Doyle Universal Power Sail

[K.C. Walker]

Alan,

I find it a little amusing that you are basically second-guessing yourself once you’ve already made the decision. I did exactly the same thing! And then I got carried away…

I think you’ll have a lot of fun with the sail set up just as you have chosen. Chris certainly has put his to a lot of use and can advise you on the setup. Also, the budget doing it this way is very reasonable. I think it would be a lot of bang for the buck.

I used mine a ton during the summer when the winds were light. I did not use it one time during the fall because every time I went out there was more than enough wind.

[Alan]

Chris, K.C.,

Thank you both for the advice. This is a good point to echo Scott's comments about the great value of daysailer.org.

K.C., I actually had made the decision, but the other way - to duplicate your setup. Speaking of getting carried away, I've even gone so far as to put together a bowsprit.

At my very low skill level, my main objective is to stay out of trouble until I learn what I'm doing. The idea of furling the UPS to tack is powerfully appealing. And if I've got the UPS and the jib both on furlers like jdoorly does, I can quickly switch from one to the other as the wind changes.

I like the elegant simplicity of Chris's method, and I leaned toward it for a long time. However, the furler method looks like it might be more suited to my situation as it is today.

"Today" meaning next April, when my local reservoirs open again for boating, arrrggghhh....

[K.C. Walker]

Okay, I misunderstood. I’m curious, how did you go about making your bowsprit? How long did you go?

Because you have from now until April, there’s all kinds of time for winter armchair sailing and getting your new UPS together. I know this helped me get through last winter. To quote my wife’s grandfather, “dreams are the stuff reality is made of”. Fortunately, the reality turned out to work just fine.

Once the sail is out on the bowsprit, I would have to disagree with Paul at Doyle, the notion of launching and retrieving it like a spinnaker being just as easy as using a furler. This would limit the use of the sail considerably. I can’t tack nor jibe the sail without using the furler. It just gets hung up on the head stay. Fortunately, using the furler is dead simple and quick. It might be possible to jibe with a smaller sail.

The furler that I got has worked really well, and the best price I found for it was here. http://www.goodboatgear.com/detail/2165 ... Furler_Set They don’t stock it but they ordered it and had it drop shipped directly from Ronstan in Rhode Island.

I only had two occasions where I had problems with furling the sail. Both times it was blowing like stink, I would estimate over 15 kn may be as much as 20. I was single-handed both times and having sort of a Nantucket sleigh ride on a broad reach. I was deep enough into the reach that I did not realize how hard it was blowing because I had boat speed making the apparent wind seem less. I started furling the sail before I got it enough into the wind shadow of the main and it did foul to the point where I had to take it down. I need to practice a little more in those conditions.

[Alan]

K.C.,

I made the bowsprit out of 7/8-inch stainless rail tubing. I took a wild guess and ordered a piece five feet long, because at that point I was pretty sure I wanted a bigger sail than standard, but not as big as yours.





The rail tubing is very slightly flexible, but a length of 1/2-inch galvanized steel electrical conduit, wrapped just so with electrical tape, fits neatly inside it and adds a lot of additional stiffness.

The bobstay is attached to the front end of the bowsprit. The attachment point for the furler is aft of that and forward of the attachment point for the jib, on the theory that the upward pull of the UPS will be between two points, rather than creating a bending moment by pulling directly on the forward end of the bowsprit. And, of course, it allows me to change the location of the attachment point for the UPS tack, just in case I botched it while sitting here at my desk with no sailing water available and, well, you get the picture.

[Alan]

Oops, almost forgot: Thanks for the link to the furler source, K.C. It's about $100 less expensive than at Ronstan's website, which is the only source I've been able to find until now.

[K.C. Walker]

That furler is hard to find. Ronstan developed it for the Weta trimaran and it’s pretty new. In fact, I didn’t even know about it when I first ordered my UPS. I was going to use the RWO which is a bit less expensive but looks a lot cheaper. That one is available from APS. I even called APS and asked them how that one worked because it looked so cheap. They said it was actually a pretty good furler. Up until that point it’s the only continuous line furler I found for small boats.

