Tom Cunliffe
Whenever I post a new video on my YouTube channel I’m peppered with comments. As long as I listen carefully and fight the natural tendency to self-justify, I learn something every week. The sea’s been good to me and I like to put a bit back so, in addition to the emails, I’ve decided to offer a regular live question session on my website. We’ll see how that works out.
One query came from a chap who could not understand why I’d now opt for bermudan rig after sailing the seas with gaff for more than forty years. The truth is that what’s best can depend subjectively on your physical requirements and what stirs your juices as much as a set of hard-nosed formulae.
When I bought my first ocean cruiser I was a poor man, but I was young and fit. I found a 70-year-old is really a masthead sloop with an inner forestay. Purists might call her a hybrid sloop/cutter, or ‘slutter’, and I wouldn’t argue. The main forward support for the mast is the masthead stay. This carries a roller genoa supplying nearly all the grunt in light to moderate conditions. On different yachts, the cut of this sail may vary, as can the size and importance of the staysail set inside it, but the bottom line is really a ‘sloop with options’. The options suit me, particularly when the wind pipes up. Like most of its type, once my genoa has half a dozen rolls, it’s not really doing its job properly, so I get shot of it, set the staysail and balance it with a reefed main. This low-stress choice is balm to a weary soul on a nasty night with more wind than the doctor ordered.
