The sails weigh a ton

We can't get anywhere in the races without our sails, for every wind condition we have a different type, size and weight of sail. Overall there are 13 different sails on board and in total they weigh about one ton. Our mainsail is constantly up, with a weight of 240 kilos, it is the heaviest, we can adjust it 3 times to make it smaller; so we can have a reef 1, reef 2 and reef 3, we can reduce the sail as wind conditions increase. With the mainsail we can have our 2 head sails up, located in front of the mainsail. These sails can be adjusted and are controlled by lines, which we regularly trim according to the wind angles. On the inner forstay we have the stay sail and then on the outer forstay  we have the Yankee 1, which is the largest and heaviest, the Yankee 2 which is the next smallest and the Yankee 3 which is even smaller,again these are used depending on the wind strengths.

mainsail + stay sail + Yankee

                                                                                                       

spinnaker + mainsail

   
In previous blogs I have mentioned the Spinnakers, these fly in front of the boat and have the largest surface area, the Code 1 being the biggest, then the Code 2, then the Code 3 which we would use in heavier winds, we can sail fastest on a beam reach with these sails up (on one the new 70 ft boats new speed records of over 30 knots have been achieved), so far we have managed to get to 25 knots. We also have a wind seeker that is made of very light material to be used when wind conditions are calm, we have been sailing that today as we get closer to the Equator, however we have been hitting squalls every few hours, where the wind suddenly increases and it starts to rain, so we had to drop this before it ripped. Additionally we have our storm sails that are small and strong, hopefully we will never have to use them! Overall it is incredibly important to look after our sails, overpowering them could cause them to easily rip or get damaged, meaning more work for the sail repairers and the race committee can deduct points if they consider we have acted with poor seamanship. So over the next few months I should be getting to know these sails very well!