A Photo & Discussion Forum for Wharram Design Enthusiasts

Struggling with wingsail sleeve friction

I have a Tiki 38. Sails by Rolly Tasker. They are his heavyweight Cruising cloth and even after a good bit of use are still quite stiff. I have now been cruising the boat solo for about 2 years. For whatever reason, on my boat the friction from the wingsail sleeves makes it very hard to raise and lower the sails. There have been occasions where the difficulty with dropping the sails has posed a bit of a danger. I am planning to have them modified to be able to use either mast hoops or lacing.

I have seen photos of a T38 charter boat in New York (I think it was) and also remember that Ann & Neville did the same thing on Peace. If anyone has information about doing this conversion, please respond here, or feel free to contact me privately if you prefer.

Also, if anyone has successfully converted beam lashings to webbing or other alternate system, I'd appreciate learning more about it.

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Axel Grease on January 2, 2026 at 2:57pm

With many thanks to Ann for the time and effort she took in explaining what she and Neville had done with Peace, I took the plunge.

I know others have used the wingsail with no issues for years, but I had a couple of problems. The sails would jam occasionally on the way up, and more importantly jammed a few times on the way down. My sails were made by Rolly Tasker of very stiff, heavyweight cloth and I suspect the stiffness of it played a role. It did not soften with time.

The sleeves became stuck a couple of times in sudden squalls. The resultant flogging and tears while I wrestled them down were what got me thinking about the change more seriously.

The mast sleeves were split and the zipppered side removed, a bolt rope and grommets were added to the luff. Sail foot length increased about 10% on both. I have just completed the set up with single line lacing. Back to the 19th century...

I have been replacing an outboard and have not yet had a chance to test them sailing. It will be interesting to see what effect the lacing has on performance.

A few key things:
Sails can be raised with less effort
Sail drop and flake themselves and make a much smaller bundle on deck.
The sail shape looks good.

As I have a hardtop on my pod, access to the sail for reefing and stowing was difficult. I made a boom for the mainsail so I can install lazy jacks. Hopefully that will make reefing and sail handling easier.

If anyone is interested I can take some fotos of the new sail set up. I will report back once I have a few sea miles on them and can assess the impact of the change.