BrianH wrote:


But that's not my point here. Where I sail, Adriatic and
Greek waters, we often experience unexpected, sudden and
very strong katabatic winds.

I too have sailed Greek and Turkish waters on many voyages
from my home base in Israel, and encountered many strong winds.
If you are refering to the Meltimi winds, they can be nasty. However,
I never had a problem changing my hanked on foresails. In a real fix,
you can always just drop the jib and sail with main alone. In my
experience, the winds never came up so quick that I wasn't able
to safely shorten sail or remove the jib.


It is impossible to predict the
onset of these winds that arrive instantly and soon raise a
short and steep sea. I was often caught out with a hanked
genoa up by these winds and found myself struggling on the
foredeck to lower sail with my wife on the helm fighting to
keep the bows up to windward. When one time the entire sail
was taken overboard after lowering by a wave breaking over
the bow and I had to haul it back, hand over hand, swept by
further waves, I vowed never to go through that again and to
fit a furling headsail.
That was fifteen years ago and I've never looked back, nor
had any problem with my furling system. One pull on a line
in the cockpit and the sail is immediately reduced or
completely furled. For me, "trying to shorten sail in a
blow" without a furling headsail "can be downright
dangerous", on a plunging foredeck swept by waves.

Maybe I'm just a traditionalist, but somehow roller reefing takes
out a lot of the romance of sailing. Also, as you mention, you cannot
get as good a sail trim and shape with one designed for all sizes, as opposed
to
different sails optimized for their size.



See details of the Adriatic bora wind he
http://www.istrianet.org/istria/mete...s-bora-adr.htm

BrianH.