It'll be no bother to you, but good luck anyway!

Here we go: 26 meters of yellow Outguard for the split sail and 5 meters of black Outguard for the sail catcher and insingnia waiting for me to start.

Wish us luck!

Hi Jami,

one factor that you may not have considered was mentioned in one of Graeme Kenyon's replies. Fore and aft trim can affect weather helm quite radically. I have found on Gypsy Rose that in light to medium winds she needs the stern to be clear of the water. When the wind increases she heels more and carries appreciably more weather helm. Moving the crew aft seems to ease this somewhat. Maybe a similar tactic would help with your weather helm problem.

Hi Graeme, no offence taken.

What I was trying to say is that Jami is planning to move the CE of the new SJR sail forward in the hope that it will cure or reduce the weatherhelm.

But as the mast position hasn't been designed originally for SJR, he might not be able to put the jiblet luff the full 33% forward of the mast centreline or need to.

He will have to match the SJR CE to his new proposed weatherhelm-reducing position.

Really, I think that Jami needs first to draw up his proposed SJR, calculate it's CE and offer it up to his paper model to see if his drawn SJR sail CE will line up with his proposed new CE placement and with the leech of the jiblets in their correct position ahead of the split. If it doesn't, he will need to redraw, maybe with smaller jiblets

He will have to match the dimensions of his SJR to the mast position of his boat to ensure the SJR Sail CE is where it needs to be in relation to the hull.

If the jiblets and split end up somewhat less than 33% to achieve this, then that is what is necessary.

Less than 33% will give more positive sail feathering which is no bad thing anyway.

Don't get too fixated on that notional 33%.

I have no idea however by how much, shorter  chord jiblets will affect their effectiveness.

As an aside, There are 2 Coromandels in the JRA.

Tammy Norie has an original flat sail and complains of bad weather helm due to heeling. The other Coromandel, Emmelene, has been retrofitted with Slieves original SJR for Amiina, is now exhibiting no weather helm. 

No changed mast position and a full jiblet ahead of the mast, so Jami might be lucky yet. 

I hope so.

Dave D.

Hi Jami

David D has had a bit of experience with this rig, I hope it didn’t come across as though I was trying to over-ride what he had to say. (Apologies David – I was only trying to simplify the question a little, in my own mind.)

Its an interesting problem. The boat seems to develop weather helm when made to heel (as many boats do). Without causing it to heel too much, how to still get enough drive to push through a choppy sea?

I’m not sure what sort of wind strength you are facing, but these small boats do all reach a limit, of course, when smashing to windward becomes near impossible. My little boat, with its SJR, certainly reaches a limit where, heavily reefed, it will run and reach happily all day but is struggling to go to windward. Oddly enough, though, despite that my boat also is rather full aft and fine forward, it does not develop excess weather helm when heavily reefed (quite the opposite, if anything.) If it did, I would be considering shifting some of the weight further aft (as an easy option and a starting point).

Anyway, you’ve made your decision now and one would expect that the result will be a sail which will be at least as powerful as the one you had before, and a shift of sail effort in a direction away from weather helm – so we're going to learn something, and lets hope it works out well.