hmmm...never thought of that. I always knew that the deck sweeping jibs and genny's were higher performance but I never really wondered why (besides the additional sail area)...thanks.

It is either that or the fact that alot of monohull class rules and handicap rules are written in a way that only used the area of the triangle between mast, deck and forestay. This same rule resulted also in designs with small mainsails and huge overlapping genua's. These setups were ONLY faster because the area of the overlap was not taken into the handicap rule while the total mainsail area was. If the rules were written to use actual area's then a larger mainsail and smaller jib would have proven to be faster.

Guys, alot of design features are the result of how the class/handicap rules were written not per se because it is aerodynamically better.

Wouter

End plate effect is accepted dogma for deck sweeping jibs.

To take it one step further. Why doesnt cruisers have deck sweeping jibs? Well, some do, but most of them retrofit roller furling, and recessing the furling drum is a major job. Newer cruisers sometimes have the furling drum recessed, but usually only in the higher price range. Another major problem with deck sweeping jibs in cruisers is lack of visibility, and building lasting opaque sails for cruisers is hard/expensive.