Hey Nutsy,

About the free footed sail & shelve:------

Only can you have a shelve with a free footed main. No one has ever seen
a shelve that wasn't on a free footed Main. There is a school of
thought that a free footed main will develop air turbulence at the foot,
so they closed off the bottom with a shelve.

I've had both shelved and un-shelved, I can't tell the difference.

The biggest difference was sailing in the rain. The shelve was (is) a
great rain catcher. You don't want to be on the down side during a tack.
Gallons of water are dumped into the cockpit.




http://community.webtv.net/tassail/ThomPage