Genniker, drifter or other

Tortuga's Lie · **Joined:** 27 Oct 2006 10:32 **Posts:** 827

I have a poled, tri-radial spinnaker, and I am thinking of making life easier by investing in either a drifter or a genniker. Does anyone have any experience with these sails on our Tartans? How about wind angles with these sails or ease of operation? Thanks, Tom

Sam · **Joined:** 31 Oct 2006 19:43 **Posts:** 37

Tom, I would look for a Polar Diagram for the optimum wind angle for the wind speed you plan on flying the new sail, my recollection of a Polar for T37 down wind is close to 170 degrees. I am not a racer out there head to head and I know the general wisdom is head up to go faster even though you travel a longer distance, but the Polar Diagrams are based on the boat specifics and should predict vmg at different wind angles.

Sam

Down2TheC · **Posted:** 14 Sep 2007 07:36

^^^ I don't think that takes into account wing and wing. Dead down wind is our best bud. We find that with a preventer and a whisker pole we can pick up 1.5kts on a 12kt downwind.

Anyway, we have a Genniker that I call the "Cruise Saver". You can keep it full up to a close reach but it's all side force. My guess from experiments was that it's a big bonus from 80-180 deg. 45-80 just seems to add a lot of heal/excitement/noise.

But in general we get a major boost when we run it. 8kts of wind downwind for us is barely enough to keep the jib full with mild seas. Break out the genniker and we're sailing again (with 1-2 knots bonus). And it's so easy to manage. I toss it up with about 3 min. of solo foredeck time. You just need someone at the helm that understands how to blanket it with the main. We carefully fly it downwind with up to 15kts true. Our rule is to keep the relative wind down to 10 or less.

Downside is the space it takes.

Tartan37.com

Genniker, drifter or other

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