On The Wind Sailing

#150. is my good friend, sailmaker Chuck O’Malley. I’ve worked with Chuck and his business at Chesapeake Sailmakers since first moving to Annapolis after college in 2006, and he’s been my sailmaker ever since. Back then, I was living on my dad’s boat Sojourner, and Chuck repaired a spinnaker we had onboard. He’d eventually build all three new sails for Arcturus before our Atlantic crossing, build my dad a new mainsail before his first Caribbean 1500 on Sojourner, and is currently finishing up the two new genoas that will complement the new Hydranet mainsail on Isbjorn. In this episode, recorded at the WCC Ocean Sailing Seminar weekend in March, Chuck discusses the technical aspects of building and maintaining ocean-going cruising sails. It’s the second or third time he’s spoken at our events, and his talk is yearly surveyed as a favorite among seminar attendees. Chuck talks about design and construction characteristics; downwind sail choices; three-reef versus storm trysail setups; storm jibs; gennakers and C