Spinnakers and Head Sails

[Ex-Calif]

Originally Posted by SariTimur

By the way cruising under spinikar requires a beer in one hand while trimming racing requires lots of shouting and four letter words.

Ha, ha - How true. And usually by all the people in the back of the boat who technically have nothing to with the foredeck except to drive the boat in such a completely wrong direction as to make it impossible to complete the tasks.

[Joli]

Gotta believe your racing with the wrong people

Originally Posted by Ex-Calif

Ha, ha - How true. And usually by all the people in the back of the boat who technically have nothing to with the foredeck except to drive the boat in such a completely wrong direction as to make it impossible to complete the tasks.

[sailorboy1]

Well we got the 1.5 oz up without any problems. Was sailing along on broad reach at about 5.5-6 knots in 8-9 knot wind. Had my sail trim book out looking at the trim thing. Rigged out a jibe preventer just to be safe (first time we did this). Things were good! But of course the wind had to change to a beam reach (and I was steering off course to not go closer to the wind) and the wind picked up to 12-13 and we were doing 6.5-7. But the boat was hard to handle and the autopilot didn't like it at all (I'm starting to think the wheel drive is worn as it doesn't like a lot of things that shouldn't be a problem lately). But we sailed this way on the beam reach for about an hour till I decided to take it down in case the wind picked up even though it wasn't really all that hard to hold. We dropped it without too much trouble. Did have a rough time getting the sock to start going down and will have to work on the timing of the lines for being able to pull down the sock.

Of course just after thi the 12-13 wind dropped back to 7-8 and soon we were motoring sailing to do 5 knots to get in before dark as we knew the anchorage was going to full and we couldn't get a mooring (became a whole other story).

[Factor]

Originally Posted by Don Lucas

Not much experience input here. Should I make the assumption that not many cruisers are using any spinnakers?

Nope - I use the spinakker on my very much a cruising boat and use it very regularly

[Ex-Calif]

Originally Posted by Don Lucas

Of course just after thi the 12-13 wind dropped back to 7-8 and soon we were motoring sailing to do 5 knots to get in before dark as we knew the anchorage was going to full and we couldn't get a mooring (became a whole other story).

Sounds like it went great. And, of course, you will always have the wrong sail configuration for the conditions. Or, the conditions will change once you get the right sail up - LOL...

[SariTimur]

Don,

Glad to see everything went well. Did you say you were using a sock for dousing the spin? If so the thing to remember with them is when launching kep pulling the sock strings all the way up and then tie them off somewhere until it is time to douse. If you don't that little bit of extra line seems to get tangled up in the sock on top of the sail and makes for a bit of drama whne you want to pull the sock down.

Cheers

Mark