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Submitted on March 18, 2006 by John Madden

Question: Hello,

I sail a 29’ full-keeler single-handed out of Sydney on the east coast of Australia. The typical wind patterns are 6-12 knots of a morning with 15-25 of an afternoon. I tend to choose either a 100 % high clew Jib or a 150 % deck sweeping Genoa depending on the days conditions. Generally, throughout the day this leaves me either underpowered or overpowered at various times of the day depending on my choice. My current Genoa seems to set reasonably full when reefed and sails better on one tack than the other due to the shape of the head roll – making it a pain when it gets lively. I’ve read with interest articles from American and European lofts about using foam luffs and your RopeLUFF product. In Australia we tend to sail a wide variety of wind strengths on any given day yet I’ve never sailed on a yacht here that has used a luff pad. I have had local Sailmakers tell me that pads are a waste of time and that the right sail cut is all that’s needed. Do you know if there is a reason why luff pads are not fitted to roller furling sails in Australia? I’d like to find out if there is a local reason for not fitting a luff pad before checking out retrofitting your RopeLUFF product.

Regards
John Madden

Answer: Hi John,

We fit Ropeluff to around 20-30% of roller furling headsails we make here at North Sails Australia (Sydney). The padded luff solution will improve your sail shape when reefing the Genoa, but of course will never be the optimum solution such as changing headsails to have the right sail size for the conditions. No matter how good the cut of the sail is, the extra bulk from the reinforcing in the head and tack, the shape in the sail, and the nature of the furler design will distort the intended sail shape when reefing.

In our opinion, Ropeluff is a better solution than using foam padded luff as we have found that the foam tends to degrade more quickly than rope in the strong UV light conditions here in Australia. The foam also becomes permanently crushed and retains a "memory".

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any further queries, or would like to investigate upgrading or modifying your inventory.

Regards, Julian
Julian Plante
North Sails - Australia

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