I have continued to develop the self tacking jib. New Years Day was blustery and I took it out at Burghfield. It works flawlessly, tacking a doddle, easy to goose wing which gives a stable ride.

Now the Gulls jib is small, 18sq foot. The sail l’m using is smaller to get the boom past the mast so probably barely reaches 15sq ft I suspect.

I keep finding myself admiring boats with Cat rigs.

All this got me thinking.

What about loosing the jib, put the mast is the forward position and use my Mirror jib as an off wind sail. The Mirror jib is 20 sq ft so an improvement down wind.

There are a lot of advantages of the mast forward position:

◦ Mast easier to put up, it rests in on a notch in the foredeck so free standing while stays are attached

◦ More space in the cockpit

◦ Easier to get at kit as the mast is not on the way

I’ve set it all up, it’s all ready to test next weekend

I figure in drifter conditions I can fly it upwind as the wind won’t cause too many issues with luff tension. Worth a test anyway.

Foot strap

As I cruise my Gull hanging over the gunwale holding onto the toe straps with my toe nails isn’t something I do. I do, if I’m sitting on the gunwale put my front foot on the rear of the center board case with the toe strap over the foot for security. On such a small boat there’s a lot of toe strap cluttering up the boat for such limited use. I have now removed the toe straps and fitted a windsurfer foot strap on the rear of the CB case.

This was not an easy job as the fixings wanted to go right into the wall of the CB case. Part of the fix was to add about 30mm teak as a spacer, this increase the gap for the foot so boots can be worn.