Antoine, We used to call that a flattening reef. It doesn't change the sail area much at all, but it does effectively flatter the main as wind increases and allows pointing higher as you point out. Ron Wild Cheri
-------------------------------------------- On Sun, 1/25/15, Antoine Rose via CnC-List <cnc-list@cnc-list.com> wrote: Subject: Re: Stus-List Cunningham To: "David Paine" <paineda...@gmail.com>, cnc-list@cnc-list.com Date: Sunday, January 25, 2015, 10:44 PM Hi David, To answer your question, we need to go back a bit to the origin the cunningham. Well, the main sail is up and properly tensioned, which mean that the halyard point is close to the mast top block to use the full length of your mast. Wind is light, not too much tension is needed on the halyard. As wind increases, more is needed. Eventually, the halyard is fully tensioned but the wind still get a bit stronger, but not enough to reef and, since you're racing you don't want to give any water to that boat just beside yours. As the wind increases, the sail draft moves back, increasing heeling and reducing speed. Tensioning the cunningham does just that, bringing the draft forward for two reasons: it increases the tensioning but also, because the cunningham grommet is slightly aft of the sail, pull forward the main foot. Having the grommet has another advantage. If you have a corresponding grommet on the leach side, you can take a six inch reef (sorry, don't how it's called in English, "ris de fond" in French). This very small reef does not reduce substantially the size of the sail but removes much of the draft. A flatter main points higher and reduce heeling. Antoine (C&C 30 Cousin) _______________________________________________ Email address: CnC-List@cnc-list.com To change your list preferences, including unsubscribing -- go to the bottom of page at: http://cnc-list.com/mailman/listinfo/cnc-list_cnc-list.com
