J24 Blog

Aside from using it once when we had the kids on board and wanted to keep the boat flat without any drama, the blade jib has remained nicely folded into the 2 x 3′ red square sail bag for the two years we’ve had the boat.

Last Tuesday night we got to break it out for the first time for it’s intended purpose and quickly found that it’s a bit of a different beast than the genoa that we usually fly. We changed over to the jib just before the start of the first race and didn’t have time to dial in the lead placement in the right place on the track.

From the North Sails Newport Tuning Guide     

“BLADE JIB – Since it’s always windy when racing with the blade jib, the sail is easy to set up. The halyard is always tightened just enough to pull out the scallops between the hanks. The lead is set at one of two holes; an all-purpose setting, used 85 percent of the time, and the “death hole”, 1.5 inches farther back. It needs to be really windy to go to the death hole, but if you’re overpowered you have to do whatever you can to keep the boat flat.The all-purpose lead sets up the sail with six inches of depth from tack to clew, with the jib leech two to four inches inside the spreader tip. With our jib, the center of the jib lead block is one inch forward of the chainplate. At the all purpose setting, sheet tension should be varied so that the leech moves from 3 inches inboard of the spreader tip in 17 knots to 3 inches outboard in 25 knots. In the aft hole the leech will be trimmed between even with the spreader tip to 6 inches outboard.”

We’ll need to spend some time flying the jib, and finding the location of the two get track positions.  Also, I think “Death Hole” just earned it’s way onto the “List of Alternative Boat Names That We Didn’t Go With”.