The most common solution has been an ugly duckling compromise of a genoa-type shape supported on an integral composite luff cable, but with superfluous material along the leech to achieve the 75 per cent mid-girth target. The advantages of a sail able to achieve both purposes, but still be measured as a spinnaker, are most obvious when you look at relative sail areas: the largest rated jib area for a Maxi72, for example, is about 130m 2, as opposed to the 500m 2 area that most teams measure with as a maximum spinnaker area.įor years, and at great expense, sailmakers have looked for ways to achieve the full multi-purpose potential of Code Zero sails within the constraints of the spinnaker definition. The challenge was to achieve a sail with the area of a spinnaker and able to be used for heavy-air running, yet flat enough to operate like a masthead genoa at relatively tight angles in lighter airs. Other offshore racing classes have similar constraints. Under IRC, for example, the definition of a spinnaker demands that the mid-girth measurement is at least 75 per cent of the foot length. Also thought provoking is comparing Momo’s sailing angle with Proteus to weather… racing with a headsailĪs is often the case, class and rating rules often lagged behind the pace of technical development, leaving sailmakers and competitors to adopt clumsy work-arounds to extract the available performance within outdated regulations.Īlmost from the time that asymmetrical spinnakers became mainstream, the name of the game has been to design flatter and flatter sails – until they came up hard against limits imposed by the rating rules. The three individual luff ‘lens’ groups are visible on this Code Zero – the combined effect being to allow the luff profile to project significantly to weather with no blowback of surplus material. Main picture: the Maxi72 Momo on the way to becoming 2017 world champion at the Maxi Worlds in Porto Cervo.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |