I'd say a Gennaker works best below ~70 degrees apparent and will pull
even at 60 -but at that point it'll be quite unstable and you should be
switching to a genoa. It's not working too well below 140 apparent
either but at that point you are probably sailing within 20 degrees of
DDW... The big advanatge is that it's much easier to use than a
spinnaker single handed. I use mine in a snuffler by the way.

Cheers

Martin Baxter wrote:

I was finally out again in my new used boat, (arthritis finally subsided
enough to use my right hand), wind was light to less than zero!

The boat came with a bag containing a sail marked "Genaker", so I took
the sail out, it seemed to made out of about 1/4 oz cloth, radial on the
top, parallel panels on the bottom, upper corner marked "Head", one
lower corner marked "Clew", other marked "Tack". The tack corner has
about 30 ft of 1/4" nylon cord spliced to it and a two foot length of of
1/2" nylon tape with a snap shackle leading from the same cringle.

I have never used such a sail, I would deeply appreciate it if some kind
soul could tell me the ins and outs of flying such a sail.

I attached the "tack" to my stem fitting with the nylon pendant(?) and
used a piece of 1/4" dacron as a sheet from the clew, the thing seemed
to fly OK, but the wind was so light and fluky that it was somewhat
difficult to tell if I was doing this the right way.

Why is there a such a long piece of line spliced to cringle marked
"tack"?

Cheers
Marty