We finally had the opportunity to go sailing with the new rig, and it is a great improvement. Mintaka is a completely new boat. She stands up to her sails better, drives harder and points closer on a beat. Beating upwind in twenty knots, we not only didn't have to reef, we were positively enjoying the ride. When we decided to change the sail plan from a masthead rig to the designer's original plan, a fractional rig, we knew we were sticking our necks out, putting a lot of money on our experience with the boat over the years. Although Atkin originally called for a fractional rig like we have now, all the Ingrids we have ever seen have had masthead rigs. Well, we feel really good about it now. The two pictures here are in light wind - not very dramatic - but they still show the different rig. We still have a masthead stay, as well as the two fractional stays, so we can fly a third headsail in addition to the jib and staysail. That would be a jib topsail, a light-air sail to go with the mizzen staysail. So, now we have the capability of flying six different sails at once - mizzen, main
, mizzen staysail, main staysail, jib and jib topsail. We may never have the right conditions to fly them all together, but we have many options to meet the conditions we do find.
For a variety of reasons, we're going to keep Mintaka in Washington this winter, instead of moving her down to the Bay area. We're still on track for heading off across the Pacific again next May, though.
