One of the world’s most experienced and accomplished ocean cruising sailors, Susanne Huber-Curphey, recently took delivery of a suit of new Rolly Tasker Sails. These sails were made to our highest Ocean Specification and also include some of her own ideas for details that we will take a look at below.
For 10 years now, Susanne has been voyaging the world’s oceans single-handed on her purpose-built aluminum cutter, which is named after the castle ‘Nehaj’ in Croatia, translating to ‘feel safe here’ or ‘have no fear’. To this day, Susanne and her boat have logged 163.403 nautical miles with 1.272 days at sea. She has been honoured with many medals and awards, by the Trans-Ocean sailing club, by the Cruising Club of America and by the Ocean Cruising Club to which she has also been invited as an honorary member.
The most notable of her numerous awards are possibly the CCA Rod Stephens Award and the OCC Barton Cup, as well as the prestigious recognition from Trans-Ocean (TO-Preis) that she received three times in 2011, 2017 and again in 2020.
Why Choose Rolly Tasker Sails
This is what Susanne said about choosing Rolly Tasker Sails:
“In her ten years, Nehaj spent a high percentage of her miles in the high latitudes of the North and in the Southern Ocean, though she had crossed the equator seven times in between. It included Spitsbergen at Latitude 80º North and rounding Cape Hoorn offshore twice. For this demanding kind of sailing, I need to have the best possible sail quality.”
Ocean-Going Sail Wardrobe on Nehaj
On Nehaj, Susanne carries an extensive sail wardrobe:
Two mainsails, two staysails, two light weather/downwind staysails, two Genoas, two high-cut Yankees, plus one storm jib, one trysail, and an asymmetrical spinnaker that she rarely uses.
The new RTS sails are made from top quality Contender Warp Tech fabric, designed in Tri-Radial cut, and made with extra strong finishing.
The new sails are:
- one mainsail without battens and four reefs,
- one high-clew Yankee with hanks and our twin ply leech, and
- one staysail with one reef, hanked on, and also our twin ply leech.
No Battens in the Mainsail
This is an unusual choice to make but, in the light of her experience and her type of sailing, it makes perfect sense for her:
“It was not until both top short battens of my previous main sail blew out of their ripped-off pockets on the recent journey after Cape Hoorn, when I discovered how much easier it was to tie in reefs. Most of all when dropping the main sail completely in gale conditions. There were no more hiccups of battens chafing or getting caught on the upper and lower shrouds.”
On her last journey of nine months, Susanne used the full main sail for only 15% of the time, so she doesn’t mind the reduced sail area of some two square meters of a ‘hollow leech’ on a sail without any battens.
“On my new RTS the fourth reef equals the area of my present trysail and I expect to happily use it, though if it’s for several days I would still use the trysail in its own mast track to keep my new Rolly Tasker mainsail from wearing out.”
Trysail and Storm Jib
These dedicated storm sails are an essential part of any offshore sailing wardrobe and Susanne makes no exception here:
“I have used the 7.5 m² trysail extensively, its sail area is 21% of the full mainsail. It really doesn’t need to be storm conditions for me to use it. Sailing downwind with the trysail and a poled-out staysail creates a very balanced sail plan, often perfect for several days. In addition, this saves chafe and wear on the mainsail and will extend its life-span.”
“Nehaj is easily when heaving-to just under the trysail as I recently did, when Cyclone TAM surprised me as we were approaching New Zealand two days before Easter 2025. I expect that if time is an issue, the fourth reef of the new mainsail will be tied in faster than it would take to lower the main and hoist the trysail.”
“When running down wind in severe conditions, I lower the mainsail completely and run off just under the 5.4 m² storm jib in winds up to Force 10. If conditions worsen, I will deploy the ‘Jordan Series Drogue‘, as I did seven times on this recent ‘La Longue Route’, including during Cyclone TAM in over 80 knots at our location 95 miles north of Cape Reinga, the northern tip of New Zealand.”
