at the Performance Midwinters, not by choice, but because I discovered as I prepared to leave the beach that the hanks on neither of my jibs would fit over the new forestay. Boy did I feel stupid. I did well in the standings despite the inconsistency in tiller performance, but I think I had the unfair advantage of clear air and lonely mark roundings after all the big boats took off. I was the only boat on the course smaller than 18-feet.
Anyway, uni felt fine and I didn't seem to have the trouble tacking that I've heard about so much. After the regatta, though, more than one 4.3 sailor told me that the boat really lights up in a breeze with the jib, small as it is. My trouble is dealing with all the strings when the wind get to be more than 12 or so. Fahle's promised to show me a trick or two this weekend that will make the self-tacker uneccessary, but I don't know... when crewing on the F-18s and Nacra 20, that self-tacker is really nice and frees me up to concentrate on other things, both upwind and down.
If I were building the boat from scratch as you have done, I expect taking the area of the jib and adding it to the main would be the smart thing to do. To stay 4.3 class-legal, I'm stuck slooped. I guess I could shell out the $1000 or so for a new bigger main and take the rating hit for a non-class-legal, over 5% of max area main sail.
I, too, have considered the furler for the front, particularly for downwind - this boat is so quick to gybe that I really feel like I'm losing some distance every time I let the 'chute go the extra second it takes me to trim the jib after the turn. Makes me want that prehensile tail.
Depending on what the wind does this weekend, I may get up the nerve to try going uni against the sloops and prove to my hard-headed self that the tiny, 20-sq-ft jib really makes a difference. I hate to lose the opportunity to sail toe-to-toe against other 4.3s - I get so lonely down here among all these big boats!
Two more days and I'm on the road!
Vacuumed a season's worth of beach sand out of the trusty truck yesterday. As soon as the baby's down for a nap, I'll sort out the sail box, which I left in disarray two weeks ago when pulling out sails and rudders. The loft called last night, and the jibs and new 'chute are ready to be picked up. Tick tock, tick tock.
