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Hi,

Well I know there is a very conservative part of Marieholm community ( making fun of my furling system that I also find it funny looking on Marieholm but also handy especially single-handed sailing).

Anybody installed furler for Gennaker? I know there is an example already in Netherlands and another one being built. I am interested to know the performance, the expected cost is half of the boat but with the classic hull will it perform well? I am not that experienced in sailing to judge that. Comments would be appreciated.

I also have rails for Super Genoa! they are near the cockpit!!! Any body experienced it? what is the size of it? I believe that used to be the alternative to gennaker in the past....
Thanks!

The Super Genoa was validated already in the late 60-ies/early 70-ties. Therefore the long genoa track is found on the toerail. It was found to be not suitable for closehauled sailning. For "half winds" i may be favourable compared to a standard genoa, but it is expensive to keep such a sail just for this wind direction.

In the late 80-ies I met a German Guy in Ystad Marina with such a sail. When he saw us arriving, he ran out on the piear waving. He wanted to buy an normal 150 % genoa from us, as the wind was coming from South and he wanted to sail home. Fortunately for him I had an old standard genat I could live without I sold it for a couple of hundered Deutsche Marks.

The gennaker is a sail suitable for light displacement boats. The idea is to gain speed when reaching, so that the 40-45 % longer track will be well compensated by higher speed. For a heavy displacement boat as an IF, the maximum speed will be almost the same on a run compared to that on a reach. So the spinnaker will be much more stuitable for downwind sailing.

Thank you very much for your reply. My mind is clear now.

On Sunday I had chance to sail her with very light wind- close reach... she was still faster than almost all the 40ft light displacement boats with giant gennakers and code 0 getting nervous about the small boat passing them!