Small Jib

Look on the 345/348 forum for a recent thread on "sailing in increasing wind speeds" and you will see my summary.

If you put in reefing, any date, 300/301 forum into the advanced search function you will find many discussions.

Hi, I also find the full small jib a bit too much in anything over 25kts (~13m/s) but I do put a few rolls in it to ease things a bit, especially single handed. I don't normally put a reef in the main until its getting up to 20kts though, and ony a second reef over 25. I've never put a 3rd reef in though. I do find that flattening the main using outhaul, lots of mast bend and lots of halyard tension is usually enough to make the boat fairly controllable.

How old is your ST jib? Getting any sail flat will de-power it nicely, and old sails just get baggy. I was pleasantly surprised when I got new sails a few years back.

When we use to race long distances, we had to carry a storm jib, one that slipped over the furled jib, but the only time we tried that in anger it really didn't set too well, two of us got completely soaked on the foredeck putting it up, and in the end we ended up taking it down and sailing with just the main and two reefs in 30kts+ on a fairly broad reach for nearly 6 hours. The 301 goes really well with just the main.