Curtains for Assymetrics?

could you imagine a 65ftr with a bowsprit of similar proportion to hull length as most dinghy ones are?

Originally posted by alstorer could you imagine a 65ftr with a bowsprit of similar proportion to hull length as most dinghy ones are? ....

I am old enough to have lived through 'the Asymmetric Revolution' and recently acquired one. I have read everything there is to read on the subject (which is not very much) and have, of course, read Higher Performance Sailing.  For many years (through my fifties and sixties ) I sat comfortably in my Phantom running more or less DDW and collected a fair proportion of the club's silverware the while. Now, I work like the proverbial one-armed paperhanger trying not to lose ground on the downwind legs to those Phantoms and, indeed, Lasers.  Furthermore, because my asymmetric is of the furling variety, I have to put up with its considerable drag on the upwind legs. Suspecting that the boat would get round the course more quickly without it, I bought a SpeedPuck and have done a number of comparative runs around a course the check this.  This has proved beyond doubt that soaking very deep is almost always quicker than pointing high and two sail running is not a lot slower.  This, of course, is exactly what Frank Bethwaite says- only the 49er and the Tornado are fast enough to get the apparent wind effect and the rest of us are conning ourselves.  And yet, as a recreational boat the Weta is enormous fun and capable of hauling a seventy-year-old around at fifteen knots at the right angles. The trouble is, that these angles don't very often occur on a racecourse and you spend a great deal of energy sailing frenetically back and forth only to see the Phantom arrive at the leeward mark ahead of you. Hopefully it will capsize during the gybe (which the Weta won't!).   It helps, of course, if the course is a triangle which makes the Phantom sail a bit further,  but it's not a lot slower on a beam reach and I will only make up a few seconds before having to furl my screacher, with much potential for a screw up.  Which sums up the asymmetric thing - great fun but not actually fast in a mixed fleet.

Originally posted by yellowwelly   only the 49er and the Tornado are fast enough to get the apparent wind effect and the rest of us are conning ourselves

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I have been watching and reading this for some time now. I struggle to understand this "apparent wind effect" chat. Are you really saying that most boats sail on true wind and only a few can sail on apparent wind. Errrr... fatal error in your physics here. I hate to break it to you all but every boat sails on apparent wind, just some the angle between apparent wind and true wind is greater due to increased hull speeds.