[quote=Dogboy][quote=pairajacks]The question is what happens when your mast bends far beyond the point where the sail flattens out. My unerstanding is that if the cut of the main is 3 inches off vertical at the top, then the mast bend to flatten the sail would be 3 inches. What happens to the sail performance when your mast too easily bends to 8 inches?[/quote]
What happens is the leech will open up and the top of the sail will twist off to leeward. This can be a good thing to some degree since a flat and twisted sail has a lower center of effort and reduced drag, so good in high wind applications. The problem is that if the mast bends too easily, the top of the sail will twist open in light wind reducing power and hurting your upwind performance.
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