Downwind sails, what do I need? Choosing the correct downwind sails can be a difficult decision. Dolphin Sails have
the knowledge and expertise to help you pick the correct spinnakers and asymmetrics to suit your sailing needs.
A gennaker downwind sail bridges the gap between a genoa and a spinnaker when sailing downwind. Designed with all purpose shape they can be carried from beam reach to broad reach in versatile.
A gennaker has the asymmetric form of a genoa with the girth (width) of a spinnaker but the gennaker is not attached to the forestay like a jib or genoa. The gennaker is rigged like a spinnaker but the tack is fastened to the hull or to bowsprit. This is optimal for generating lift at larger angles.
A gennaker won’t fly upwind like a genoa and is not as efficient as a spinnaker built for specific downwind apparent wind angles and because no spinnaker pole is needed, a gennaker is a lot easier to rig and fly than a symmetric spinnaker.
The Code 0 is a specilst close reaching sail.
The Code 0 is particully useful for boats with non-overlapping headsails. the sail is built with a high modulous luff rope to cope with the high luff loads nesccssary to produce as a straight as possible luff.
The cruising Code 0 is particularly useful for boats with non over-lapping headsails or small/high cut Yankees.
The sail is built with a high modulus luff rope to cope with the high luff loads necessary to produce a straight as possible luff.
The Code 0 can be set free flying but is more usually deployed with a Karver furler system.
Dolphin Code 0’s feature panels rocked in vertical orientation to allow the stronger warp fibres to align with the high load path in the sail.
This provides the ultimate in shape holding, minimizing distortion and maximizing performance. The lower luffs can have heavier fabrics to enhance the range of use and allow slightly close reaching angles.
Dolphin utilise the best fabrics in the world for durability and longevity.
Covering the entire range from broad running to tight reaching, asymmetrical spinnakers aloow you to realise the full downwind potential of your yacht.
Our Asy are designed to best suit your sailing requirments to allow you to produce a comprehensive sail inventory that covers all required angles.
These can be to a VMG, running or heavy airs reaching design.
This is a straight luff flatter sail for use in light airs. The straighter luff allows you to gain the height in the light airs when you are looking to increase boatspeed in order to sail higher VMG asymmetric angles.
A medium shaped sail with reduced projection. These tend to be slightly smaller in area so you can sail at tighter angles. Due to the apparent wind that these sails generate the cloth weight is also heavier to allow for increases in wind strength. These sails can also double up as heavy airs runner.
Asymmetric design has evolved over the past years and it is now possible to run nearly as deep with an asymmetric as it is with a conventional symmetrical spinnaker. However this does all depend on the pole length, projection of the sail and the boat type. This is acheived by making the luff length oversize and designing the sail with a lot of luff projection. In turn this allows you to ease the sheet and tack line to project the luff over to windward. To sail at these deeper angles the trimmer and helmsman must be constantly talking to keep enough pressure in the sail to maintain good boat speed.
Our spinnakers are designed to best suit your sailing requirements. These can be to a VMG, AP or Running Spin design.
This is a custom design sail and more often you will find that this is an asymmetric rather than a symmetrical sail in most
inventories.
The VMG design is to be used when it is very light airs.
They tend to be in a lighter weight fabric and slightly smaller in size to help with flying and is flatter in the head and shoulders to help you get the height and VMG angle.
This is designed as an all-purpose sail with flat sections to promote close reaching and maximum shoulder projection at deeper sailing angles.
This is designed to be fuller in the head and shoulders to allow you to sail the deeper angles.
The fuller shoulders also help the trimmer keep the leech on the edge of curling to maximise the performance from the sail when running deep.
