We just finished an A-class regatta this weekend. Sunday was ultimately canceled because the wind was 20-25knots: race comittee decided that was just over their upper limit. We have a Bora wind which is very gusty and has directon changes.

My question is this, what would happen if you took a worn out A-class sail and cut it down by perhaps 6 inches on the foot, made it a pinhead, and re-attached the boat rope to reduce the natural draft? I would guess it would have about 50% of the power and still be controllable with downhaul and support the mast correctly. For not much money I could imagine a sail like this working great for 20+ knots and still not risk breaking the rig. I have never heard of cats with high wind sails, but if ever a boat needed one... I doubt this would be class legal, but has anyone tried this type of cut down sail?

Whirlwind sells hi-wind sails-

http://store.catsailor.com/pc/viewPrd.asp?idcategory=0&idproduct=15868

We bought a used reefable sail for our HT a couple years ago. Honestly, the sail was kind of a POS (lots of leech hook... or we couldn't trim it right) and we never tried the reef. I imagine the boat could handle up to 30kn relatively easily with the reef. The problem was what to do with the bottom of the sail (unless you used a roller boom) with the fabric still on. am buying a sewing machine and I think I am going to try to convince the current owner to let me just chop of the bottom so that it is easy to rig with a pig tail to the top of the mast. He has 2 other mains now, so hopefully he will let me do it.
I really want to try the thing and we have talked about it alot, but never really did it.

Some of the 12 foot skiffs have reefable mains that you just roll the bottom up a bit and there is a zipper along the new foot that keeps it all bundled together and out of the way.

Reefing was tried extensively during the late 80s Worrell-1000 races. It does not work because catamarans do not have backstays, instead they rely on the downhaul to bend (depower) the mast. [There were some attempts at running backstays but it did not really work] When the sail only goes partway up the mast, it cannot adequately use the downhaul successfuly and therefore the sail is over-full. Despite the lower height and smaller size, the full power makes it no better or perhaps worse than a well flattened full sail. This is why I was thinking about a cut-down sail that was specifically cut flat and still had full control of the de-powering characteristics. Of course, such a sail would need to be selected on shore and therefore only suitable for inshore buoy racing.

Anything less than class max on sail area is indeed legal. You can always go less, at least on the Aclass.

The question is would you want to? I dont think I would want to risk a 4k mast on a 25-30knt day, when it gets that windy, its usually choppy and gusty, and the risk of a crash is high. I wouldnt risk my boat.

Now, I have taken the HT out when its blowing 30knts sustained, off shore wind and we were ripping upwind. I have a Kevlar main for that boat the Peter Cogan made and I can flatten that thing like a board. You can pull on every string and the sail gets to a certain point and wont move, its flat. We go upwind like a rocket, and its a good time for a reaching run.

Randy made an HT main that was reefable, with a wire that attached to the top of the mast, so it could be downhauled. It was a Worrell experiment, he used it once during Midwinters at Rick and Mary's. I dont think it was especially fast, but I cant remember exactly how it sailed.

Bill

I have a cut down main for my tornado with a wire halyard extension. I have only used it a couple of times in winds above 20 knots. It works well as far as having an under-powered sail, but the downhaul wasn't that effective. I tend not to go out in that much wind, so it was more of an experiment than something to actually race with. I had wanted to be able to go out in heavier winds without worrying about sailing on the edge of control 100% of the time. So if it is blowing above 25 knots, the boat stays ashore now.

I think the Whirlwind is the way to go. Less square top and inverse the roach and make it flat with a lot of luff curve. That way it fits strait onto the boat with all of the usual trim components.
But a two mast choice would be better. I have always been surprised they don't do this.

While a smaller sail would be class legal, I don't believe it is legal to use two different sails in a regatta series. While racing with cut down sails is perhaps a logical direction, I am more interested in practicing with a cut-down sail. The high winds here are unique in that they are non stable in direction but do not bring big waves-- it seems it could be safe if the sail was more underpowered. I also think the sail needs to be full height for the downhaul to work, a wire is just a cheat to make reefing work and we are back to the original problem of too full a sail.

The Acat rule set doesnt have any rule against changing equipment during a regatta, and I've never seen it on any Acat NOR. I think you can change whatever you want, as long as its within the rule set, and its been measured and weighed.

http://www.mathran.nl/acat/files/A_Class_Measurement_Guidelines.pdf

I have talked to a couple of sailmakers about a reduced power sail for my wife. Their general idea was to move the sail area down as much as possible and using a rounded head like the AC boats rather than a square top.

I built a sail like that for the F14 and it has a lot less heeling force and is easiar to control. I never built one for my A