Total number of sails allowed is 8 including main and storm jib. It’s not a lot to cover a very large range of uses. The changes in foil tech since last Vendee means we have also seen a massive change in sailect and choice.
The biggest change in the sailect is once foiling, in above 12 knots of wind. The amount of canvas is rapidly reduced especially when reaching. The Apparent wind speed generated with extra speed means that’s there is no need for the extra sail area once foiling. Fractional sails will be much more in play.
Downwind
The big difference between boats is to bring a spinnaker or not. It is much more difficult to foil while using a spinnaker so a lot of foilers have chosen not to bring one and to bring a Gennaker of around 300m2. The foilers who keep their spinnakers have massively reduced their size in order to have a chance for foiling. Sailing VMG downwind is a big challenge to calculate. Foiling mode means sailing a lot higher and fast than a conventional non-foiler, so the extra distance covered has to be worth it.
Reaching:
Another big split in the fleet is the size of fractional sail to bring used for reaching. Some boats have opted for J1.5 (130m2) while others a FR0(170M2). The differnce being a J1.5 is better for higher reaching angles (100-125) while a FR0 is better for 120-135TWA. These will also be the sails for extreme southern ocean downwind conditions in above 30 knots of wind.
Upwind:
Foiling upwind at around 60TWA is now an option. With this the size of headsails has generally reduced. A non-foiler will typically take reef 1 at 21 knots while a new foiler will find they need the reef at around 17 knots. Quite a big change so with this the J2 and J3 sizes have generally reduced to balance the power still.
Some boats are even opting to tryout their storm sails (max 20m2) to see if these can work as staysails and strong upwind conditions.