsails provide an advantage on a reach but when pointing hard on the wind the improved sheeting angles and overall foil efficiency of the sloop rig has won out.

 

Way back when (1972), my family had an Ericson 37 that was originally designed as a cutter. We raced on the Chesapeake, light air most of the time. We tried the cutter rig for about half a season, with poor upwind performance in the light going. When the wind was above about 10 knots, we could hold our own upwind in a VMG sense, sheets slightly cracked, pointing low. We changed to a large single headsail and performance upwind, both point and speed improved. A good guage was that we had a sistership racing against us that was always rigged as a sloop. When we sailed the cutter rig, they always beat us. When we sailed as a sloop we beat them about the same as they beat us. Pretty telling comparison, at least for this one data point.

Thought I'd throw some gas on the fire....

 

When will you provide this? Also, please provide the name of the school where you earned your NA. I'd also like to know what school you coached, and what years.

Once again, the bias of the "experienced seaman" against "them young racers" rears her head. I have raced for many years at high levels and have rarely been in protests, but I can say that the protests I have been party to, and the protests I have heard as a member of the committee, have never been shouting matches. If you knew anything about the topic you would not make such silly comments.

Actually, it is people like you, who are so mis-informed and spout such nonsense, who drive the better people away from boards. It is sad to see the craziness that is being posted in various threads of this board these days.

 

more gasoline .....

Thank you for responding AH. For the moment, I'll refrain from using my little nicknames and whatnot.

Thanks to all of you who respond professionally and intelligently including, Brian and Mike, and especially Tom Speer.

First of all, let me just second that gratitude.

I appreciate anyone who is intelligent enough to back up their contention with hard science and cutting edge articles.

I do too, AH. I would appreciate it if you would do so.

... others who only wish to hear themselves spout off, and so attack my intelligence and integrity, ... hype and inuendo.

On the topic of spouting off, AH, I would call your attention to the length of your own posts. As for hype and inuendo, I notice you have chosen to toss around impressive buzzwords such as "slot effect", "apparent wind", and "multiplying effect". And I would wonder what is the intent of a comment such as "it may feel smug to believe that it does not happen".
The slot effect has behind it a long, sordid history of exagerations and old fish tales, most of which have been disproven. So I would agree with you that anyone promoting unproven, hyped-up theories must prove their point convincingly, based on hard sciene.

When we signed up for this forum we agreed to certian levels of decorum. This is supposed to be an intelligent discussion not a shouting contest ...

Bravo! Let's agree then, AH, that when we make a claim, we won't simply make unsupported statements such as

"The slot effect is a well known principle of sail dynamics",
"the slot formed between a jib and the mainsail improves the apparent wind for the succeeding sail",
"sloop sailors only like to race in strong breezes", and
"The results are undeniable".

Not to mention comments such as "Cutters are great preformers", supported by claims about reaching, when the current topic is pointing.
And as for decorum, if it's not too much trouble for you AH, could we also agree that we will not use a fake patina of decorum, as a cover for promoting nonsensical Ballerina Science. That's just my own personal preference: science first, then decorum.

If, on the other hand, you just want to enjoy a good shouting match then why not go to a pub? At least at the pub the other guy can punch you in the nose when you get out of line.

If it's going to a pub you're interested in, I recently posted an excellent drinking song on another thread. And please don't punch anybody.

The truth is that the only thing your shouting will do here is to drive away other more intelligent and patient folks.

Absolutely. I would also like to point out that there are plenty of bright, capable individuals who will be turned away by unproven nonsense, regardless of how cordially it is presented.

Physicists, tried to use Venturi and Bernouli to explain what was happening. But the physicists explanation has been proven wrong.

And finally AH, NONE of the basic principles of physics as of the 20th century, have been proven wrong in the classical realm. Any suggestion to the contrary is Ballerina Science. So unless you're sailing at the speed of light, or your boat is the size of an atom, any claim you make must be grounded in today's knowledge of classical fluid dynamics. It's the "slot effect" hype artists who have had it wrong so far, and you will need to do better than disparaging the scientific community to prove your point.

 

My question. The starter of the thread changed an existing boat to a cutter rig. He claims he sails higher and faster. Is he mistaken? Or is there a valid reason his boat is now faster?

 

it was in November.......
Mistral

 

There are loads of potential explanations, starting with the simple one of new sails are better full stop. But the most likely one is that a well designed and rigged cutter rig is superior to a less well designed and less well executed sloop rig.

I do suspect he's mistaken about 10 degrees plus though. That is a truly immense difference. It suggests that the boat was say only managing about 50 degrees before and is capable of 40 degrees now. The trouble is its difficult to quantitatively assess boat performance. The only real way of doing it would be to line up his O-Day 45 with its cutter rig against another O-Day 45 with a Sloop rig of same age and see what happens.

 

woodboat, most here that have a lot of time of a variety of boats seem to agree that the original post most likely did see an improvement, otherwise he would be lying and that makes no sense at all.

So we assume the poster did see an improvement and the reason why is most likely due to having new sails with better shape than the previous genoa. Just a better shape can make a huge difference in the speed and height achieved.

