8M sailing performance and front baby stay

[petrel]

sandeb2,

I have not sailed my 8M for many years so I am relying on some old memories. Also my 8M is fractionally rigged which means our boat experiences will be somewhat different. However, 9.5 knots boat speed in 15 knots of wind from an unoptimized boat and new owner is quite good. And I think you will find that as you improve sail trim and reduce drag you will realize even better performance.

Like yourself I found that the babystay made tacking a large headsail difficult. So the first thing I did was to fit a roller over the baby stay which helped. Later I added a Hyfeild lever to the baby stay so I could remove it when using a drifter in light airs - about 10 knots if I remember correctly. I came to this not so scientific number by observing the rearward bend in the mast which got a little scary in winds over 10 knots. So the baby stay gets re-fitted at about 10 knots windspeed. Also the mast bend adversely effects the shape of both the main and foresails reducing performance.

Hope this helps
Geoffrey

[JoeWalling]

Hi Will

Could yo post some more details about your baot - name,pictures, location etc?

[Fatboyfinn]

Will,

Seem to have lost my first post.....

But I had the same problem with a very large Genoa that the sheets would only set on the back tracks next to the cockpit.It was great for reaching doing 8/9 knots in a F3/4
but up wind it was a complete nightmare - 140 tacking angles and as you say that baby stay. Out on my own it was near on inpossible to tack and I ended up wearing round. I think the only solution is a smaller not so overlapping genoa, that is, if you wish to use it on a roller reefing system. Also, I would be wary of removing the B stay as multihulls are unable to dump in quite the same way as a mono - therefore built with an order of magitude heavier rig and in a squall with no B stay the mast could possibly get out of collumn - there lies trouble!!
I've been using an old style "Hurricane" cat "spinnaker that seem to do the downwind quite well and will reach nicely. So - a big genoa is not nessarsary and all for £50. It appears that the Hurricane rule have changed and the now use a smaller spinny. I have been setting it on the nose but this year I'm going to try flying it from the windward ama on a bridle.I get a bit confused about all these sail names but I think this might be described as a "screacher"

Good choice of boat - Happy sailing

Andy