Simpo Rig

[hgd137]

The December issue of Cruising World has an article written by Iain Simpson titled "Double Your Downwind Fun". It describes a Simpo rig consisting of two identical jibs on the same furler. Sounds like a great idea. Has anyone tried this?

Herman

[gjordan]

Double your down wind fun could turn into double your trouble in an emergency up-wind turn if something goes wrong. With twins, if you have to turn up-wind, you have to drop 2 poles, (Usually) drop one jib, or in this case let one jib flop over and cover the other jib, hoist the main, turn up-wind and trim sails (maybe reef the main) to get going back up wind. If you run wing and wing(main and poled out jib) you only have to deal with one pole, and dont have to raise the main (maybe reef it) and can turn and sheet things in. The other reason that fewer boats use twin jibs is that self steering gear is so much better than the 1950s when twins were popular. A mainsail has enough fore and aft component, that it slows the roll compared to using twins. If you decide to go with twins, you might consider hoisting your trysail as high as you can, and sheeting it flat to reduce the rolling. Of course that is one more thing to deal with if you have to turn up-wind. Just my 2 cents worth. ______Grant.

[svHyLyte]

Originally Posted by hgd137

The December issue of Cruising World has an article written by Iain Simpson titled "Double Your Downwind Fun". It describes a Simpo rig consisting of two identical jibs on the same furler. Sounds like a great idea. Has anyone tried this?

Herman

Herman,

Google "Twizzle RIg". You'll find that such a "twin-sail" arrangement has been around for a l-o-n-g time. If you have the time, one of Eric Hiscock's books describes rigging and sailing under a pair of "twins" quite extensively. Note, however, that experience proved that tacking the twins to opposite fore-quarters independently, providing a dihedral angle between the sails, rather than a common luff worked much better in practice.

FWIW...

[JPA Cate]

Actually, you only have to pole the windward sail out. The breeze keeps the leeward sail working. We have done this a lot, usually with the main slightly over-trimmed (for roll dampening).

On some points of sail in very light airs, we use the staysail to leeward with the spinnaker up (old fashioned kite, not assymetrical), it's good for another knot of boat speed.

Ann