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The sailing world is undergoing a sea change, embracing the power of electrification for unparalleled ease and convenience, especially for older crews and solo sailors. Electric systems are revolutionising boats, from lithium-ion battery improvements to automation in rigging systems. Electric furlers for headsails are now common, making sail handling more effortless than ever. 

Image credit - C-Tech

A snuffer is a simple, reliable method of dousing an asymmetric spinnaker. Despite advances in furling technology, snuffers remain the first choice for many offshore race yachts such as Class 40 and IMOCA. In this blog we look at how to select the correct length of snuffer for your sail, why snuffers dominate in short-handed offshore racing and where a furling asymmetric might be preferred. To help answer these questions we sat down with Nathan Steffenoni, co-director of OneSails GBR South. As you might expect, the considerations are very much case dependent, so Nathan was keen to caveat many of his responses. 

We have previously reported on the benefits of adding a staysail in our guest blog: Turbo charge your ride with a staysail. We also looked at different setup options such as furling vs hanks here:

But what about the mast fitting? For people looking to retrofit a staysail on a rig without an existing staysail sheave or tang, this can often be the crunch point. In this blog we explore some of the possible approaches to tackling this, primarily in relation to aluminium rigs. 

 
We are pleased to introduce KZ Racefurlers to the website. Racing sailors will need little introduction, as KZ have been gracing the bows of grand prix race boats for almost 30 years. The pedigree of this New Zealand based engineering firm is unquestionable with long term involvement in classes such as America’s Cup, mini-maxi, super-maxi VO70/65, Ultime trimaran, IMOCA 60 and TP52, where their focus on performance and reliability is put to the test day-in, day-out. 

The IMOCA class has long been at the forefront of technological development in deck gear and rigging systems. Many of the performance products we promote at Upffront.com have originated in the French offshore racing classes before filtering down to the wider cruiser / racer communities. 

We chatted to Oliver Heer Ocean Racing after completing the Route Du Rhum and delivering his IMOCA back across the Atlantic to France. Ollie talks about his campaign and planned hardware upgrades for the winter including the importance of a good autopilot, the benefits of continuous line furling, constrictor clutches and more. 

Image credit: Ronan Grealish

In our previous blog we spoke with Ronan Grealish from North Sails on the topic of reaching sail configurations for doublehanded racing. In this blog we continue the conversation to take a closer look at the design philosophy and evolution of the code zero. Modern top-down furling code zeros such as those from North have come a long way since the traditional flappy leech sails of late.