From: tarkkone@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Lauri Tarkkonen)
Newsgroups: rec.boats
Subject: Re: Tuff Luff and other headstay foils
Date: 17 Nov 92 00:03:33 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

In <1992Nov13.185255.4694@ttinews.tti.com> scott@soldev.tti.com (Scott Taylor) writes:
>I am afraid that you know not of what you speak. When sailing bare headed
>you lose both boat speed and pointing ability. On a large boat, where a 
>headsail change will take 3-5 minutes with hanks, you could easily lose
>30-40 boat lengths.

As I said in a earlier reply, I would avoid headsailchanges in the middle
of a beat. There are racks that you can set your hanks and clip the whole
set to your forestay. it makes your sail change much faster. I have seen
fumbling in both ways, and I have read about the sailors explanations
why they have lost races, the foil failure has been one of the most
common ones. (Of course nobody is losing a race, becaue of the bad
skipper. :-).)

>Certainly the effects of changing sails on a J-24 would be much less
>costly than on a Maxi. On a J-24 there would be about 10 hanks to 
>undo on the sail change. On a Maxi there would be 40 or 50 of them.

When I made my statement, I did not think that the majority of the
readers were maxi sailors, so I made my statement for the smaller
end of the fleet and because I have the understanding that about 10-20 
per cent of the sailing boats race seriously I have choosen my words 
for the majority in mind. Perhaps I must try to make some qualifications
to my statements bearing the maxi racers in mind. :-).


>I don't pay my sailmaker anything to change my sails to hanks, since
>I have never had anything but a foil on my boat. How much do you pay
>your sailmaker to change all of your sails to hanks?

So far I can remember the original question was about the installation
of teh roller or head foil. So I assumed that he has hanks. I happen
to be able to either do it myself of my sailmaker would do it to me 
very chheeply indeed. He is my next door neihgbour. :-).

>For some reason my sailmaker always has a lot of sail in for repair. 
>I don't think it has anything to do with whether they have hanks or 
>luff tapes. If it does, it is probably due to the high tech material
>used in racing sails (which almost all have luff tapes {Gee, I wonder
>why?} compared to the heavy dacron usually used in cruising sails.

The repairs I was talking about were repairs in torn luff ropes. Not
the others. When I look at the sails to be repaired I have noticed that
the high tech materials are very short lived. The dacron is quite sturdy,
but here I have noticed that it should not be used beyond its limits
and if you do let it flog, you ruin it in half the time.

>>
>>>   We have never lost a race because of a problem with our Tuff Luff. 
>>
>>You lucky man, I have won because of the luff foil in the other boat.

>No, you have won because of human error or improper maintenance on the
>other boat. I only pat myself on the back when I win a race by sailing
>better than the competition. 

I did not pat my back because of that 'scalp', I was confident I will
take him on the last beat as usually, but now he got again an excuse,
why he lost. :-(.

>Sorry, but you cannot economize on racing. You either spend the money 
that the rest of the fleet spends or you might as well stay home.

Sometimes it is enough to be smarter than the other guys or practice
to use whatever you have.

>Happy sailing to you too, and I have never had an equipment failure that
>I wasn't equipped to deal with, and I haven't had to use the life raft yet.

I am armed to the teeth, to be able to do necessary repairs, so far I
have done more repairs on other peoples boats. I think that I have been
once in a situation, where the use of the raft was not very far away.
I hit a rock, got a leag, and it took me about 20 hours to get the boat
hoisted. I pumped about 15 minutes per hour, because I was singlehanded
I think I could not have taken very much more.

>Scott Taylor

- Lauri Tarkkonen