[Rhodes22-list] UPS

[Mary Lou Troy]

Bruce,
We got our UPS last spring and have been very pleased with it. Our genoa is 
a 175 on the GBI furler. We used the UPS somewhere around 10 times last 
season - mostly on light air days when the 175 was just too heavy for the 
conditions. It is a delightful sail. We could point well above a beam reach 
with it. We went through chop that would have bounced all of the air out of 
the genoa and kept moving. We also used it on a downwind sail when we could 
have used the genoa and found we could balance more easily closer to dead 
downwind with the UPS.

The furler is a bit tricky - at least it was for me to get it to furl 
evenly - there were times we had to try twice because I put too much sheet 
tension on it and didn't have enough furling line (or it filled that tiny 
spool) or there was too much wind in the sail and the bottom furled but not 
the top. Furling improved with practice. Paul Beaudin at Doyle was looking 
for a continuous line furler for it which would be an improvement but he 
couldn't find one small enough.

Setting it up is a lot of extra steps but worth it when conditions are 
right. We don't think ahead as much as we should so we rarely did it at the 
dock and the extra steps had me walking all over the boat: get the sail in 
its bag from the cabin, take it forward, attach the tack to the padeye and 
the swivel to the halyard (after making sure the halyard is run clear), run 
the furling line back through the eyes to a cabintop cleat, run the sheets 
back through the genoa cars and figure 8, make sure everything is in the 
right place, hoist it quickly because it is a light sail and the wind 
catches it easily. There were a couple of times after I'd had trouble 
furling on the previous sail that it didn't want to unfurl all the way at 
the head but that improved with practice furling.

Once deployed it was great. Extremely forgiving and responsive to fingertip 
control. We loved flying that sail. We could still move in 4 knots and 
moderate chop. In flat water, I expect you could move just on a breath of 
air. Downwind in heavier air it was very well behaved.

It does not replace a 175 in 7 to 10 knots upwind. We tried it and like the 
175 better for that sort of work. I was surprised - there were 5 or 6 times 
last season when the fully deployed 175 was the perfect sail for the 
conditions.

Hope this answers your questions but ask away if there have more.

Mary Lou



At 02:48 PM 1/19/2004 -0500, you wrote:
>My recollection is that around this time last year there was a lot of 
>discussion about a UPS for the Rhodes and that several members, in fact, 
>ordered one for their boats.  I would be interested in some feedback  on 
>their experience during the season particularly for those who had been 
>using a 175,  Thanks.
>
>Bruce Greenwald
>S/V Ruach II
>
>__________________________________________________
>Use Rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org, Help? www.rhodes22.org/list