Submitted on September 18, 2002 by Mark Green

Question: We have a 1989 Catalina 42 and are planning to do some extended cruising with our two children, first to the Pacific Northwest, then Mexico, Caribbean and east coast. Boat is currently equipped with old main and roller furling genoa. We come from racing backgrounds and are interested in performance. We are looking for a big roach main, new headsails and a spinnaker. Budget is moderate and space is tight, so we will have to make some choices. On our old IOR boats, we had a sail for every wind speed and angle, so we are having a little trouble figuring out where to cut the inventory and still be prepared for all conditions.

After replacing the current sails (is 3DL appropriate for our longer cruising plans?), what are the must-have's for smaller jibs? If we can only get one chute, is it symmetric or asymmetric? What weight? With the roller furler, do we add a stay for hanked on working and storm jibs or do we use the foil?

Thanks for your help.
Mark

Answer: Hi Mark, Assuming you are starting with no sails, here is a list of the inventory you should consider:

Mainsail with moderate roach overlap and 3 reefs.
A spectra 3DL Marathon mainsail will give you better performance than any other product on the market. The Marathon sail is lightweight and relatively soft so it is easy to handle. Panneled Spectra and dacron sails are the other options. A dacron mainsail will be the heaviest alternative and the shape holding characteristics may be disappointing to you based on your racing roots. The dacron sail is the least expensive. Paneled spectra will fall between Marathon and dacron in all criteria. Any of the three choices will be rugged enough for the voyaging that you have planned.

The top reef is very deep and takes the place of a storm trysail.

Roller reefing headsail.
This should be a reduced LP sail, (between 115% and 130%) with a relatively high clew. The high clew will give you more overlap with the mainsail for a given LP measurement. It also allows you to sail a broad range of apparent wind angles without having to mess with the genoa lead. You will be able to roller reef the sail to about 80% of its full size and still have a reasonable shape and a good lead to the genoa track. If you carry a spinnaker pole this sail will also work well wing-and-wing with the mainsail.

The construction choices are the same as for the mainsail- 3DL Marathon, Paneled spectra or dacron.

Inner Stay Jib
You should consider a removeable inner stay that can be secured near the chainplates for coastal sailing, and hooked up for passages. The inner stay helps to stabilize the rig in rough sea conditions and allows you to hank on a storm jib without removing the furling sail. Most boats will carry a full sized inner staysail and a storm jib. For the trip you described, you probably won't ever see the storm jib but you need to take it. Storm jibs take up very little room.

Gennaker
If you carry only one spinnaker, I would recommend an asyMmetric Gennaker sail. Assuming you have a pole, you can order the Gennaker with the luff 2' shorter than normal. On long passages with the wind behind, the Gennaker will work just as well as a standard spinnaker, but you won't be able to gybe it.

If you want to get more specific information about sails for your trip, please let us know where you live and someone from the North Loft nearest to you will contact you.

Regards,
Dan Neri

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