Cruising Sailors Forum Archive

My cutter experience, and my cutter rigged sloop, too......

On the cutter, under heavier weather we simply used double reefed main and staysail (hanked on and stayed ). For very heavy weather we ran under staysail alone. It was a heavier dacron as we were all offshore sailing.

I converted my little Benford sloop with a permanent staysail and sailed similarly to the cutter. I did not use the staysail for 'ordinary' sailing, only as the weather piped up. It was a bit of a pain in the arse to squeeze the gennie between forestays but it worked for me. Double reefed main/staysail and in very heavy winds, staysail only.

It's all about balance on the helm, control in the weather, and like everything else, it's hard to have it all ways in my experience.

My preference for offshore is a cutter rig. I'd take a ketch for sail options second.

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