![]() Will it be an occasional JOG race, a fully crewed RORC campaign, or maybe a double-handed Fastnet Race? Having established the performance profile of the boat, the sailmaker needs to know what type of offshore racing you are planning to do. When the wind reaches 18-19 knots it will be time to go bow up again and surf,” says Mackley. WithĪ bit more pressure they will head down to 145°-150° true wind angle using a fuller A2 sail that projects the shoulders. “An example is the J/109 which, in 8-10 knots, will be searching for VMG at 135°-140° true with a flatter-luffed A1 sail. Neil Mackley of North Sails UK has been at the leading edge of this evolution and explains why knowing the characteristics of the boat is so important: “We look at the boat’s VPP and find out the ideal angles the boat sails at in a given wind speed to determine the size and shape of sail required – it will be a quite different design for a TP52 sailing fast with apparent wind forward using flatter asymmetrics compared with a heavy-displacement Swan 60 running at 170° T.”Īlthough setting the right sail is important to make you fast downwind it’s clear that sailing technique and knowing your target boat speeds is also a big part of it. Today on many racing boats A-sails have usurped the symmetrical kite as the mainstay of a downwind sail inventory. It’s easy to assume than an A-sail – or asymmetric spinnaker – is a fairly standard ‘all-purpose’ piece of kit on a modern yacht, but these sails have come a long way since the early days of cruising chutes and flat reaching sails that were sometimes added to a conventional spinnaker inventory. ![]() What should you be looking for in an A-sail for your boat when the bulk of your season’s racing is a mix of inshore racing round the cans and windward-leeward racing with the occasional offshore event thrown in? ![]()
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