On Sat, 9 Aug 2008 21:06:04 -0400, in message

"Roger Long" wrote:

The thing that got me thinking about the smaller, compromize Genoa I had
built was noticing how much faster the boat was to windward with the small
working jib in fresh breezes. The performance difference between the 150%
and the working jib (about a 110% overlap) even in light air and on reaches
was much less than the difference in sail area would indicate.

I don't know about anybody else, but my racing bias tends towards too
much sail. The last couple of weeks we went cruising with the cocktail
jib (about 115% with a really high clew) on the furler. As best I
could tell, the speed penalty was 10 or 15 percent and 3 or 5 degrees
of point. Based on observing the boats around us, most cruisers don't
seem to care about that.

The really big plus is that you can carry a sail like that well up to
about 25 knots to weather without having to roll it in, and you can do
what we call "cruising tacks" -- slow turns with enough time luffing
to trim without much power grinding.

Ryk