Yes, Dave.
This is exactly what I was thinking of doing. For mostly dead downwind runs, I was thinking of rigging as you suggest and just keeping the main under its sailcover, stowed away and genoa furled up.
I figured running just the chute by itself is no more difficult (maybe less so?) than running wing and wing and possibly safer.
SV Elusive: I did mean just running the spinnaker by itself, no other sails. I don't think I could run a full contingent of sails with it and be safe/sane.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cat man do  I used to ONLY run symetricals on my last cat and yes, if you have a stand up block mounted on each bow you can pull the tack out to that bow and cleat off and raise the sock, then pop the kite without the use of a pole.
Having 2 tack lines (one throgh each block) and 2 clew line it was relatively easy to slow gybe single handed as well.
I used this setup (before getting a fixed prodder) for quite a while with great success.
I also used it for many many thousands of miles, all single handed, while leaving the main in its boom bag and underboom shade tarp up.
This way you just have to worry about the kite, you dont have the main blanketing the kite, and in my case , the main was a lot more expensive than the kite, so saved on wear an tear to the main.
Saying all this though I did use the main as well in light air, but found when the wind got above 10 knots that the kite pulled just as fast by itself with a lot less work for me (one sail)
I did have an autoplilot as well.
Dave |