Furling question

Got out in higher winds yesterday, probably around 20 mph or so. It was in a lake so the waves were no a big deal, biggest was under a foot. I was out solo, sailing in the front seat. I noticed the boat was completely overpowered in the gusts and reefed the sail right away. It was much easier to handle, dryer and faster with the big batten completely furled. I have a few questions about furling though.
Is it best to completely furl the first big batten? I was concerned about sail shape and damaging the batten if furled with part of that batten out.
With the sail furled I had no telltale to judge sail trim. I am an experienced sailor but really like having the ribbon to help see air flow. Have others added flow ribbons and where on the sail do you put them? I was thinking of using the circles at the bottom of the other two battens and one on the clear part.
Finally, an observation. I usually do not pedal with the sail up, unless I need help to tack. But when I tried pedalling on a reach the boat handled much better. It powered through the puffs better and I could feel the acceleration with wind changes through the pressure required to pedal.

Getting colder here in PA, and yesterday was probably my last sail of the season. Only had the boat for a month but love it.
Alos, got to do an assist for a day sailor. He had problems sailing up to the dock in the high winds. I was able to tow him with the mirage drive even though he had his main sail up. It took some work but was able to pull him right up to the dock. Amazing how much power the drives can generate.

I have always furled as much or as little as conditions required, ignoring the batten situation. I have not noticed any ill effects on sail shape.

I added 3 leech ribbons evenly dispersed down the leech from below the long batten. These hardly come into play though, as the limited sail controls mean that they don't flow well until the sail is furled so only the last batten is visible.

I overcame the lack of telltales on the body of the sail (I didn't see any benefit in adding mid-sail telltales if there was no window to expose the leeward one) by adding a dinghy masthead wind indicator. Knowing the apparent wind direction accurately (without any distortion caused by the sail) allows me to make reasonably educated decisions regarding mainsheet tension.


It took me a while until my fitness level improved enough to manage it, but pedalling while sailing is a definite plus. Sometimes, if needing many tacks to go upwind in a narrow channel, I extend the tack by pedalling directly upwind before falling on to the other tack. The power available from the Miragedrive is impressive...

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Tony Stott
2012 Tandem Island "SIC EM" with Hobie spinnaker

I've had 6 or so years of AI sailing and still consider myself as inexperienced compared to some of you blokes, but I also rarely take the drive out. Wind conditions were I usually sail are rarely above 20 knots and I generally have multiple tacks so I find that the drive may as well be a permanent feature on my AI. I find that in choppy water, exerting more effort at the bottom of the wave and less at the top, tends to even out the speed by possibly varying the power you put into each stroke ( if that makes sense ). Well that's what I think is happening.

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Don't take life too seriously................it ain't permanent.

Same here I don't worry about the battons, when winds get higher than what my AMA's can handle I always furl my sail in about 1 turn in winds over ten mph, and two turns if over about 12 mph. The sail still provides plenty of power but the risk of capsize is much less. However where we live if the winds pick up the waves also pick up, and it is no longer any fun for me so I don't typically like to go out in winds over 8mph. Actually my boat performs best in 4-6 mph winds.
Hoby put out an obscure video in 2011 about the tri power capabilities of their boats. Where you can paddle/peddle, sail, or use the evolve system to propel the boat. I have heard almost nothing on the subject since. That video inspired me to develop my boat to what I consider to be the most capable boat out there. In the video they said you can pedal the boat, or you can sail the boat, or you can use auxilary power to propel the boat (tri power). The boat does fine with any of those propulsion methods. However what if you combine all three propulsion methods and use them all at the same time. That's what I do with mine, and the results are stunning. I alway pedal my boat 100 percent of the time whenever I'm out, I suspect I'm the only one who does. Coming into the TI from being an avid kayaker for many years must give me a different perspective on sailing, I consider the sail on my boat to be just one of the tools in my toolbox to get me from point a to point b. I use all my tools and don't get hung up on pure sailing (man vs sea and all that), most pure sailers call that cheating, I frankly don't care what they think, I'm just trying to get to point b as quickly as possible.
That's all
Bob

EDIT: Here is that video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=241QmxFcbuc
[youtube2]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=241QmxFcbuc[/youtube2]