Two weeks age we salvaged a 4th fastest place in a light wind drift. The race started in 5 knots of breeze but that faded and we ended up finishing in no wind on a shortened course. We were delighted to salvage 4th place on fastest times although a last on handicap. By absolute contrast the race on Wednesday this week was conducted in 12 to 15 knots with gusts possibly as high as 20 knots. Right from the start we powered to the front of the fleet and were closely followed by Marloo and Amanti. Once on the work the power of Passion XI and Marloo stood out as we drew away from the fleet to eventually finish a couple of minutes in front with Marloo taking the handicap honours and Passion XI second with a good gap to third on handicap.
It is very clear that we do well with winds over 12 knots but we lack the large overlapping genoas of Marloo and Allegro in the light airs. Further we carry a big handicap from our heavy air performances into the light air races so no mid fleet places are likely on handicap.
To fill the light air gap I tried the code Zero off of Passion X as a headsail and it was very effective in a narrow range of breezes but too much overlap for really light air and not suitable for really tight works.
From the beginning the rig of Passion XI was designed for a small overlap genoa that would sheet between the outboard V1s and the inboard D1s but the modelling I ran on the ORCi website showed only a small increase in speed. After trying an overlapping genoa off of Passion X it seemed that the performance would be much better than the programms were showing. For a tiny hit to the rating we could get a combination that would excel in 4 to 12 knots and not be so big as to be counterproductive in drifting conditions.
Our sailmaker worked with us to design a light overlapping genoa that just grazes the lower spreaders. It is designed to be powerful for the light airs and light enough to set in light airs. The area should be just over 50m2 which is 9m2 up from our jib so hopefully it will improve the very light air windward and reaching performances. Remember that this is mainly two sail sailing and no extras are allowed. The forecast improvement with the wind forward of 90 degrees suggests the sail will be well worth the rating hit.
