cruising chute rigging

[gbendaly]

hello every one
I have just received the cruising chute I ordered one month ago from Lee Sails in HK,
it came inside a bag which has a rigid loop opening with 3 cringles and one snap hook ?I wonder what is it for??
the sail came inserted into a " sock" for ease of hoisting and dousing
the head of the sail is equipped with a rather complicated contraption steel swagged wire + pulley + rope + snap shacke and tied to 2 points of the sock which are tied via a rope to 2 points of the bigger end loop on the far end of the sock..
since I have never used a genaker( crusing chute) in my sailing years, I wonder if any one can sketch or illustrate the rigging especially at the head of the sail... pictures will be even better...
I have surfed the net for some illustrated help but could only find description for the tack / down haul attachement at the bow nothing for the masthead.
thanks
georges

[jdoe71]

Our gennaker sounds like it is very similar to yours. It just goes up (in the sock) on the spin halyard, then you use the continuous rope that goes through the block at the top to pull the sock up. There is no rigging at the top other than the spin halyard and what is already attached to your gennaker. We have an ATN sleeve at the bottom that goes over the rolled up genny and a control line from there through a block that can be led back to the cockpit. We put the ATN sleeve on and set control line, pull up on halyard, pull sock up and launch sail, go for a sail, use continuous rope to pull sock back down over sail and snuff it, lower the spin halyard and put it back in the bag, carefully. Gary Jobson had an article in Cruising world a few months back on this, he suggested just letting the continuous sock rope loop dangle loose when the sail is up but I don't like that I try to tie it off somewhere out of the way. The stuff on your bag might be to make it easier to launch? We don't have that, I just keep it in the bag with the top and bottom accessible. Used to be a good pictorial on Cruising Direct's website on this but they have apparently been taken over by North and their website is gone.

[SkiprJohn]

The bag it came with sounds like a standard spinnaker turtle. It is snap shackled to anything on the foredeck (pulpit) so it won't go anywhere when you launch the sail. The metal hoop just keeps the bag open at the top.

I've only used cruising chute once so can't help you. I do know that if the sock isn't long enough and it doesn't cover the last 4 feet of sail it really is hard to control in case a good wind comes up unexpectedly.

Kind regards,

JohnL

[gbendaly]

thanks john, I guess you're right there, tying up the bag on the pulpit with the loop keeping it open above the foredeck for ease of hoist and retreaval maybe the answer.
other wise the 2 attachments that came with the sail at the head are not that easy to figure out, jdoe71 gave me the general idea and I will try to guess the rest for myself unless somebody in this forum has a better description
georges

[Lancerbye]

jdoe71 did a good job of describing the procedure. I leave my bag which is the same as yours in the sail locker and load or unload directly from there. If I had it on deck it would have tto be snapped to a line or something. Some of the problems I have encountered are primarily caused by the sock control line block spinning and twisting a portion of the sock control line preventing me from getting the chute totally out of the sock. I have also had spinnaker haylard block twist which prevented me from fully raising the chute in sock. I think I have solved that one. As for the control line block twist I was considering putting a small cheek block attached to the side of the sock. Anybody else have any ideas?

[SkiprJohn]

Aloha Georges,
I'll bet if you called Lee they would send you an instruction sheet on the rigging of their cruising chute. I had one a while back but sold the chute and it went with it. It was a Lee.
Kind regards,
JohnL

[JohnT]

Georges,



Normally a gennaker in a sock is a pretty simple sail to hoist, fly and control. The normal (I say “normal” as each sailmaker has a slightly different layout) configuration at the head is a D ring or O ring, onto which you clip your spinnaker halyard snap shackle. Lately I have seen sails out of the North and other lofts with no s/s ring – simply a looped strop through which the snap shackle is clipped. From there the sail is attached via a short strop with the sock control line lead through a block which is also at the head of the sail. All you have to check is that the sail head and/or the control line is not twisted in this area as it will make raising the sock or snuffing it very difficult.

There are a number of ways that the tack of the sail is attached to the boat – the easiest is to have a fixed line which can be tripped but some folk use a down-haul configuration via a set of blocks and when sailing on cats, I use a line attached to a pad-eye on the bow, taken up through the tack ring and down to the bow pad-eye and then onto a cleat. Whichever way you tack the sail, just make sure that you secure the end of the line but have no knot in it as you need to let the tack fly when dousing the sail with the sock (snuffing it). Once you have the halyard clipped on, the tack set up and your sheet lead aft via a spinnaker block and then lead to a winch, have the person at the mast hoist the sail in the sock, ensuring that your sock control line is secured so that the sock will not fly up uncontrolled. When all is hoisted and you have the halyard locked off, show the sheet winch person you are ready to launch the sail and under control start pulling the sock up. As the wind catches the sail it will start to billow and two things need to happen simultaneously – the sheet needs to be taken in slowly and you need to control the sock line so that the “hoop” does not shoot up as the sail billows. It is advisable that the person controlling the sock line wears gloves to prevent rope burn!

If the line is not controlled, you find the line sometimes bunches up inside the sock and you cannot get hold of it to be able to douse the sail later and, if it shoots up too fast, it creates friction burn on the fabric of the sail, lessening the life of the sail.

To douse or snuff the sail, the normal method is to let the tack fly whilst the sock is being brought down. As the sock reaches about half way down, then let the sheet loose a bit so that you can snuff the sail completely – never let the sheet completely free. The sock on a gennaker should come down to about a metre from the bottom of the bunched up sail so that the tack and clew are exposed for attaching the tack line and sheet.

It is a great sail to use but needs to be looked after. Snuff and drop it early if the wind starts picking up. If the wind is too light to use the sail, don’t put it up as it may well flog itself to death. Do not leave it on deck if not being used – the sun kills the fabric! If used on a catamaran, be careful not to hoist it if there is not enough wind as the action of a catamaran mast is totally different than that of a monohull – the cat mast rocks side to side very quickly when the wind is light and causes the sail to whip and then rip.

Getting back to the snap shackle on the spinnaker halyard, make sure you buy a really good quality one and maybe a size larger than you actually need. I have seen a number of the good looking but bad quality ones distort and, even themselves or the locking pin, break under load, resulting in the boat sailing over the gennaker – an expensive exercise!



John