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MULTIHULL STRUCTURED LUFF SAILS

Whilst this may be a generalisation, multihull rig design differs significantly from that of a monohull by virtue of a wide shroud base and larger mast sections that are very often without any form of aft rigging.

This may allow for easy handling of large roach mainsails it also leaves only shroud and mainsheet tension as tools to keep headstay tension and luff sag under control.

Take a look at a photo of any multihull pressed up in a breeze and you will notice far more stay sag than typically seen on monohulls and something that multihull sailors have had to live with as part of the trade-off for faster boat speed.

So, if you take a technology such as Structured Luff that can dramatically reduce (to the point where it is almost negligible) both aft and side sag components without the need for increasing loads by the addition of a backstay and put it on a platform where the chronic sag is an issue, the gains are significant. And it doesn’t stop there, one of the reasons multihulls are inherently fast is the fact that they have very little immersed hull and wetted surface, but the downside is that they have less reserve buoyancy (the hulls have less volume) so it takes less weight to adversely affect them.

Structured Luff sails that have been tested so far show not only no need to increase the load to control headstay but in actual fact, generate considerably less load than equivalent “normal” sails. This means that when factored in at a design stage, headstay diameters, mast fittings and sail handling hardware can all be scaled down resulting in a somewhat unusual equation in yacht design – more performance for less weight!

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"Doyle Sails reputation in sailing is just absolutely elite, so we’re very very proud to have them on board, using them to perform the miracle of sailing upwind, cause that really is a miracle.. That still baffles me… We’re beyond excited, this is going to be big”.

Riley Whitelum, Sailing La Vagabonde

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