Full circle
At Frensham we have Tim Deacon back sailing with us after a bit of a break. Tim has won the Solo Open in the past and is an expert on boat setup. He also sails a wooden Solo like me, so we often chat and I get a few tips from him.
I noticed that - despite my tweaks - I was not as fast as him to windward and the only way I seemed to get on terms was to out-drag him offwind. I have talked a lot here about mast setup and matching the sail to the mast so I took some of my own medicine in an effort to get some more upwind speed.
As my laminate Edge sail has a fair bit of luff curve, I needed to bend the mast to get upwind speed. In Frensham's mostly light winds, that meant trying to pre-bend the (rather stiff) Cumulus mast with chocks behind the mast. Tim was using a Dacron North sail and it has a flatter luff entry and doesn't need much mast bend - i am guessing when the wind gets up it needs some chocks in front of the mast to prevent too much bend though. Tim has a Selden D+ mast which is a little more bendy than my Cumulus, but not much.
I rummaged around in my garage and got out the Dacron North sail that came with the boat - made in 2007. It is in pretty good condition as I haven't used it much recently. On the boat it had a noticeably flatter luff entry, so I put it up for the next club race and removed my pre-bend chocks. And you know what? It felt faster. I think my problem is, I need a more bendy mast for the Edge sail as the Cumulus really doesn't bend much whatever you do.
I know other Solo masts do come up for sale every now and then, so I will keep my eye out to see if something more bendy is available for a small amount of money - maybe an old Selden C-Sleeved? A Selden Zeta or Superspars M7 would also be interesting, but they are likely to be more money. Perhaps a more flexible mast would suit my setup better. ⛵
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