Starry Horizons Gets New Sails!

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In an upgrade long overdue, Starry Horizons gets a new set of sails custom made for her by Zoom Sails! We've upgraded from dacron to a hydranet mainsail and genoa and got a slightly lighter Code 0 as well. She will never be a true performance catamaran, but we hope that the combo of new sails and losing some weight during our refit will result in a bit more speed!
Of course, you can't put new sails on the boat without a rig, so first we had to work with the yard to get the mast stepped and our new Harken furler fitted. Once again our rigger Tim worked his magic and everything fit just like we intended!
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[@danielcallinan5629]

Great video once again.

[@lesabre1972]

I'll bet there gonna look so nice.

[@TPLeary]

Glad the new Genoa fits on the new furler. All the calculations worked out perfectly with a little hoist to spare. The sails look great.

[@OutChasingStars]

That's why it is always a good idea to work with a master! 😉

[@bobbytidepod1690]

Good looking sails!

[@wow.sailor.]

Wow Sailor 👍

[@bill2292]

Great video! I wish you would do a 30 minute zoom-call video with Jamie and Phil regarding "sails for large cruising catamarans". Whenever I've spoken with a sailmaker, I'm left feeling that they don't really understand big cats...

[@OutChasingStars]

Hmm... yeah that would have been a great idea if I'd thought of if during all our initial conversations. 😆 Maybe I can steal some more of their time someday for another chat.

[@geoffthefarmer]

Great job. Yes the square top main is difficult to handle. I'm not getting any younger and I find it a handful on my Helia.

[@OutChasingStars]

We never had an issue with getting the square top up to the mast track since we'd rigged up the "Incidences Squaretop Method": outchasingstars.com/square-top-mainsail-rigging/ But the diagonal batten never wanted to stay screwed in and is what came undone and caused all the damage to the mast track. Removing all that hassle with no real loss in sail area seemed well worth it.

[@stephenbradshaw5311]

Congrats on new sails very nice and very interested to see if there is any performance hit on dumping square top main. Careful on reefing lines to make sure there fitted ok otherwise easy to put a twist on the top of the main as been thete done that lol. While your doing upgrades adding small whinch on the mast make lifting the Code zero ect so much easier no running lines back to helm.

[@OutChasingStars]

We're really happy with the new sails so far but I think it'll be a while before I can have a good grasp on any performance differences.

[@clarkkent772]

Enjoyed the rigging video. Your first mate is looking like she lost some weight. I hope it was by choice and not any health issues. You both are beautiful people and produce fun videos.

[@OutChasingStars]

Thanks! We've both just been trying to make an extra focus on eating healthy and doing lots of work in the boatyard burns lots of calories!

[@brucerabun]

Looks great David and Amy! I’m impressed with how open your sailbag is. Have you done a video on the rigging for that? I have the top of my sail bag cinching up to the mast via a block on the mast, but have not figured out a way to increase the width of opening when the mainsail is dropped, necessitating climbing on the mast and pushing the cars down. I would love to see more of how yours is rigged.

[@OutChasingStars]

You know... we haven't done a video on it, but we really should. We've done a bit of a write up which you can read here: outchasingstars.com/lazy-jacks-for-your-sailboat-tips-tricks/ The trick is the extra low friction ring. We lashed it to our diamond stay and also have a dyneema pendant going up to the cap shroud pin to prevent the low friction ring from sliding down. Whenever we show it to people their eyes go wide in a "why didn't we think of that before???".

[@brucerabun]

Thanks. I don’t have diamond stays on my cat, but I might try the same on the spreaders.

[@lesabre1972]

thank god.

[@allynonderdonk7577]

I'm sure it feels good to have everything up and readyish with all the sails. I had to look up the Hydra-Net material. The million dollar question is how much does it cost compared to Dacron or the lower end laminates? My guess is that it is slightly more expensive than a low end laminate, rather than slightly more expensive than a Dacron sail. That just sounds right from a manufacturer pricing perspective on my end anyway. Anyway a nice and professional video.

[@OutChasingStars]

More expensive than Dacron but I think it's somewhat comparable/perhaps a bit less expensive than laminates depending on which laminate. We didn't consider laminates because we've heard a LOT of first hand stories of laminates working well until they don't. And when they fail, they tend to fail pretty spectacularly.

[@dougmarder]

Your girl is getting all dressed up. She's so pretty! Will be curious to see how your polars change with the new sails. Also curious to see how well those Rutgerson batton receptacles hold up. Rutgetson is a great company but it seems like more expensive stuff that can break/fail/disappear in the middle of a night sail without warning. Did you go with the Al or composite version? Did you get advice on lashing the batten cars? I am certainly no expert, but all that Dyneema looks like overkill compared to the webbing that was there before.

[@OutChasingStars]

The new batten boxes are super beefy so I'm not too worried about them failing/disappearing. As for things breaking... it's on a boat, which means everything will break someday! 😂 Pretty sure they're AL. I did talk to Tim Leary (our local rigger) about the lashing and he had no issues with it. And yes, the amount of dyneema used is probably overkill, but given how much I DO NOT want our rig to fail while we're sailing, I'm happy to err on the side of caution.

[@stephensidaras7416]

Hi David, Big fan of your show. I don’t understand why u don’t have way more subs. Lots of fantastic info. I have also talked w Phil at Zoom. HydraNet is the good long lasting stuff for sure. How long did it take to get the sails? What material did you go with for the Code Zero?

[@OutChasingStars]

Hey Stephen! We had a bit of a relaxed timeline for the production of the sails since we ordered them before the start of our refit, knowing that we wouldn't need them until 5-6 months later. But trying to look back through emails, it appears it was about a month from when we finalized design/measurements to when they were delivered to Rhode Island. For the Code Zero, we went with Contender Stormlite 4.5oz material and added a Swela Outguard UV cover as we usually leave the sail up as well.

[@timequest9802]

I know this is the wrong video to ask but will you be doing anymore OpenCPN video training?

[@OutChasingStars]

I am planning on more OpenCPN training, but it'll be a while yet. Trying to get through the rest of the refit projects first!

[@dnihilist]

Isn't the KF3.0 undersized?

[@OutChasingStars]

We previously had a KF2 and it worked just fine. So the KF3.0 is even an upgrade.

[@lesabre1972]

A little tedious work. Hahaha

[@OutChasingStars]

A lot of these projects are all about the fine details!

[@tlowe2502]

Great job guys, We hope y'all have a good holiday season. Then we'll be ready for the adventures. Thanks again guy's, we'll always wish you the best, stay safe we love y'all.👍🏻💕🌞

[@OutChasingStars]

We're really excited to be spending the holiday season somewhere much warmer than Rhode Island!