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From: Rick Kennerly (no email)
Date: Fri Feb 01 2002 - 04:43:08 EST
=device on the foot of the inner headsail. By your definition, any
=sloop with two headsails, loose-footed or otherwise, would classify
=as a cutter. Right, wrong, or does it not matter?
=
I've seen lots of sloops with club footed headsails--Freedom made some.
But on a cutter I think that, besides the twin headsails, placement of the
stick is really key. The idea was to get the rig divided up so that a
smaller crew could sail the ship without having any one sail be acres big.
Also, even though most modern "cutters" may fly a larger genny on the
headstay and not fly the staysail at all sometimes, thus imitating a sloop,
the architect's sailplan for working sails on true cutters shows two
headsails divided so that together they fill the fore triangle and that it
takes both headsails to move the boat most of the time (while a reefed main
and just the staysail make a pretty good storm setup, flying just the
working foresail without the staysail will get you exactly nowhere on our
boat).
You can see this very clearly on the line drawings for, say, the Westsail 32
(If you've got Mate's "Best Sailboats" you can see the working sailplan
there), whose foresail is about equal in size to the staysail, but cut very
high, filling the upper and forward half of the triangle while the staysail
fills the aft and lower half--kind of diagonal split. You can also see that
the mast is midway between the aft end of the boat and the tip of the
bowsprit, centered in the sailplan as extended by the bowsprit, but a bit
forward of center if you just look at the deck.
Frankly, with all the advances in sails and sail handling, it's a good
academic debate but I'm not sure it means much anymore.
Rick
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