Topic: Sail Substitutes?
I am using a spinaker from a c&c 27 its 31' by 16' and works great
Re: Sail Substitutes?
Christopher,
There are two main reasons, and a couple of secondary reasons, why a J 24 mainsail would not be a good thing to buy for your C 26.
First and foremost, a J 24 has a flexible, fractional rigged spar with a great deal of backstay adjustment and control. The C 26 is of course a masthead rig & generally 26's have no backstay adjustment, at least the ones I see in the picture gallery. This means that the luff curve on a 24 mainsail is much too great for use on the relativly straight and inflexible C 26 mast. For example the luff curve might be 3-5" on a J 24 mainsail while it might be only a couple of inches on a stiff C 26 spar. In practice this means that the J 24 sail on a C 26 mast will be a very deep and thus overpowering sail.
Second, a J 24 mainsail is a relativly short term racing high-performance proposition sail made from a very specific type of maerial called yarn tempered. This means basically it is very highly resinated. It is stiff and crackley and hard to handle. Because of these properties, plus the one design inshore day racing characteristics of the 24 the sails are of course built as lightly as possible including things like one x 1/2" wide seam with one row of 5 step stitching.
Also the 24 is lighter than a 26 so the 26 will impart more load to the sail, espec. in hard air perhaps even without the 4 guys hiking on the rail of a 24.
So I would strongly recommend against a J 24 sail for a C 26.
Cheers
Joe Cooper
Re: Sail Substitutes?
Thanks for the advice Joe!
Here are some other boat for which used sails appear from time to time.
Mains:
Ericson 27
Soling
Santana 525
Catalina 27 Std.
J24
I suspect that the Soling mains will have a similar problem to that about which Joe wrote above.
Re: Sail Substitutes?
Has anyone considered or tried hanging sails from another boat on a Contessa. I note that the J24 main is very similar in size to the Contessa main.
Contessa: P = 28 and E = 10
J24: P = 28 and J = 9.75
Given the number of lightly used sails for this class this might be an inexpensive way for many of us to replace sails.
Re: Sail Substitutes?
My lately aquired JJT Contessa came with Raudachal sails and they are in good shape (thankfully!). From what I can gather the Contessa in Canada came with a working jib and a 150% Genoa - it this correct? Mine came with no. 1, 2 and 3 genoas ranging from 150% to 100%. I find it's rather alot of sail to stuff in a small boat when cruising and would be interested to hear comments about the performance of the boat under jib vs. smaller genoas. I am considering dumping one or more gennys and picking up a jib if it makes sense to do so simply to get rid of some bagged cloth! The #1 is pretty darn big but can be useful in the summery light airs of the Great Lakes. She seems to move well under the #2 in anything above a zephyr and so far it seems to be the proverbial workhorse of a sail. However, the #3 has been a peach in heavy winds and seems to work well in winds well below what I am guessing would be it's theoretical bottom limit. In short, I have a fair bit of overlap in the middle wind speed ranges and wonder if the jib would give me as much usable variety with fewer sails. Oh yes, I have a storm jib too, but it has yet come out of its bag.
Let the opinions come!
Deb