Last year we sailed to the Azores (from Plymouth, UK). It turned out to be, contrary to expectations, a downwind run. It took us 9 days.
We tried different set ups. In the end, the one I preferred, for reasons explained by Jeremy above, was twin foresails: Genoa and blade jib. These were poled out using the main boom and the spinnaker pole respectively. Both booms were fixed as described by Jeremy. The Genoa is on a furler, the blade jib was hanked onto the removable forestay.
It was very stable. An advantage of this set up was that the furling Genoa could be reduced very easily to suit the wind force (up to a F7 for a while). The hanked-on blade jib is a lot smaller.
It worked well for us, and is something I would repeat for a long passage.
Using the main (which we did) was somewhat less easy when a reef was needed for the reasons explained by Jeremy.
Once we got the Azores the wind became very gentle, so we ended up flying the spinnaker/parasailor (smiles all round!).
(all this on a 35C).
- This reply was modified 6 days, 21 hours ago by Pietro Spanu.
- This reply was modified 6 days, 21 hours ago by Pietro Spanu.
- This reply was modified 6 days, 21 hours ago by Pietro Spanu.
- This reply was modified 6 days, 21 hours ago by Pietro Spanu.