Balance Lug Sails for the Goat Island Skiff

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The Goat Island Skiff is now up to $400 cheaper to get on the water because of reduced sail cost.

Agents for Stock Sails

Americas – Duckworks USA
Europe – Arwen Marine France

Or order direct from us – Really Simple Sails

Stock sails are usually available “off the shelf”

Custom direct sails – 4 weeks (low season – Christmas/January) or 6 to 10 weeks (high season).

Performance and Beauty

The GIS by Michael Storer is well known for having excellent sailing performance.

The boat is light and deserves sails made of good materials.  We are happy to work with Michael Storer to develop a budget sail that will bring out the best of performance.

The sail is 105sq ft and is made of 5oz dacron.

Sail adapts to both loose footed on a stiff boom or laced foot on a flexible boom

The sail can be set laced to the original light boom

This is the prototype of the current sail as of mid 2020. It has been through 5 generations of design.

It is being tested by Simon Lew in Florida. It is laced to the light boom

Simon Lew in Florida testing the current generation RSS Really Simple Sails Lug sail for the Goat Island Skiff. in this case with a laced foot.

The truly interesting thing is that all the “theory” about which is the bad tack is wrong.

  • There is no “bad tack” with lower performance. We race Oz Goose Sailboats in big fleets, rigged with sail to port or starboard of the mast – there is no difference.
  • There is a difference in “feel”. With the mast too leeward the sail is much easier to keep in the groove. On the other tack, have to get speed first with a slightly eased sheet before moving into pointing mode.

As I said … properly set up, there is no speed difference.

Sail can be set on Stiff Booms as as Loose footed for easier camber adjustment

Joost Engelens Goat Island Skiff in Extreme RAID Event Netherlands - standard RSS GIS sail set loose footed

Back in Time – Our first sail order and delivery – to Uruguay!

We are excited to announce the first Photos of our Really Simple Sails in action – February 2014.  Daniel Caselli in Uruguay.

We recommend a loose footed sail for the Goat to get more power in the bottom of the sail.  This requires the boom to be more stiff than the standard round boom.

Cheap but good sails for the Goat island Skiff, OzRacer, Oz PDRacer and Ocean explorer

The standard sail is cut to suit both a loose foot or a laced foot.  All RSS GIS sails come with eyelets along the bottom for lacing, so the option is always there.

If you are interested in fitting the sail to another type of boat see the section about mast and centreboard location.

Order stock sails from Duckworks USA or contact us in the menu to order direct (price will vary from the low Duckworks price).

3 thoughts on “Balance Lug Sails for the Goat Island Skiff”

  1. Pingback: We are now making custom sails and standard sails in custom materials

  2. I am building a small 14′ 6″ Viking Dragon Ship. She has a 5′ beam and about 220lbs of lead ballast. You can see her construction at (nordicboats1.blogspot.com). I am thinking of using the GIS balanced lug sail on her but I need to know the sail dimensions and CE to be sure I will have weather helm based on the mast and centerboard location.

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