Ah the big boom project.

The background is that we race this boat probably every Thursday night through the summer, every other Saturday through the winter, and about half a dozen times in 'bigger' regattas through the racing season. So we put a lot of time on the race course. I wasn't shopping for a Catalina 36 when we bought Nimue, but my wife sure was!

Within our budget constraints we could not find a tall rig version anywhere near us within 10k of our price. So we got what we got.

The boat sails fine in 12 knots of breeze, but right from the get go it was clear that the boat had balance problems in light air. With the genoa up, we get lee helm up to about 8 knots true wind speed, and the helm remains too neutral up through about 10 knots. Also turning through tacks, I was having to put just less than 1/4 turn of reverse helm in to stop the boat turning if the genoa trimmers were quick. Lee helm is awful going upwind because you lose the lift of the rudder blade and increase leeway.

In Vancouver a typical day is 8 knots of breeze, a windy day is 12ish. So we were always experiencing these issues and of course its clear the boat could use more horsepower in that wind range also.

I started with the easy stuff - big spinnakers and long spin pole. I run a 15'3" spinnaker pole and my two kites are off an Express 37 and a Schock 35. They both are worth a 6 second PHRF penalty, but immediately we were able to hang on to our fleet downwind.

Next I went to the genoa. The first two years I was stuck with the 130% genoa that I had, but it was fairly flat so I installed genoa inhaulers to get the boat pointing. This did help with pointing but it made the lee helm issue worse! And we still needed more sail area.

Last year I got a proper 155% genoa (the kevlar one in the picture from the other thread). This actually moves the Center of Effort of the rig aft, which helped but did not completely solve the lee helm issue. We were finally seeing hints of going upwind properly.

All this time I had two mainsails, the 1983 original sail, which was undersized (a code 4 sail, code 5 is 'standard dimensions') and a tape drive sail that I had gotten recut from a Newport 41. The Tape drive sail looks great in light air and was about 1 foot wider at the mid girth measurement which helps the sail area a lot and the boat goes much better with it. BUT, it became apparent that the Kevlar tapes have seen some serious UV, in fact I think this sail has done a Vic-Maui race, and I managed to split it from luff to leach during the prestart of a long distance race 2 years back. So I wanted to replace it.

The best used mainsails going in our size range right now are off of the J/105 fleet. I had previously sourced one of these for my Dad's boat, which had almost the same dimensions as a 105, and the sail was really nice even after a year on SF bay. Plus they are all dacron which means they should be easy to do minor recuts on. A recut is needed even now with the long boom as the 105 main is about the height of a Tall Rig C36.

As soon as I started shopping for J/105 mains I realized that it didn't make any sense to get a new sail and then cut off 2' of foot length. So I looked at what that long boom would look like on the C36. For starters the tall rig boats have longer booms already (though not as long as mine). Secondly, adding sail to the back of the boat should correct all the lee helm issues in light air and get us upwind faster, by more than just the increase in sail area.

So I found a boom and I have found a sail, the sail should be in use around April or so. I'll report back.

I expect a bit of increase in helm load when its windy, and I will of course have to reef a bit earlier. However I have only had to reef my boat about once a year while I've had it and I am rigged OK for reefing, so I'm not too worried about it. The 105 sails are fairly flat compared to the two mains I have now, which will help them depower more easily in those situations too.

My only other concern is that I stuck with the same stock spar section for the boom. That boom was already pretty bendy and I'm concerned it's going to look like macaroni now. I do still have a 10' section of boom under my porch, if it proves to be a problem I will use that piece to make a sleeve and stiffen up the section from the mainsheet back.

As far as sail trim on this boat, I made big strides last year on the race course by switching from a tight leech, low traveller setup to a twisted, high traveller setup. This didn't help the helm feel but it made the boat go faster. I'm thinking the bigger main will let me have good helm feel and keep twist.

Its all an experiment at the end of the day.

Oh I should add, before I did any of this I tried really hard to buy the whole rig out of a Schock 35 (about 2' taller than a C36 Tall Rig) but I couldn't land on a price with the guy that had it. I think that would be great, although I'm equally sure my PHRF rating would have ended up way too low.

A few pics like these show how short the boom is relative to the boat. Right from the start I thought this boat needed the sailplan more evenly distributed across the boat, as the keel is in a nice neutral position.