Free Standing Rigs

[Bardo]

Okay, me first! Can you technical wizards help me. I am trying to evaluate the carbon fiber, free standing rigs popular on several brands of boats. I am interested in both the cat ketch and the cat sloop rigs. Questions:

1) Are the spars first produced in the '80s still holding up?
2) From what we know, will they have the same expected life as the aluminum?
3) Are there particular performance trade-offs for these rigs? (up-wind degradation in a cat is understood)
4) Does a self tending jib sacrifice upwind performance?

Thanks for your help.

Freeman

[deniseO30]

I'll take a stab at this Freeman.
Don't know much about carbonfiber .. but wouldn't they be too flexy? I'm sure UV would eat it up even with protection.
The Hunter "Vision" I think was free standing. (not sure)
I river sail out of necessity where I'm at .. I had a post in seamanship about pointing, a few sailors suggested making the jib self tending. trouble is that would make my jib about 90%. Good for tacking in higher winds I guess but most sailing is light air around here.
I've seen some blue water boats have self tending jibs.
I don't know enough about the rest to really give you allot of tech and spec jargon about performance upwind though sorry.
fair winds!

[cardiacpaul]

Bardo...
wander around some of the "Freedom", & TPI user/owner groups on yahoo, they'll give you the straight skinny.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FreedomOwnersGroup/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freedomyachts2003/

[Sailormann]

4) Does a self tending jib sacrifice upwind performance?

Not necessarily. It depends on the designed sailplan. Some Solings compete with self-tending jbs, as do Etchells. If the boat is masthead rigged and depends on a large headsail for performance, it would be hard to devise a self-tending rig.

A fractional rig that favours the main can perform well with a self-tending jib.