If you are looking for details on installing the Gennaker sail, follow the link to our earlier posted blog Part #1: Installation, or the embedded video on YouTube.
After installing Chloe's new sail at Marina park Motril, we were eager to test Chloe's Gennaker out in some flat seas and light winds.
This is the list of things we wanted to check.
How easy is it to furl and unfurl and under which wind angles and strengths?
How tight does the halyard and sheets have to be during furling?
How much performance will the gennaker add?
What wind speeds will the gennaker perform in?
What about up-wind performance?
How low can we go in down wind sailing with the gennaker remaining stable?
Our conclusions turned out to be that the sail, in general, performed a little better than we had expected in all of these respects.
To briefly repeat our Gennaker installation blog, first a little info about the Gennaker.
Brand: Technie Voile
Material: Stormlite 120
Area: 90 square meters
Weight: 145g/sqm = 13kg (~29 lbs.)
Furler: Factor+ 4500 and 10m continuous furling line in 10mm double braided polyester
The furling mechanism is bottom up on a removable, continuous Facnor+ 4500 furler, with a bolt rope sewed into the luff of the sail and a swivel at the head of the sail.
RIGGING
Rigging the sail up for use is easy enough which makes the sail very usable and will not likely be collecting dust in storage. The entire process takes about 20 minutes with two people. We store the sail inside and find the easiest way to get it on deck is through the bedroom hatch with one person raising the sail up through the hatch to the other person on deck above the bedroom hatch to lay the sail out on the deck. Once laid out, it is easy to then clip the furler to the bow, install the continuous furler line to the cockpit, bring the sheets back to the cockpit, clip the swivel to the halyard, and then hoist and tension the sail. If using the tack line instead of the bow spirit attachment, some extra time is then spent on adjusting the tack line height when tensioning the halyard. We like the flexibility that the tack line offers in raising the sail and also as an extra tensioning point while at sail.
Due to the weight of the furled sail, there is still a bit of a sloppy feeling to the luff of the furled sail. Even so, this luff tension is less important than that required by a top down furler. (In the case of a top-down furling system, the rotational torque has to be relayed from the furling drum right up to the top swivel. This means the adoption of an anti-torsion line and a very tight halyard - for the case of a top down system.) Our luff tension for the case of our bottom up furled gennaker as high but not crazy high. The winch on the mast and a doubled up tack line was useful to get the tension on. To tighten, we pull down on the tack line to the desired height relative to the bowsprit and pulpit, and then pull up on the halyard line to full tension.
UNFURLING THE SAIL
This is a very simple task and puling on the furling line results in a smooth rotation of the furling drum. There is a locking mechanism on the furler to stop it unfurling, so if any resistance is felt, a quick tug in the opposite direction frees up the mechanism to rotate. Once the wind catches the sail, it 'wants to unfurl', but it is easy to control the speed of unraveling. Managing the sheets is relatively straightforward by relaxing the lazy sheet and pulling in the active sheet to the desired trim.
FURLING THE SAIL
We feel that this is a two person job. One person dedicated to managing the furling line, especially to free the locking mechanism, if necessary. The other person is dedicated to managing the Gennaker sheets and their tension. While furling, we make sure to rotate in the direction such that the graphic is being folded inside the sail in order to prevent UV exposure. Regardless, the sail appears to be just as happy being furled in either direction. We also like to add a couple of wraps around the sail at the end of furling as would be done with a jib in order to keep it from unfurling.
We find that the only critical furling technique is to maintain a small but reasonable tension to each sheet when furling. This prevents the lazy sheet dropping into the sea with potentially ugly effect and also stops back-furls, creases, and keeps the clew high enough to neatly add the final wraps. Alternatively, keeping too much tension on the sheets results in uneven furling with tighter furling at the bottom and looser furling at the top.
TRIM
Trimming the sail is relatively easy as the lack of creases and luffing indicates the trim is in the correct range. The resulting performance reaction is very similar to that of the jib where tightening the sheet in upwind sailing increased speed (up to a certain point) and loosening the sheet in downwind sailing increased speed (up to a certain point). It is easy to trim using manual winches with little effort.
PERFORMANCE
Tacking and Gybing with the Gennaker is complicated by the fact that there are other headsails to work around. It is virtually impossible to get the bulk of the Gennaker sail to the other side of the the furled jib headsail without first furling in the Gennaker as the distance between them is less than a foot. Therefore, tacking and gybing cannot be as smooth and quick as with the mainsail or jib. Time must be dedicated to first furling the Gennaker, then tacking or gybing the boat, then unfurling the Gennaker. The quicker this can be completed, the better in order to maintain enough speed to complete the rotation and to keep as much forward momentum as possible. Keeping the boat from slowing down can be difficult as this sail is used under low wind conditions, but the process will go very smoothly with two people.
The lower limit of our sail is approximately 5 knots to maintain a good sail shape without collapsing. Without the Gennaker, we required about 10 knots of wind to be able to effectively make use of the mainsail or jib sail. Upwind sailing is possible up to about 45 AWA and deep downwind all the way back to about 170-175 AWA. The upwind performance was surprisingly good and makes this sail a very useful addition to the suite of sails. The best performance was in the range of 60-110 AWA.
SUMMARY
We find that this particular Gennaker sail offers enough benefits so that it will be used often. It is easy to rig and operate, has a performance benefit in enabling low wind sailing, and also has a wide range of capable points of sail. Tacking, gybing, and furling in the sail if the wind increases is easily manageable by two people. We now look forward to low wind forecasts so that we can use our 'Chloe' gennaker sail.
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