
Originally Posted by
Chris249
But no one has yet demonstrated any evidence to show that bermudan rigs are in fact slower under working sail. If Roger Taylor found that a bermudan was as fast then it was an outlier. We know that was not the case in 6 Metres, 12 Metres, Stars, H, Z or J Class Renjollen, Mullet Boats, 18, 16, 14 and 12 Foot Skiffs, International Canoes, Zeddies, Xs, Ys, Ts or any other of the alphabet soup of NZ classes, the Raters, or just about any of the dozens of classes that tried both and found the bermudan faster. Even the Mirror and Heron classes, small slow family dinghies, have recently dumped the gunter and gone no slower.
It's extremely difficult to believe that Taylor was right and the various legendary sailors and designers involved in shifting all those classes from gaff to bermudan all got it wrong. It's also noticeable that some of them (such as Uffa Fox) were very willing to admit that for certain types, the gaff or gunter was faster even when other boats had switched to bermudan. That seems to indicate that they were not biased; in Uffa's case he just recognised that in the technology of the day, big-rig dinghies like 16s and J-Jolle had to reef often and that meant that it was faster to reduce the effective height of the spars. In most other classes, bermudan was faster. Similarly, in 12 Sq M Sharpies the bermudan and gaff were used alongside each other for a long time until the superior stability of gaff when the boats were moored led to it becoming mandatory.
There is no evidence of bias or blindness and therefore surely we just accept that the many thousands of sailors, designers and sailmakers involved in the huge transition to bermudan did so for good reasons. There may be occasional classes where the gaff is no slower for various reasons, of course.
Nor does the available evidence from on the water indicate that bermudans are as poor downwind as often claimed. Typical allowances for not carrying a spinnaker under PHRF indicate a speed loss of around 2.5%, which is not enormous. That seems pretty typical of the sort of allowance one gets across various systems, including yardsticks from other countries. Compare that to the sort of allowances gaffers get under rating rules (as noted in earlier posts) or something like the allowance the Z Class Renjolle allow for gaff rigs - they get a 3% allowance over identical bermudan rigs, which seems fairly typical. So according to such allowances, the bermudan without spinnaker is faster than the gaff with spinnaker.
I still haven't seen any evidence that the gaff is less work. Why is it easier to pull up an extra spar? Is the lower aspect with an extra stick up high actually more stable than a higher aspect sail with less ironmongery atop it? Nor is there any evidence that a bermudan rig has to have more headsails. I know that all of my bermudan rigs will go to 25 knots under full sail, depowering by mast bend and sail trim . Despite living in a windy corner in a windy part of the world, I haven't changed down to a small jib in several years; as the wind increases I just depower under the main and 105%, then drop the headsail, then go for a reef (which incidentally takes as little as 55 seconds, even single-handed even with a 47ft luff).
Obviously there are reasons for liking and preferring sprits, gaffs etc, and apart from everything else their lift/drag characteristics may well suit some boats better than bermudan. It's just that it seems very to find significant on-the-water evidence that they are as efficient in many ways as the bermudan rig on the normal hull.