yet, twin head sails are often used. Is that because it is easier, or because
two huge headsails has more drive than one huge headsail and a main sail?

Neither
Main and Genoa (or spinn) broad reaching off to *keep the apparent wind
up* and the sails ventilated.
There is NO reason in the world to run dead down wind (except at hull
speed) .... except to miss land or other hard objects.
Just look at the polar diagrams for just about any boat ..... for
downwind VMG a broad reach is the fastest overall, a dead run is the
ultimate slowness.


In article s.com,
Wendy wrote:

"JAXAshby" wrote in message
...

I personally know a guy who spent 15 days of a 45 day Atlantic crossing
becalmed.

This is why the gods created diesel engines

Most long distance cruisers have set of nylon sails. Lin and Larry
Pardey
had
a nylon mainsail built so their boat wouldn't slop around in lite airs
(large,
lite sails in lite winds also means you can not point nearly as high, as
your
boat speed climbs relative to the wind speed).

Ok, this brings some questions to mind. In a cutter, would one do as well
to simply drop the main in very light airs and go with the staysail and
jib?
Or use the mainsail as well with, say, a preventer in case one was caught
off-guard, and simply relax a bit?

Strategising here...