First time we tried a stay sail and a third reef on a longer passage. This was good sailing, in an uncomfortable sea. The waves came from the side and there was quite some wind. This setting put her in a ‘Rolls Royce’ mode of sailing. You could feel that she took it easily and would go on forever (maybe not that long …)

The trip was about 17 hours and unless some seasickness, it was actually a great experience to see that she would stay more upright, and therefore rolled less. Speed was not really compromised, still doing about 7 knots in 16-20 knots wind occasionally 22 to 27, waves 1 to 2 meters. She felt very balanced and light on the helm. Probably the wind vane would love it too. It was to hectic to tried that one out as we are still adjusting the vane.

This will probably become a perfect night sail setting, just like we thought it would when rebuilding the stay sail back on this ship again and ordering a new sail. It was brought back to the originally position. The sail is however cut high up so you can look underneath it, very nice to see what’s in front of you. Official the sail should be close to the deck. That would give her probably more power in higher angles and lighter winds when used as an extra sail. We somewhat regretted that we did not followed the original sail, but we now like the cut back in the sail, better for our cruising needs, I think.

It is a traditionally hanked on sail on a not so traditionally dynema removable stay. Yes you have to go on deck to handle it but sisewise it not so big and easy to handle manually.

When sailing we set the sheet in one position on a winch close to the cockpit. This is nice so you set it once and sail on with that position all the time or adjust a little bit. It worked fine, we think adjusting the sail is more a matter of changing the car on the inner track. We still need more practice.