Submitted on August 29, 2007 by Jack Montani

Question: I just received my G2 Gennaker for my Catalina 36MKII. We are having a great time with this addition to the boat. The sail is very easy to use and douse with the sock.

My question is how do I know that I have the proper tack height setting? I know that when closer to the wind the tack should be lower, but is there anything more specific to gauge proper tack height? (IE points on the luff that should collapse first)

Thanks,
Jack

Answer: Jack,

Glad to hear from you again and thank you for the nice pictures you sent some weeks back.

The rule of thumb on setting the tack height is as follows.

Like you mentioned, in general you want a tighter luff on reaching angles. The luff lengths of the G-AP2 Gennakers are 2% longer than hypotenuse of your foretriangle, which means they are slightly longer than the forestay. So when reaching at any angle inside of 130 degrees, I'd always have the tack snug to allow for a stable luff that breaks evenly through the middle portion of the sail. The picture you sent me (attached) has your sail in good reaching trim. The only comment I'd make is that the sail is not raised to the full hoist position and should be. This sometimes happens because when you hoist the sail with the Snuffer sock to the top, there is no load on the halyard and then after deployment, the sail fills and loads up, stretching the halyard and sail away from the masthead. So you need to winch up the sail after the Snuffer has been raised. Since you use the furling strap at the tack I would set it the tack at the lowest limit, which would be pulpit height for both reaching and running.

When you are running, the obvious goal is to sail the boat as low as possible and in order to achieve this you need to get the spinnaker luff over to the boats' windward side to expose as much of the sail as possible to the breeze coming from behind, away from the mainsail. Boats with spinnaker poles do this by squaring the pole back, but in your case where the tack of the Gennaker is fixed on center the only option is to ease the tack up to allow the sail to "rock" to weather. If you are using this sail for some club racing and want to maximize your ability to sail high and low angles, you should consider removing the furling tack strap to maximize the range of the sail. Running, at even the lowest wind angles, I never raise the tack above pulpit height as the sail will be difficult to control raised beyond that point. To determine whether or how much to raise the tack up, look to see how the tack line is setting relative to the level of the boat. If it is vertical or leaning to weather you are good. If it's leaning to leeward that's bad.

I hope this information is useful.

Good Sailing!
John Gladstone

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