I think your solution has two affects.....not that they are bad, but an affect. First, it raises the center of effort so you may get a bit more heeling. And related to this, I think up off the deck, you will be "leaking" air. I think I remember hearing that when the foot of the sail brushes the deck, it's more efficient. Some do use a pendant to lift storm jibs off the deck so a big wave doesn't take out your rig, but that shouldn't happen flying a 170. In the roughly 8 years I've owned my boat, I've never had a wave over the bow. I'm surprised that a 170% doesn't go all the way to the masthead. My genny and working jib both go from the stem head fitting on deck all the way to the masthead. The working jib was so long, I had to rake the mast back a little to fully tension the luff. It was built by Kern, so I presume he knew what he was doing. The visibility thing is a concern. I've got a big blind spot up there that creates opportunity for excitement when sailing in a crowd. Especially with the genny, which comes back almost to the sheet winches. On Sep 1, 2008, at 6:53 AM, Robbin Roddewig wrote:
My jib and 170% Genny attach right on the bow at deck level using a bow shackle that I bought. From what I see on the web pictures this seems to be what most others with M-17's do. I noticed the other week that I have what appears to be two feet of head stay available at the top with the head sail attached at the deck level. This deck level attachment means that the head sail is always distorted by the bow pulpit which cannot help the shape of the sail and worse yet gets the head sail dirty! What I did yesterday was put a foot and a half of line from the bow plate to the Tack of the 170 which raised it clear of the bow pulpit and higher overall. This seemed to work well. So my question is are there any draw backs to this configuration that anyone can think of? If I have this much extra room should I look to have a bigger head sail made?
Thanks in advance, Robbin
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