Spinnaker Flying Considerations

[schoonerdog]

Beautiful picture! It's a triradial asymmetrical I believe.

[2Hulls]

Originally Posted by schoonerdog

Beautiful picture! It's a triradial asymmetrical I believe.

Is the sail in a sock?

Do you have a bow sprit? Most asym chutes I've seen on cats are flown with the tack on a sprit. (The Gemini cats have a cool gizmo that permits the tack of an asymmetrical or any other headsail to be run on a track across the whole front beam.)

Assuming you have a sprit, it should have a standup block or something out on the end to rig the sail tack to via a guy or tack line. Rig one sheet on the side you want to set the chute on. Raise the sail in the sock. Take out most of the slack in the guy/tack line - bring the tack to a few feet of the end of the sprit. Raise the sock, the sail fills, adjust the sheet and guy as needed and open a beer.

The downside of asymmetricals vs symmetricals is that to gybe you pretty much have to sock the chute, swap the sheets, then re-open the sail again on the new tack. Some folks rig both sheets to the clew and can walk the chute through its gybe (around the forestay) if the wind is light. But if the wind is light, socking the chute is real easy and probably reduces the risk of snagging the sail on something and tearing it.

If your sail is an aysmmetrical and you don't have a sprit, not to worry, you may still be able to create a virtual sprit by using two bows guys together to place the tack near the centerline and attach one sheet (depending on which side you set the chute) to the clew. I've done this with my symmetrical to force it to act like an asymmetrical and can get a little above 90 degrees apparent.

Finally, if you have an asym but no sprit, you can rig the chute like a symmetrical with one guy and one sheet on each tack/clew. Handle it just like a symmetrical and gybing will be easy just by adjusting the guys/sheets from active to lazy. (One sheet and the opposite guy are always active and the opposites are always lazy.) The asym might look a little funny doing this, but it'll work! This all sounds WAY more complicated than it is.

Dave

[SkiprJohn]

Good looking photo. How do you take that when you're on the boat? LOL.
JohnL