New Main and Jib

The existing main upon purchase was very old, very cheap, and blown out.  I could never get it to stop flapping.  When I would sail it would sound similar to flying a helicopter.  The leech was blown out, the curvature lost, ripped everywhere, and the head was about to rip off.

One day on a broad reach, while the main was way out over port, I tacked to starboard without bringing the main in, causing it to rush past my head to the other side of the boat.  The inertia, the wind, something pushed it to its limits, ripping the main from leech to luff.

I quickly purchased a new main from a local sailmaker, and a very short time later I purchased a new jib.  At about 115-120%, the new jib is far better suited for performance sailing than the old, massive, 155% genoa which came with the boat.  

Not long after purchasing the new main, I found it to be too large.  This boat has a floating boom, so nothing is locked down, meaning a larger main means I have less head clearance in the cockpit.  It finally got too be an annoyance, and I had the same sailmaker recut the new main to give me almost 20 inches of badly needed head clearance while in the cockpit.  This was great in theory, but the reality was the recut lost the leech and the sail would never properly flatten.  Back to the sailmaker, where a full batten was added in place of the top-most existing regular sized batten.