[MHml] Do I need a screecher?

[roy mills]

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: dcal1216 at aol.com 
  To: multihulls at steamradio.com 
  Sent: Friday, February 23, 2007 8:23 AM
  Subject: Re: [MHml] Do I need a screecher?


  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 would agree with Dave, although where I am coming from is slightly different. I call my sail a drifter/reacher, made of 1.5 ounce nylon and carried stuffed in a bag. But then I had it made in 1988 before the current popularity of screachers. Gilbert and Sullivan is not undercanvassed, but with its fully battened self tacking working jib it was a bit slow in races until the wind picked up to about 5 or 6 knots true, so I had it made for that situation, 420 square feet . I soon found that as a reacher it delivered a lot of power and, tacked to the end of a 10 foot long swinging bowsprit it could deliver it over a wide range of wind angles, so much so that my symmetrical chute was relegated to times when the wind was clearly on or aft of the beam, certainly not even slightly ahead of it. Now that I no longer race, formally that is:^), it is a real favourite, powerful, versatile, and easy to fly and to douse, though not as easy as if it were on a furler I agree. As a reacher it has helped haul the boat along at 15 knots, as a drifter in very light winds it flies along with the jib, the pole having been swung over to the leeward bow and sheeted outside the shrouds but at about 10 degrees further off the wind than just the jib would have been. Better VMG though. Not being constrained as racers are to no engine, I freely admit that when the wind is really light I turn to the Honda rather than the drifter.  I remember being on Blue Crane, a 50 foot Spronk cat in the 1981 trade winds race, The skipper had bought a new "reaching Genoa" he called it, not much larger than the regular genny but cut fuller. We were slowly catching a tri ahead of us when the wind backed and he switched over to the reaching genny. We caught and passed that tri at a brisk walking pace.
          So I suggest that something along those lines can be a very useful sail over a wide range of angles from very close reaching to whatever angle your chute works well at.

          Roy Mills
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