Into the Nitty Gritty, Two Handed Sail Wardrobe - Seahorse September 2024

Written by Kate Cope

This month we shall be looking at some recommendations for sail design and handling for doublehanded offshore racing. Kate Cope, Director of the UK Doublehanded Series, spoke to Kelvin Matthews. Kelvin sails doublehanded on the very successful Sunfast 3200R2 Cora and together with Tim Goodhew has won the UK Doublehanded series three years in a row. Kelvin also works for North Sails, so is well placed to advised on the best sail set up for doublehanded racing.

There are really two considerations when it comes to designing the best inventory – what is fundamentally fast for the specific yacht design and recognising the limitations and experience of a reduced crew.

Jibs

The common inventory in the doublehanded fleet is three jibs: a full-size Light-Medium, reduced size Medium-Heavy and a heavy weather jib as required by the offshore regulations.

Structured luffs improved the flying shape of the jib across a larger wind range. As changing headsails doublehanded takes more time than on a fully crewed boat, more time will be spent on the ‘wrong jib’ so being able to get the sail as deep or as flat as possible is very important, while maintain fast aerodynamic shape. 

Reefing jibs can be a compromise on upwind performance however they can minimise headsail changes, reduce the number of sails on the rating certificate and can be useful of shorter legs when a change would cost a lot of time. With a tack line back to the cockpit, the jib reef can easily be dropped in during a tack. Check the height of the clew when fully hoisted and if out of reach consider adding a small dyneema strop or loop for the sheets in a Velcro pocket to avoid it catching during tacks.

For windy reaching, it is possible to reef just the leech of the jib and leave the luff full sized. The higher clew position allows the clew to go outboard of the guardrail much further.  

Jib hanks make it easier to manage the jib during hoists and drops however the more experienced teams see the performance benefit of a headsail foil making peeling between jibs much easier. 

Sails need to be tough to perform for multiple seasons, particularly the light-medium jib, as they will often get taken out of their wind range.

Mainsails

Kelvin recommends a shallow first reef (8-10% of the luff) for quick and easy sail reduction that is more readily used. A deeper second reef for heavy weather is vital. The need for a 3rd reef depends on experience and the sailing programme. 

In terms of design, getting the correct mainsail luff curve and mast tuning is very important.  You must be able to get the full range of depth and flatness on the mainsail for best performance and when you are under or overpowered on the ‘wrong jib’.

At the end of the race, dropping a boltrope mainsail shorthanded in high winds can be messy, consider movable jackstays that stow at the mast or wrapping spinnaker halyards under the boom to make temporary jackstays. 

Spinnakers

Asymmetric sails are popular doublehanded primarily for ease of gybing, however plenty of the fleet sail with symmetric spinnakers. Although the symmetric pole is an additional complication during drops and gybes, the sail is smaller and easier to gather into the boat. Also, a symmetric spinnaker can be advantageous for positioning given the wider TWA range, perhaps for avoiding the tide or going low to get a clear lane. Many doublehanded teams use a mixture of sym and asym using the asyms for reaching and heavy weather. An example inventory would be S2, S4, A3, CZ.

A furling Code Zero is a vital and versatile sail which can live on deck with the tack already clipped on the bowsprit, sheets and halyard on, ready to go when needed. This can save vital time when there is already a lot to do.

Dropping the spinnaker straight into a bag clipped in the main hatch saves the time on repacking. You can add hooks to the bag (or the hatch) to enable this. 

Thanks to Kelvin for sharing his advice. Cora has had a great start to the 2024 RORC season winning the DH class in De Guingand bowl and taking second in Myth of Malham. We wish them well for the rest of their season