Hi All

I’ve finally bitten the bullet and purchased a new Irwin main to replace my sail that is 15 years old. My old sail needed to be pull and pushed in all the wrong places to get any shape to it. I’d be interested to know any general settings (outhaul, downhaul, sheet tension, etc) people use for the various points of sailing with an Irwin main.

Cheers
Dan

I guess first thing is to be careful about how much fullness you put in the foot, upwind even in light winds only a few inches from the boom and as soon as you are overpowered go pretty much along the boom.

Downhaul when very light downhaul hard (to twist leech and flatten luff, by bending mast). Moderate wind sitting on side trying to trapeze,enough to get wrinkles out. As wind increases downhaul as soon as possible flattening and increasing speed. Keep downhauling to keep depowering, until with 8 to 1 you can't pull anymore.

Thanks for the tips, looking forward to getting my sail to try them out.

Dan

Hi
Took the new main out on the weekend for a sail and what a difference it makes. Instead of the boat healing over it just accelerates away. It was definitely a lot faster upwind (I was almost keeping up with the taipans going upwind in a light breeze) .
I’m still trying to work out the settings, going up wind and reaching as when the wind picked up the top and bottom leach tell tails were flowing however the middle one was not, bit more time on the water to work this out.
Cheers
Dan