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DELTA CABLELESS onboard a Beale 33

For Brent Jeffries, the current owner of a Beale 33, and a Doyle Sails Cableless technology advocate, his lifetime of experience as a cruiser/racer and keen double-handed sailor has given him an appreciation for both innovation and affordability in a sail inventory. Brent has been sailing for more than four decades continuously in search of more speed and efficiency for his cruising and racing pursuits.

“Many of our harbour and wider Hauraki Gulf courses often have long reaching legs, and most cruiser/racers have a spot where they are underpowered in light to medium conditions especially at wind angles forward of the beam,” Brent said. “Further, tight spinnaker angles are inefficient, and can be hard on boats and crew as breeze increases. So, I was really looking for speed, but for us, this needs to be affordable, easy to use, and versatile,” he said.

Brent understood and could appreciate how the drive to come up with a high-tech solution that can meet the budget of the club racer is one of Doyle Sails’ top priorities. With the addition of the Doyle Cableless technology to his Beale 33, Brent can now better meet both his requirements and goals as a year-round yachtsman who mainly focuses on double-handed racing in winter with SSANZ.

“With Cableless technology, you have the additional area of a downwind sail, but it is pulling you forward not dragging you sideways, while being considerably easier to set and control. Also, as the wind angle moves forward, you lose no performance. With one sail having the potential to be a light upwind sail, while seamlessly transitioning to light-medium breeze reaching sail, then a safe downwind sail when the breeze gets up. At the Delta range price point, this style of sail is a ‘no brainer’.”

With success seen across the board with STRATIS Cableless sails over the last few years in both racing and cruising markets, it was essential to Doyle Sails to offer the benefits of this same technology to sailors looking for a more cost-effective option to yachts under 15m (50 ft in length).

Delta Cableless Sails are available in Doyle Sails range of high-performance cruise Laminate cloth options to suit your sailing requirements, before being paired with a 100% STRATIS Luff Band and fitted to your yacht. The STRATIS Luff Band, combined with the custom panel layout, helps to emulate the effects of what you would see with a STRATIS Cableless sail with specifically designed yarn layouts.

The STRATIS Luff Band attached to the leading-edge houses all the all-important load sharing technology to carry the load from the tack to the head, dispersing the load back through the panels.

Jeffries grew up in a sailing family where his father owned an L class Mullet and built a Cav 32. At the age of ten, he started racing in the P class and Starlings out of the Taikata Yacht club where he is still an active member today.

“I was a mid-fleet racer back then, four decades ago, but I realize that this era when I was growing up produced some of New Zealand’s best sailors of today,” he said.

Jeffries is also a Frostbite sailor and notes that Taikata is one of the only racing fleets that remains active. Brent also regularly participates in Wednesday night racing out of Hobsonville Marina each season.

Jeffries is not only pleased with how great the Cableless technology looks on his boat, but he knows he made the right choice for his sailing and racing goals. “I spend most of my time on Auckland Harbour and the wider Hauraki Gulf but also really like the SSANZ double-handed racing. I sail with the same friend, Cliff, in the double-handed and we have cruised and raced together for 35 years.

Alongside the shorthanded Beale 33 racing campaign that Brent runs, he also enjoys cruising and fishing in the local waters surrounding Auckland and spends a great deal of time cruising backwards and forwards between the Coromandel Peninsula and Waiheke Island.

Your Doyle Sails expert can walk you through your cloth options, furling and hardware requirements to ensure you take all of the gains available with Cableless technology. For more information or to speak with your local expert, click here.

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