No Furling Sails
While furling sails, especially on headsails are nowadays the norm in coastal and offshore sailing, Susanne is quite apprehensive about these systems:
“In fact, I am afraid of the many potential problems of furling sails. It could be a total failure of the furling system, or it might just be a broken reef line. The effect can be disastrous, especially for a small crew or when solo sailing.
Many of my passages include ocean crossings where the next repair shop is not in reach for weeks or even months. The wonderful thing about hank-on foresails is that you just have to let go the halyard and the sail will always come down by itself, however hard a sudden gust might be.
It is important to not loosen sheets so that there will be no wildly flogging sails. The downside of having no furling sails is the number of sails that I carry on board.”
Simplicity at Sea
Keeping the boat simple has been, and is, a key consideration of many long-term, offshore cruising people and Susanne fully embraces this philosophy:
“For me, simplicity is a key factor on all boat equipment and for everything on board in general. Regarding the sails, all handling is done directly at the mast. I have not one halyard or reef line led to the cockpit.
The list of equipment that I DO NOT have on board is quite long:
- No furling sails,
- no refrigeration/freezer,
- no installed water maker,
- no fancy auto pilot,
- no chart plotter other than use for the radar,
- no pressure water,
- no shower,
- no washing machine,
- and so on.
Half of a modern cruiser’s life seems to be spent by repairing or replacing their extensive equipment, buying spares and paying expensive experts.”
Ocean Cruising
Here, Susanne shares her thoughts on cruising in general:
“In my opinion, Nehaj has the perfect balance between a safe boat movement in rough conditions and still acceptable boat speed. Naturally, her upwind performance is not breath-taking, but then I’m no racer. Over a hundred thousand miles the average speed was 5.5 knots, including all times of drifting in calms with lowered sails, as I hate to run the engine offshore.”
“I started to measure our mileage per week, rather than the daily noon-to-noon run. Nearly half of the sailing on Nehaj was a thousand miles per week, which is fine with me.”
“On the other hand, I never waste a good breeze. I take out reefs or change foresails in time and try to sail at the best possible speed. I’m convinced the three fancy new sails from Rolly Tasker will make us happy!”
About Nehaj
Susanne points out that her boat is always taking very good care of her when at sea. She is even convinced that Nehaj is talking to her:
“It might be an unusual noise inside the hull if something got loose, though luckily there are no creaking hull noises in a solid metal boat. It might be a vibrating sail or halyard in a gust, or a different boat movement in the waves if the wind had changed direction. On rare occasion and in perfect sailing conditions I do hear a mysterious ‘happy hum’ without really knowing where it comes from. Maybe solo- offshore sailing is more a thing of listening than actually seeing?”
“Nehaj is a heavy-built 39′ aluminium cutter. She has a full keel and a displacement of 16 tons. The hull was built at ‘Koopmans Kaskos‘ in the Netherlands, where I was allowed to join the yard and their 40-hour week, doing my own work for half a year. After that, it took me another two years of boat building to complete the interior including all systems: electric, diesel and water. In comparison to that, the deck work of adding non-slip mats, fitting the winches and such was a rather minor effort.”
“For the oversized ‘Selden’ rig I had a professional rigger and Yanmar installed the 52hp engine.”
“Nehaj just had her 10th anniversary since the first test sail in the Ijsselmeer in May 2015.
Soon after, we left for the Shetlands and around Iceland, followed by a first long trip from the Canary Islands to New Zealand.”
In 2017 she and Nehaj managed the Northwest-Passage, which only eight male solo sailors did before her. Other highlights of her sailing with Nehaj was the so-called ‘La Longue Route’ which she sailed in 2018 and again just recently. In the wake of Bernard Moitessier’s legendary voyage in 1968, Susanne sailed solo and nonstop one-and-a-half times around the world, which she did both times.
In June 2018 she sailed from Maine/USA to Tasmania, 33.043 NM in 251 days and in July 2024 from the Azores to New Zealand, 33.532 NM in 270 days. Which is where she took delivery of her new Rolly Tasker Sails: “I’m happy to join the Rolly Tasker Sails family”.
