North Helix Furling Gennaker
What is it? A genuine multipurpose cruising sail for use both reaching and downwind
Who’s it for? Owners of cruising yachts who don’t have space or budget to carry two off-wind sails
I’ve long held that it’s best for cruising yachts to have at least two sails for use off the wind, writes Rupert Holmes. A Code 0 is needed for reaching, especially in light airs, while a spinnaker (either symmetric, or a very well cut asymmetric) is needed downwind to work in up to 14-16 knots of true wind. Above this figure, and certainly above 20 knots, poled out headsails are almost as fast and considerably easier to control, especially if a preventer on the main boom is rigged.
However, the growing trend towards sails designed to share luff loads between the torsion rope and the surrounding sail cloth is making them more and more flexible. North’s new Helix Furling Gennaker, for instance, is a product that defied my initial scepticism when I tried it on the Solaris 50 during our boat test (see page 60) and proved to be an impressively flexible and easily handled sail when used with a top-down furler.
With full halyard tension it behaves exactly as you’d expect of a Code 0, although without the annoying ‘flappy back’ of earlier race sails. We used it