The way I discovered the Ronstan furler was actually by researching the line that’s used for continuous furlers (the RWO would have needed line and splicing). They need a special line so that you can splice it in a loop without a lump. I believe it was the Marlow line that I was looking at. APS had a video from the Annapolis boat show where the guys from Marlow were showing the line and at the tail end of the video they showed this furler.

I would speculate that there are very few of these furlers in the US. There aren’t very many Wetas in this country yet and I don’t think any US maker is using them as OEM. They are now available through West Marine online, though.

In reading the Weta forums it appears that they had problems with the early gennaker furlers until they developed this one.

[jdoorly]

Alan- cool sprit! Although I'm not sure how its to be deployed on the fordeck, (i.e. the only problem with the UPS as a spinnaker is its ineffectiveness between 135 and 175 degrees downwind and how nice it would be to shift a sprit like a spinnaker pole, without needing the poles' extra 3-4 control lines, to utilize that blind spot). Sorry to add this complication but after a couple years with my UPS that's my one complaint!

Did you order the sail yet? what luff and foot lengths did/will you ask for?

[Alan]

Thanks, Jay.

I'm planning to just bolt it securely, in a fixed position (which I have yet to finalize - that will wait until I've got the sail in hand). And expect I'll follow Chris's advice and get or make a pole.

The wood (which will be routered and varnished) is partly for above-deck reinforcement and partly to compensate for the uneven heights of the rail fittings (the aft one is longer).

The sprit will pass directly over the location for the stemhead fitting, so I plan to make a support block like K.C.'s forward one, and have the sprit pass through that with the stemhead fitting on top of it.

I haven't ordered the sail yet. The only dimensions I was given were an I of 15 feet and a J of 6.25 feet, with 85 square feet of area. According to Paul at Doyle Ploch, this will result in a 155% overlap, with the roach making it like a 180% genoa.

I haven't been able to figure out the luff and foot dimensions, but the I dimension is the same as Chris's (and presumably, yours) and the J dimension is a bit bigger.

I measured the J dimension on my boat (after looking up sail dimensions on line to find out what a J dimension is) . My measurement is 61 inches from the leading edge of the mast to the jib hole in the stemhead, a goodly amount shorter than 6.25 feet. I'm guessing a J dimension of 6.25 feet will let the tack be far enough forward that I can fly the sail outside the foretriangle.

The 85 square foot size is probably right for my circumstances, but I'd appreciate any comments on the dimensions that people may have. Does a J of 6.25 feet allow flying the sail outside, with enough clearance for the furler?

Other than that, the only delay is color selection. I emailed Paul at Doyle Ploch to see if I could get swatches.

[jdoorly]

I also worked with Paul Beaudin (NY office).

The Daysailer documentation (Handbook drawing 8.2) regretably does not speak of jib measurements in "I"'s, and "J"'s. It only describes jib luff (15'), foot(6.25'), and leech(13') lengths. As you have discovered the actual "J" is more like 61 inches, I don't know the "I".

I ordered my UPS in the middle of being confused about measurements and measuring things myself and then further confusion... This lead me to order using I=15 and J=6.25, and receiving a sail with luff=15' and foot=9', and a sqft=71, with which I am pleased. Having now become less confused, and having rigged and re-rigged in several configurations over time (various halyard block heights, tack positions, and sheet block positions), that at least for my purposes on my boat that the following item locations work well...

Tack: My UPS tack is on a sprit and is 18" (24" is OK too) forward of the jib tack. My forestay is about 9" forward of the jib tack. The forestay is necessary to hold the mast since the UPS luffrope stretches and the boom will down by your ear on a beat (suggest you tell that to Paul, originaly Paul told me I wouldn't need a forestay). The jib has a wire and doesn't stretch.

Halyard block: 12" above forestay/hounds. The standard spinnaker halyard is less than this but there is a tendency for the furling sail to 'catch' on the naked forestay (mine is dyneema) if too close. If you experience this problem move the block higher, but not too high as the block will become less and less supported by the shrouds and the mast will bend forward.

