is this the perfect Bluewater Sail Set Up for liveaboard and ocean crossings? (a sails review)

Hello everyone and welcome back to a new episode. Today we are going to sail along the beautiful coast of Curaçao and we are going to show you the blue water sail setup we decided to put on our sailboat in order to safely cross the Atlantic Ocean and now have the perfect sail setup for all conditions that live a boat like us will face out there. This is me and this is the love of my life and partner in crime. Two years ago we traded our stable corporate lives for more adventurous and sustainable lives as digital nomads at sea. Follow along as we discover new places and build our businesses one anchorage at a time. So after sailing for 18 months in the Mediterranean we got a lot of winds and a lot of experience there and we decided it was time to head out in the To do so we had to improve our sail setup immensely. So today after seven months in the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea we would like to show you why we chose this setup and why we think we made the right decisions. When you alter your sail setup sometimes it also means that you have to alter the sail rigging of the whole sailboat and that's what we had to do because we had no second forestay but we wanted to have a second smaller jib in case for higher winds and in case also if we went into storms to be able to use a storm sail. A second forestay always means bigger duration for the boat because you have to sometimes re-rig the mast and also take a lot of space away from the deck actually. As we live on the boat space for us is really important so we needed a solution that would take the less space possible. And here comes in the idea of Swaggen Furler and Rolly Taskersail who ideated a second forestay which is actually really cool. Our 2-2-1 halyard system consists of a Dyneema halyard which we can throw away to the mast so we have nothing in front. It comes from top of the mast and goes down to a fixing point to a chain plate in the deck where we can fix the furler and the sail. On top the Swaggen Furler consists of a swivel so we fix the sail here and then we can furl the sail. On the bottom we have the removal of a furler so we can take it off and we have the whole space for ourselves and we can install an endless furling line which goes back to the cockpit so we are safe and sound when we furl in the sail or take it out and we can do everything from the cockpit. The first thing we want to show you is our heavy wind chip which is the one we mostly use on our 2-2-1 halyard system. The sail itself is pretty strong and it has an anti-torsion rope inside. The anti-torsion rope is actually the part that works as forestay so we don't need any aluminum forestay to do that. So the anti-torsion rope in combination with the 2-2-1 halyard system allows us to have a flexible and easy to use system. This allows us also to furl in the sail, take it away and we don't have any sheets running back to the cockpit when we don't use the sail. So the cockpit is clean and especially for sailing and if we want to sail with the Genoa there is no forestay when we tack. So we can tack from starboard to port side very easily without having to furl in the Genoa or without having the fear to damage the forestay. So the heavy wind chip is up, our second forestay is in place and we are finally ready to go sailing. The wind is definitely here already. We are finally on the move and it looks like we have a lot of wind so we definitely are going to meet the heavy wind chip today. When we got the opportunity to work together with Rolly Tasker Sails on our dream sail setup for us it was really important to find a balance between safety, speed and amount of sails because as you know we are living on Fortuna so dragging around a lot of sails was just not an option for us. Nevertheless we needed to be prepared for all the conditions that could be happening out on the Atlantic Ocean or in the Caribbean Sea. So at the end we decided on a sail setup with six different sails from which two are always up. The two sails that are always in action are our main sail and our Genoa. While about Fortuna she still had the original sails which means they were standard OM sails mainly meant for cruising inshore or in the Mediterranean. But as we now were ready to go offshore across the Atlantic Ocean and explore the Caribbean Sea it was time to get proper cruising blue water sails with a durable cloth and the right enforcement to stay with us for many many years and for many many adventures. Now we are sailing and it is just beautiful we are on a perfect downwind course with our sails up in our butterfly and we're just surfing down the waves with five to seven knots so it's really perfect right now. We have five ton winds about 20 knots so we're very happy to have out our heavy wind jib. I have to admit that when we got the heavy wind jib we were not really sure how to use it. We have been sailing with our main sail and our Genoa for yeah 18 knots on the max so we were so sure on our two sails that we were used to use. But once we started using the heavy wind jib it's just such an amazing sail. It helps you out when there is not a lot of wind. We started using it in our free sail constellation with the main sail, the Genoa, the pole and the jib so it gives you this little extra when there is not a lot of wind. And obviously when there is a lot of wind you just can throw in the Genoa and totally trust on your heavy wind jib. It's a sail we definitely recommend to everyone. Definitely if you're going for an Atlantic Ocean crossing or start sailing offshore a heavy wind jib is a must. And I would even say recollecting the winds and waves we had in the Mediterranean a heavy wind jib would have come easy in a lot of situations. Wow that is quite some wind today but the heavy wind jib is doing an excellent job. Unfortunately this will mean that we are not really able to take out any other sails today. But I still want to explain to you our sail setup and why we decided to go for it. As mentioned at the beginning we have a total of six sails on board which in combination allows us to sail all different kind of wind speeds and wind angles. So far we have talked about our blue water main sail with durable craft, reinforced leeches and multiple stitching. We have a Genoa sail with an extra foam in the last which allows the sail to keep its form also when it is being reefed. And we have the heavy wind jib. So these three sails allow us to sail between 10 to 25 knots on pretty much most of the angles. What is now still missing in our sail setup is a light wind sail. The fourth sail we have decided to take on board is our beautiful Gamma curl who all of you people have helped us to design. At the beginning we were a little bit scared using it because we heard so many scary stories about Gamma curl dropping into the water or ripping in the middle of a sail. But we have to say it has become our favorite sail and whenever we have the chance we take it out and go and sail with it. One of the reasons why we are so happy with this Gamma curl is also because it is an offshore Gamma curl. So it is made of a little bit of thicker cloth which means you need four or five knots in order to be able to hoist it. And it is not only stitched but also glued. Something that has been very helpful to us on the Atlantic Ocean as our gennaker decided to fly freely in 20 knots of wind but did not get damaged at all. These sails allow us to sail until 25-30 degrees. Afterwards the sea can get pretty rough so we decided to also get a storm jib and a tri-sail on board. Luckily we never had to use them so far but we did a trial once with our storm jib which we're going to show you now. So we got two storm sails. One basically for the jib. We decided for the two-to-one inner forestay system to hoist it. So we will show you that. And one as a tri-sail instead of the main sail. We are very lucky because we have a furl in main sail which means we would have to take down the main sail in order to hoist it. Not an option because in case of a storm we need to hoist it quickly. So luckily there is a rail left to the furler where we can put in the tri-sail and lift it up with the topping lift. So a really nice solution for normal full batten main sails. It should not be an issue because you have already the rail and it's free when you hoist the tri-sail. Beside our two orange beauties we had to get two blocks for the tri-sail. It's the same we use for the gennaker and a few more sheets for tri-sail and the storm jib basically. Oh and a small soft jacket to fix it. And that's it. Really easy setup at the end. This brings us to a conclusion. In total our sail setup is made up of six sails and one telescopic boat which allows us to sail all the different kinds of weather and wave situations we have found ourselves so far. To quickly recap we have an offshore main sail, a 130% offshore genoa, a heavy wind jib, a gennaker, a tri-sail and a storm sail. We hope you liked this episode. Don't forget to hit the subscribe button and leave us a like and a comment which really helps us to grow. If you have any questions about our sail setup feel free to leave them in a comment and we will for sure answer them as quickly as possible. Thanks so much for watching. See you all next week!