FROM 3DL TO 3Di AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN

Jenny III Gets An Upgrade For Her Furling Headsail

Ron Meredith-Jones is a longtime sailor and member of Mimico Cruising Club. You'll see him out on the course every week on his C+C 33 Jenny III with his crew, having fun and pushing the limits. He purchased his furling 3DL genoa from local North Sails expert Hugh Beaton almost 20 years ago and when it finally bit the dust this past year, it was time to upgrade. Hugh recommended the 3Di Nordac for him as it checked all the boxes: durable, better performance, greater control yet great value and a perfect fit for both racing and cruising. Hugh received the email below from Ron after it's first two weeknight races: "Jenny III has now had 2 races with its new 3Di genoa ... both were wins! Have attached results for these races as well as for a recent pre 3Di race (June 19, 2019). For the pre 3Di race. Jenny III was using it's North Sails NORDAC genoa (circa 2010). Jenny III's PHRF rating was 168 for both the undamaged NORDAC and the new 3Di genoa. Based on these results and ignoring in race screw-ups (in race one several boats misread the course and briefly headed to the wrong mark) ... switching to the 3Di seems to have allowed Jenny III to finish about 5 minutes..i.e about 10% faster than its pre-3Di performance. The most relevant comparison is Jenny III to Glayva II. Needless to say owner and crew are delighted and other MCC racers have taken note. Thank you for recommending 3Di as the replacement for our damaged genoa and thanks to the North Sails Toronto Crew for getting the new sail to us so quickly and professionally." Once we received this, we knew we had to speak with Ron further to hear more about his success with 3Di NORDAC.

Tell us about your season this past summer.

The first half of the season, we were mediocre. We generally fit in, there are two boats that are tough to beat: Blast and Glava II. We did manage to beat them over the season, but for the first half the most I can say is, I saw them at the starting line. We were having a good time. Middle of the pack, whatever. The boat's old. It was built in '75, but there are a couple of other boats in the fleet that are roughly the same era. We easily were in with them. If we did everything right, we might beat them. If we did one thing wrong, we would lose. Blast was an image that we occasionally saw. They would usually finish a leg ahead of us.

How did things change once you put the new sail up?

We plunked it up, went out. I think on that day it was probably 12, 14 knots. Usually, in that sort of wind range we don't do very well. The boat just can't go into the waves, and they will go on the wave. Lo and behold, I think we were certainly within sight of both GLAVA, but GLAVA II, and Blast as in on adjusted time, we beat them by a country mile. Fleet captain says it's the fastest Genoa in the club.

What's the biggest change you've noticed between your 3DL Furling Genoa and the new 3Di Nordac Furling Genoa?

We have a lot more power. An amazing amount of power. People said, "Where did you get that sail?" We said "North Sails." The word from everybody else was, "Don't touch it, don't touch it," or, "That's enough. I don't want to race against you. You got an unfair advantage." It was a spectacular increase from one week to the next. What everybody noticed was that this sail was spectacularly better than anything we'd had on the boat ever, including the 3DL. We do quite well, particularly in light winds with the 3DL. Much better than we were doing later. The 3DL met it's demise the last day of the year when I decided that we would go out sailing with my son and his fiance. We only had the Genoa up, and we were doing nine knots, when the normal technical maximum speed on the boat is about 6.9. We went for about 10 minutes until there's this mighty rip; the 3DL and I parted company at the disco dump.

Would you say the sails performed to your expectations?

Absolutely. Exceeded expectations. I was expecting we'd be back sort of, good in light air, and suffering because we never had enough power to really power through the waves every year. The boat would just plow into them, and slew down. This time we held speed going through them, which was really amazing.