In November 2022, we ordered a new sail from North Sails here in Gothenburg, a “Tradewind” sail. The sail is customized for sailing when the wind is around angles at or close to straight from behind, (downwind – wind between150 to 180 degrees). It is a relatively uncommon type of sail; essentially two foresails made from spinnaker cloth, sewn together in the middle. What sold us on the sail is that it is supposed to help balance the boat, avoiding rolling as much; and requires less constant attention than a spinnaker / is easier to sail alone. Also, it can be folded in half on either side to work as a “code zero” sail, for points of sail from sidewind to close to straight downwind (wind between 70 – 140 degrees). One benefit of having the lighter weave on the sail is that we can use it in lighter air than if we poled out two foresails. The sail arrived almost exactly 6 months after we ordered it, and since we are busy getting ready to leave, it took us another month until we had our first test sail with it.
Testing the new Tradewind sail was fun, we tried it at different angles of wind to see how far it could go and even tried the code zero function. Since we aren’t used to spinnaker sailing, we need a lot more practice both in trimming the sail and using the poles. Already it feels like a great sail and we are looking forward to using it when we have the wind from behind. There is more technical information on North Sails website, although less than when we ordered it so they may not be marketing it anymore. Our hope is that we will do a lot of downwind sailing as we follow the tradewinds, it is a really comfortable way to sail.
