Matt Langenfeld ) writes:
A rule of thumb I've heard is that for beginners, multiply the max beam
by max length and that should be your sail area.

unfortunealtely that ignores displacement. in the sprit sail file on my
website there are two rules involving displacement and one invovling
wetted surface. the rule involving wetted sruface and one invovling
displacment are the usual standards and the other invovlign diplacemetn is
a near approximation to the first derived by TF Jones for small boats in
the apoprox 250-350 lb displacement range. I find the wetted surface rule
produces too big a sail for small boats so the displacment rule is better.
Since a sprit sail spills more wind than the bermudan which is what the
rules are for there is an error in favour of underpowering the sprit sail
slightly when close hauled, which is good.

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