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Alright so I have an old sunfish sailboat that was given to me a few years ago and I absolutely love sailing it. I mostly sail out in the ocean off the beaches of Florida. I love pushing it to the limit and keeling it over. Recently Ive been thinking about how I could make my boat faster and I came up with the idea:
What would happen if you put a jib sail on a sunfish??
Has anyone ever tried ridiculous things with these little sailboats?
Good idea, but I don't know how well it will work with that little section of lateen sail sticking out in front. Since the mast is so short and so far forward, I don't know that you'll get much benefit from such a small sail.
What might be more effective would be to change the rig and put a large mast on it with a sock sail, like a Bic, Laser, or Force five. Lateens just don't go that fast.
I agree its a small length from the front of the boat to the mast but my idea was run a line from the front of the boat all the way to the top of the main sail instead of just running it to the top of the main mast.
The super sunfish does look like it would be faster but I'd like to make something work with what I have already which is a regular old sunfish. I'm trying to be creative rather then go out and buy another boat
scottyy, that is not a bad idea at all but i think it would be a hell of an undertaking and quite a bit of money to make that happen. I mine as well go out and buy a hobie cat. I'd like to work with the boat I have and add another sail somehow. Keep in mind, this is just for fun and I don't want to put a bunch of money into this project.
just use some 8 pvc pipe with some sort of cap, then a pipe clamped on to the boat to run out to the out rigger.
or use heat to put a bend in the 8 inch pvc to give the ends an up turn. belive it or not if you put the pipe supported at the ends and just let the sun hit it it will sag, might be faster if you painted them black thou
Sunfish are great fun. My question is, no matter what you fasten the top of the jib to, how the heck would you get the bottom of the jib around the point of the lateen when throwing a tack? First I was thinking you could get a longer mast post at any hardware store, that way you could do all kinds of interesting things, like lifting the boom a little higher, and having a point to hook the jib to, but again, it would be interesting to try and figure out how to move around the point of the mainsail without getting all kinds of caught up. Unless of course you stay on the same POS the whole time. Good luck, I would love to hear about what you do with it.
if you dont mind the slight proformance downgrade you could move the gooseneck forward to make the lateen smaller if not almost gone.
also move the hallyard on the spare to compensate... i think
THAT WOULD BE SO AWESOME. Depending on how good you wanted it to look. You could do it with a 2x4 and some toggle bolts. Then you could just add an eye to the sprit to attach the forestay and away you go.
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