Sail Choices for improved power

[Snowgoose35]

So I have a Quasar 50 which I rebuilt to lose a lot of weight. Perhaps 8.5 tons now and whilst an older design she has long slim hulls and good clearance and not much windage. She should be quite quick and at times is but I still have an old or second hand sail wardrobe

What I have found is that she'll do 12-14 knots under asymmetric spinnaker when its at 90-110 degrees in an apparent wind of 14-16 knots. We recorded 12.2 in 14 knots for a couple of hours straight with the wind at 90 degrees apparent - right at the limit of what the asym would work in.

So my conclusion is that she can go quite nicely - the true wind was not huge and the speed was comfortable and quick BUT, she will not do the same under the white sails I have. Thus the obvious conclusion is (either I am crap at sail trim or) the sails are too small

I can't afford a taller mast (she has a 16m mast as Prout were very conservative ) even though i'm sure she could benefit from it - and with an 8 wire rig she's built very much for strength.

So I thought its time to look at a sail wardrobe made just for her - all I have are what came with her and quite old or some laminate stuff I got cheap - a roachy main that I had to cut down at the bottom to fit and a light air battened jib that was off a race boat but does work well in light airs.

I am thinking to begin with a full battened square top main / elliptical main. I will have to change the fixed back stays to running for this but thats not costly or difficult and it should add a lot of sail area on the same mast height and be better aerodynamically . (Stock is 35m2 from the factory and I have maybe 45m2 now with the second hand cut down main from another cat)
Any reason not to? Will It help ?

My second choice will have to be cheaper for now - so no fancy laminate No1 jib (my boat is hanked on sail by the way - for better shape) but I do not have a Genoa and the factory spec was for a 54m genoa - so perhaps a dacron genoa - 135% to work in the mid range winds? Over 25 knots I tend to put a reef in the main and swap to the stay sail which is equivalent to two reefs in the jib...

With the square top would a bigger overlap - a 150% genoa say, make it better or worse?

Finally I have been offered a very light airs drifter - about 160% - second hand very cheap which would perhaps fill in the light airs gaps that the spinnaker cannot . Or as I can fly the kite 180-90 degrees is this a waste of $600 ?

As I said , it seems the boat will go very well with the kite up through a lot of angles so hopefully I can make proper use of her if I get the white sails right. Any advice or opinions - especially from the fast cat experts here would be great

[Tupaia]

Is it a masthead or fractional rig?
Even 45sqm is very small mainsail for boat size is it Prout "mini mainsail" mast quite far aft?
Cross cut sails excepting some exotics (Cuban Fiber) don't hold up well on multis. Laminates and string sails lack longevity and are prone to catastrophic failure.

There are several new woven sail cloths "Pro Radials" developed specifically for radial cut sails available from DP and Contender. A nice balance between performance, durability and cost.

[Snowgoose35]

Originally Posted by Tupaia

Is it a masthead or fractional rig?
Even 45sqm is very small mainsail for boat size is it Prout "mini mainsail" mast quite far aft?
Cross cut sails excepting some exotics (Cuban Fiber) don't hold up well on multis. Laminates and string sails lack longevity and are prone to catastrophic failure.

There are several new woven sail cloths "Pro Radials" developed specifically for radial cut sails available from DP and Contender. A nice balance between performance, durability and cost.

Its a masthead rig but unlike all the other Prout models the Quasar has a mast centrally stepped mast - with a 5 M boom

One or two of the dozen or so Quasar made seem to have had 19m masts or thereabouts but yes they always kept sails small to ensure no Prout ever flipped etc in the days when the industry still tried to convince people cats were unsafe

[catsketcher]

Back in the day here in Australia we had a great designer, Lock Crowther. He designed a masthead rigged cat called the Spindrift.

Spindrifts were good boats but some owners wanted to update them as rigs changed. So there were a few that removed the backstays, pulled the shrouds aft and made them into more modern rigs.

This allowed a very large increase in mainsail area with a big fully battened main. Strangley enough, a nice flat cut fully battened main can provide lots of power withouth chaning CE too much. The reason is because the planform of a pin head main is very poor aerodynamically whereas the fully battened main is very efficient in planform. So you reduce drag aft and with good trimming supposedly can get little helm change - Read Dashew's Ocean cruising Encylopedia for more.

For going downwind though you don't need lots more main. You really want a Code 0. Cheap Code zeros can be very large light air genoas set on a prodder. If you want to go supercheap, then use a halyard on a Dux forestay so you don't need to buy a furler. But a massive screecher/Code 0 is a wonderful thing to pull you downhill to about 145 true.

Then I go for a symmetrical kite - again go big. Symmetricals are common secondhand and a lovely for running square. Deep running assys are nice but you have to get a nice deep one up front or it collapses all the time. It has to roll over and not collapse - I got told this occurs when it is deep enough forward.