So then the thread went to more general cases about does a cutter in general point higher and go faster and of course you can see there is some opinion but the overwhelming anecdotal and physical evidence provided so far indicates that going to weather the cutter does not point higher and go faster. This seems to be related to sheeting angle and rig efficiency upwind more than anything else but I am sure someone will be happy to correct me on that observation. Note I did say efficiency upwind not reaching or running.

 

Thanks. I have been following the thread. The opinions seemed opposite. So only one could be true I also imagine that the boat as a whole is a factor. Meaning that one boat may be faster as a sloop while another maybe as a cutter. Points on both sides seem interesting but not totally conclusive. When the americas cup came in to play it seemed as though the sloop side was grasping at straws. There are 100 other reasons as to why a cutter is a terrible choice for racing, none of which have to do with speed. Heck I have seen a staysail used on a run without any discernable difference, yet it was used every time. So sometimes when it comes to speed the difference is so minute that I doubt it would be perceivable without extensive test gear. So without some real hard numbers I am left wanting for the truth

 

Thanks for the lecture on social skills, Alan.

The reason that some of us get rather irate at times is that your claims include a very strong implied (no, make that explicit) insult on the intelligence, character, research honesty and knowledge of the vast majority of the sail racing community.

You insult the intelligence and research skills of most of the world's best sailors by saying that they are ignorant of the slot effect and such, when they include people who have Masters Degrees in MIT about the science of sailing and such.

You say modern racing sailors know nothing about multi-slot rigs, when boats like C Class cats go to enormous hassle to introduce slots on their wing masts.

You say modern sailors are ignorant of history and the use of multi-slot rigs, when many of them in fact know and use them.

What you are saying is that YOU are wrong, and just about every designer, sailmaker and pro racing sailor is wrong.

These people make their living from their knowledge and skill; so you are basically saying that they have been ripping people off for years.

That's massive charges you lay agaiinst a large body of people; dishonesty, lack of professionalism.

Re "I appreciate anyone who is intelligent enough to back up their contention with hard science and cutting edge articles."

Umm, so who is being rude now? Are you not the first person to start implying here that people are not intelligent?

"If you can back up your contentions with actual personal experience or a scientific study, then present your case and your thoughts will be welcomed, but please do it in a patient and caring fashion."

OK. Several years' experience with reaching double head rigs on boats including;

Peterson 47 "Superstar"; Kaufman 2 ton "Mercedes V"; Kaufman One Tons "Priority" and "White Pointer"; Cole 43 "Rager", 73' Spencer "Buccaneer"; etc etc etc. Ketch sailing on Vindicator (900 mile Noumea-Brisbane passage), short sails on a Malabar gaff schooner, etc. Sydney-Noumea race (1080 nm) on 42' cutter "Quest". 50' Robertson gaff cutter/ketch Ron of Argyll in old gaffers' race. Cruises/passages on 38' cutter rigged catamaran.

Last time I sailed a cutter? This Sunday. For a cruising cat, the cutter rig is superb in terms of convenience, especially with a wishbone on the main. Peerless. But for best performance upwind, the inner forestay stays bare.

Last time I raced anything but a sloop? Last night. Last time before that? Last Saturday (missed the Sunday sloop race 'cause I was cruising on the cutter).

Those 5000 miles or so on ketch, schooner, and cutter rigs and on boats that used double headsails when reaching (or tallboy staysails under kites) proved EXACTLY what John Bertrand, Dennis Connor, Uffa Fox, Nat Herreshoff, Peter Blake, Eric Tabarly and many others have demonstrated in their writing. The cutter rig is NOT as effective upwind.

You still haven't answered the question; why would those who know and use double head rigs (as listed earlier) move away from them if they were better?

PS; I gave you references down to page numbers, book titles etc for my input. Where are your references in return?

 

wb, opinions often times will be opposite. I happen to know my opinion is always the right one however

As for the observation about dependence on the boat you are correct from my experience it has a lot to do with the boat but when it comes specifically to close-windedness I can't think of a cutter that will out point the same hull with a single headsail simply because of sheeting angles involved.

Your observation on staysails is very true, I have seen two of the same make boats running under spinnaker one had a staysail and there was no discernable speed difference, however the skipper of the one without a staysail that day swears that on a beam reach he can not stay with other boats in his class without a staysail. So sometimes the evidence is anecdotal and sometimes conflicting even from the same sources. We all have our preferences and the evidence when marginal tends to somehow always point to what we want to be true. Except of course for mine which is I remind you always the true one.

CT249 is always reasoned and provides usually very specific support for his thoughts whether they are right or not depends on if they agree with me or not. But so far he has not steered me wrong in any thread I have had the pleasure of reading. The same I can say for TomSpeer and there are a couple others here which are great to get history and facts from. I am always good for an opinion though...

 

Alan,

I'm not sure where your hostility is coming from. It seems that people are responding with specifics, articles, and real life experience.

As to why the fellow noticed an improvement when he changed his boat up to a cutter and new sails. I too believe that his new sails had quite a bit to do with performance. It's always impressive when you have been sailing with old sails how big a difference new makes. I raced last season with a set of sails that had sail life left but no shape life left in them. I went to new sails this year and couldn't believe how much the performance and personality of the boat changed (for the better). It never ceases to astound me how big a delta new sails make. A friend observed that sails are like our vision. People go for years thinking they see just fine until they go to the eye doctor and get an update on their prescription. Suddenly a whole new world opens up.