Submitted on November 7, 2003 by Duane Venton

Question: I plan to replace the sails on a Tashiba40 (cutter rigged), which I recently bought and for which I have a question about main reef points. The present main (with 10 inch roach) is 10 oz Dacron with three reefs at 5.25, 10.75 and 16.5 ft of a 44.75 ft luff (foot is 14.5). If my calculations are correct, these are at about 78, 58, and 39 % of original sail area. What does North think of the positioning of these reef points if the boat is not going to carry a storm trisail?

Duane Venton

Answer: Hi Duane,
At North Sails we have default layouts for reef, batten and luff slide locations for cruising mainsails. For your boat the reef heights would be located at 6.7', 15.2' and 22.8', measured up from the foot of the sail.

The top reef location would result in a reefed sail area very close to the area of a Storm Trysail. The reefs, battens and slide spacing all need to be considered together. If we change the location of one, we need to adjust all the others as well. The default layouts work for about 60% of the sails we build. When you order a sail, the North rep that you work with will start with the default layout and then, with your input and your boats sailplan, he will modify the layout if necessary. He will look at the position of the head of the mainsail at each reef. Often the reef spacing has to be adjusted to move the head position closer to the intersection of the diagonal shrouds or closer to the hounds on a fractional rig. On your cutter rig we may decide to line up the first or second reef more closely with the inner forestay hounds. If you have fixed reefing positions on your boom that needs to be considered as well.

The default reef locations look like bigger increments of sail area reduction compared to your current mainsail. Our thinking is that when the conditions warrant reefing, the cruising or passagemaking sailor is typically happier making a significant change to the attitude of the boat. If you mentally place yourself on board in the ocean on a tight reach with 20 knots of breeze and one reef, or 28 knots and two reefs, are you wishing you had more sail area? We are thinking probably not. The third reef is typically used in anything over 35 knots and the breeze on the beam or forward.

Regards,
Dan Neri

Go BACK to Solutions for Sailors Main Page.