Sheet blocks: Mine are outboard of the mainsheet block on the back of the centerboard. I had them on the quarters but I use 5/16" sheets and that's just too much weight hanging on the clew and too much rope in the cockpit. They work fine a couple feet aft of the jib blocks. I'm still contemplating light air sheets.

NOTE: Don't forget when calculating luff length that the furler and swivel heights need to be subtracted.

In the Spring I hope to make more adjustments (which will further keep me away from class sanctioning), to wit...

I'm going to move the hounds up the mast 2 feet and replace the wire shrouds with dyneema. This will allow me to fly the forestay from the front of the sprit with the UPS inside that and the jib inside that. While flying the UPS I plan to leave the jib on deck so I can tack without furling. In windier conditions I will hoist only the jib.

The dyneema forestay with attached 4::1 purchase is already part of my mast raising apparatus.

[Alan]

Thanks, Jay. The info is really helpful. Between you and Chris and K.C., I might just buy the right sail.

I've gone ahead and ordered a Ronstan furler like K'C.'s. And I heard back from Paul, who suggested that I measure the distance from the top of the halyard to the tack to figure out the luff length. I've done some tentative theoretical ones by measuring the mast (at the moment horizontal, between the transom crutch and the winch stand) up to one foot above the hounds, adding the length of the mast stub, then measuring from the forward edge of the mast to the bowsprit and applying geometry (by the way, math is a lot more fun when you're doing it for a purpose, rather than as abstract puzzle-solving, which is how it's usually taught. But I digress...).

I think I've got 17.27 feet as a luff measurement. Subtract for the furler, and a 16-foot luff would fit, which would nicely split the difference between yours and Chris's, at 15 feet, and K.C.'s, at 17 feet.

Now all I have to do is somehow tear two hours from the fabric of time to raise the mast and do that measurement non-theoretically.

[Alan]

Well, I still haven't managed to find time to raise the mast, and I don't see that happening any time soon. So I taped the mast stub, and added that to the length of the mast above the hinge (up to the halyard block location) to get one side of a triangle (16.5 feet). Then I taped the distance from the leading edge of the mast to the UPS tack attachment point to get another side (6.5 feet). Then I calculated the hypotenuse, which is about 17.7 feet.

I figure this should allow for a 16-foot luff, with plenty of room for the furler. Paul at Doyle says that should work, but he also mentioned that it's my call and that I should be certain that I can pull the luff tight so the furler can roll the sail, as well as for close reaching. (I mentioned to Paul that I had ordered the Ronstan furler, and he said it should work great.)

Anyone see anything I'm missing? Or should I just go for it?

[K.C. Walker]

The “I” measurement is to the deck. You have to include the cuddy in that measurement, so you should be fine. You can always attach your halyard a little higher…

[Alan]

OK, done with the measurements - I borrowed a tall 19-year-old and raised the mast. A 16-foot luff it is. Talked to Paul Beaudin again today, and he says a 16-foot luff should produce an approximately 10.5-foot foot. Tomorrow, the phone call with payment info.

K.C., it looks in your photos as though the luff has a curve to it, which suggests that the halyard isn't pulled completely tight. Is that actually the case, and if so, are you able to furl it like that?

[K.C. Walker]

Alan,

Actually, I have quite a bit of halyard tension so it rolls up easily. I use a 2:1 purchase by looping the halyard around the cleat, back up to a loop in the halyard, and back down to the cleat. I thought that I might experiment with variable halyard tension but have not so far. In theory, a lower halyard tension would allow more luff curve which should allow the sail to rotate to windward on a deep broad reach.

I think you’re going to get plenty of power out of your sail with the dimensions that you’ve chosen. I don’t remember the foot measurement on my sail I do remember the LP being 13 feet.

I think one reason that the luff appears to be curved in the pictures is that you want to sail with a slight amount of curl at the luff for the most power. Even though the UPS is not full cut compared to most spinnakers it is compared to other head sails.

[Alan]

Up and done it. The sail's ordered. Now all I have to do is wait six weeks. [fidgets, sighs, twiddles thumbs, stares at ceiling]