[MHml] Do I need a screecher?

[dcal1216 at aol.com]

 The screacher is a great sail for the modern cruising cat. We have made a lot of these as after market kits. These sails along with a bowsprit are the best way to add more horse power to a typically under rigged cruising cat.
 I have a 42 foot racer/cruiser cat, Green Flash. My wife and I cruise the boat for 4 to 6 weeks in the summer. We commonly switch from the self tacking, furling jib to the furling screacher to "shift gears" as needed. The screacher upwind in the light stuff, can eliminate the need to use the motors.
 Screachers that sheet inside the shrouds and tack to a bow sprint, are like a genoa for up wind, light air sailing. I usually leave the spinnaker home and use the screacher for off wind sailing, when cruising short handed. The fact that this sail is on a furler with a UV strip means that it can be left up, furled, most of the time. The only time that we lower it, and lash it to the tramp forward, is for long beats in a breeze. This reduces the windage, and pitching.
 By the way, the term "screacher" was originally coined by Randy Smyth and Corsair dealer, Eric Arnes. It began as an attempt to have a reacher rated as a small spinnaker, in the Multihull Association of South Florida, to avoid a handicap hit for this sail.
 The rating committee, soon got wise to it, and issued the proper ratings.
 Cheers,
 Dave Calvert
    
 -----Original Message-----
 From: paulnudd at actionpotential.com.au
 To: multihulls at steamradio.com
 Sent: Thu, 22 Feb 2007 6:15 PM
 Subject: Re: [MHml] Do I need a screecher?
 
  Bill Gibbs wrote:
> A first issue is how you define "need".   The cruiser mentality is not 
supposed to be overly focused on speed.  This is the domain
> of racers.
---------------------------------
Absolutely - as Bill says "screaming reachers" hardly compatible with 
cruising!
A cruiser might have a 'drifter' - a simiar sized furling sail of very 
light cloth which might be used for reaching in light conditions when 
reaching when the cruiser has plenty of time and would rather sail than 
motor.
A cruiser would generally be looking at reducing rather than increasing 
sail in 'screaming reach' conditions.
PN
_______________________________________________
Alter your subscription details or unsubscribe at the bottom of this page:
http://www.steamradio.com/mailman/listinfo/multihulls

Multihulls mailing list      (Multihulls at steamradio.com)

   
________________________________________________________________________
Check out the new AOL.  Most comprehensive set of free safety and security tools, free access to millions of high-quality videos from across the web, free AOL Mail and more.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://steamradio.com/pipermail/multihulls/attachments/20070224/837f2bf0/attachment-0001.htm