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Equipment
| Sails
Sails
The
Sails are maybe the simple most important system on the boat, she is a
sailboat after all!
Jocara
can set three sails at any one time; the Mainsail, Genoa and a Staysail.
The
main was built by Doyles in New Zealand - a tough Dacron sail with two
reefs and full battens.
Our
working Genoa is a 130% (80 sq. m) built by Rolly Taskers in Thailand.
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Here
is a shot of Rolly Tasker's sail loft in Phuket, Thailand. They
produce an astonishing volume of quality sails from this loft, and
are currently planning a move to a new loft, much bigger, being
built just down the road. |
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Here's
the 130% Genoa Rolly Tasker built for us. We
have a 100% Genoa that came with the boat, but felt that this would
be too small for light airs (Jocara has a short mast).
Rolly
Tasker offered a partial sponsorship, so we had his loft in Phuket,
Thailand build one for us with their logo on it. It came out in
a beautiful cream Dacron, is about 80 sq. m, and pulls like a train
in 5-20 knots of wind without reefing. Here you can see it flying
when we were unable to set the main, due to the broken boom that
you can see lying on the doghouse in the foreground. The Genoa looks
rather high-cut, which helps keep the water out of the sail when
taking a deep roll. It also means that we have a hard time finding
a good point, far enough back on the boat, to sheet it. |
You
can see the partially-furled (to avoid blocking the Genoa downwind) staysail
in the image above. It helps improve the slot between Genoa and main and
balances the boat on the helm, but provides little drive itself. It is
also useful in heavy air when we put the Genoa away altogether.
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