Asymmetric Spinnaker Without a Bowsprit ?

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by SailFanatic

This is good but I would add if you tack the asym ahead of the stem, you will be gybing it in front of the headstay, and to do that without potential difficulty, you need to be flying the asym on a true spinnaker halyard, ie a halyard hanging off a fitting on front of the mast head.

With symmetric spinnakers disappearing outside of racing circles, it seems many boats are coming with second halyards, labeled "spinnaker" but which are rigged exactly the same as the "jib" halyard in the adjoining masthead sheave. You don't want to use a halyard like this with a sail that you will gybe in front of the forestay or you may find it difficult to lower after a jibe.

It is not necessarily an issue using a halyard which exits adjacent the headstay or even below the headstay. We have three halyard exit sheaves on one shaft and they are slightly below the headstay.

When you jibe around the forestay (jibe outside) the halyard then is over the headstay. It still comes down fine on our boat, which ever jibe you take it down on. However the foredeck must make sure they take the halyard back around the front of the boat after takedown (which reminds me, I need to go on deck and make sure they did that after last Weds' race).

When you jibe inside of the forestay, if you have roller furling, the spinnaker halyard will be crossed underneath the jib halyard aft of the jib. In that case the spin halyard must be returned to its correct side behind the jib.

If you are running a headfoil system where you drop jibs and bring the jib halyard back to the mast, then jibe the spinnaker, when resetting the jib you will trap the spinnaker halyard between the forestay and the jib halyard, impossible to clear.

Now to further complicate the issue, if you need to change spinnakers by doing a peel, then which side the spinnaker is up on, (which halyard) becomes important.

And if you change jibs before setting the spinnaker, now the new jib is up an a spinnaker halyard, and then you have to set a spinnaker...Oh my God what have I done now?

Oh, the worries of the skipper and the forward hands, so much to figure out.

Edit:
I realize that the use of a sock makes much of what I just said invalid. We have never used a sock much, and got rid of the last two we had. A spinnaker sock complicates the whole issue of setting and dropping a spinnaker and totally complicates most spinnaker jibes, although I get that the issues can be resolved or at least lived with. But frankly, we find setting and dropping spinnakers, asymmetrical or symmetrical is easy and quick without a sock, even for Judy and I, both in our seventies, when we are cruising or racing doublehanded so why bother with a sock?