[Public-List] Loose-footed mainsail

[Don Campbell]

Hi  Ed:
        I am very pleased to hear that you are getting a new sail as a 
cruiser. It should happen more often!
    I think you will find things a bit different with a loose footed 
sail. We have had one boat on Lake Ontario that ordered a loose footed 
main and he could not trim it to make the boat move. (He was an engineer 
too!) The sailmaker took the sail back without charge to avoid bad 
publicity and has since sold it to a racer who owns a C&C Corvette. 
Roger is winning with that sail. Go figure!
    If you get a loose footed sail, I think you will want to consider 
better controls for your boom adjustment and outhaul.  The A cat class 
has about 16:1 on the boom rig to pull it down under pressure and it is 
a smaller sail than ours but a cascading system there would be helpful 
if you do not want to get a cunningham. Even a cunningham  would be 
nicer with mechanical advantage. As for the outhaul, I have 14:1 on my 
boom for that and find it easy to adjust under load (with the bolt 
rope). It does give very even and accurate adjustment. I have a system 
that is accessible from both sides of the boom at the bridge deck with 
the exits off line by about 14" to avoid a weak place in the boom. I use 
one triple block and one double block in the boom with a continuous 
control line and two jam cleats on the boom itself. The route is to go 
from one cleat to a boom exit block into the boom and aft to the outside 
of the triple, ahead to the double, aft  to the center of the triple, 
ahead to the double, aft to the outside of the triple and ahead to to 
the exit on the other side of the boom . That gives 8 lines in the 
system so 7:1 for advantage. The triple is connected to a fixed length 
line that exits the boom at the top aft in the bolt rope grove through 
an exit block and goes forward to a single on the clew of the sail and 
then aft to the clevis on the after end of the boom. This effectively 
doubles the mechanical advantage to 14:1. The double is connected by a 
fixed length cable to the front of the boom  If you have an eye strap on 
the lower outside of the boom, I have just lengthened the bolts and 
added an eyestrap inside the boom to accept a loop in the cable.
    I do not see any major advantage for a loose footed sail for any 
point of sail with an Alberg 30. If you order a sail with the draft 
placement and depth specified for a bolt rope fit, you can easily avoid 
any shelf or draft aft to begin with. Perhaps you will get a bit more 
power off the bottom of the sail with more curve lower on the sail but 
that would be the only place to gain. If you go with full battens, you 
will get nearly the same sail shape. If you do get one, the depreciation 
rate is extremely high the first time out because it cannot be sold to 
an Alberg owner for anything but a cruising sail, since it is not 
acceptable to either the Canadian or American race fleet.

Don

edward schroeder wrote:
> The "Emotional Rescue #303, has a sliding track on the mast for the the gooseneck and a boom with the usual groove for the mainsail foot bolt rope. We are ordering a new mainsail and all of the sailmakers interviewed are proposing a loose-footed mainsail and a cunningham.
>  
> Has anybodies Alberg 30 got a loose-footed mainsail and, if so, are you satisfied? Do you tighten the outhaul from the aft end of the boom or have you rigged a system to tighten the sail from the mast end?
>  
> With a sliding track on the mast for the gooseneck, with a downhaul, I see no use for a cunningham, especially since we don't race. Does anybody have a different opinion?
>  
> Thanks, Ed Schroeder
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