Mast Up Tik Tok
@chrisbroadwater0 ♬ original sound - Chris Broadwater
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Let Loose. Loose footing the main.
Over the past few weeks, I've been reading about sail design and trim. I've been reading about loose footed mains and decided to give it a try. Many sails are designed with a bolt rope in the bottom that holds the sail to the boom along the entire length. From what I have been reading this turns out to be a bit of holdover from the old cotton sail days wear ripping and tearing were an issue. Modern Dacron does not need this additional support and a lot of sailmakers are going to loose footed sails. The easiest way to try this out on your boat is to simply remove the bolt rope from your boom and see how it goes. On the Mirage 24, I have been very impressed with the results so far. Sail handling is much easier especially with regards to tensioning and loosening the outhaul. You can really tune your sails foil shape and so far I can not find a single reason not to do this. Here is a nice video of us sailing along at 6K loose footed main ...