Top Down Asymmetrical Spinnaker Furler

[Uncle Bob]

Originally Posted by Fbfisher

Blow the sheet? Blow the tack? Create a wind shadow with the main is the method I’ve used. Less drama as no flailing sail and sheets, dousing it into the forward stateroom definitely gets it off the deck quickly, though doing so means I’m on deck to drop the sock and drop the halyard, which is actually released from the cockpit.

Please, I am curious, do you not disconnect either the clew or tack, just use the shadow of the main and haul the sock down over the still partially full sail?

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by jt11791

I've never found attachment to the furled head sail helpful or necessary. Attach the tack line to the bow and keep it pulled down fairly tight. You can ease the tack a bit when running deep to help the sail rotate more in front of the boat.

Sometimes the "Beads" allows the tack of the asymmetrical sail to fly clear of the railings of the pulpit. We attach ours directly to the stem fitting (part of the anchor roller) and allow the sail to rub on the pulpit railings. It doesn't hurt.

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by Uncle Bob

Please, I am curious, do you not disconnect either the clew or tack, just use the shadow of the main and haul the sock down over the still partially full sail?

Well actually, we don't use a sock or a furler, one person forward just pulls the sail down on the foredeck with a second person back aft releasing the haylard. and steering. That's just the way our boat is set up and how we sail. Quick, easy and SIMPLE and fast.

BUT, if you are going to use a sock or snuffer you want to collapse the sail. The lee of the main will provide a wind shadow and will collapse the sail so you can snuff it. If there is still enough breeze getting around to the spinnaker so it is not staying collapsed then you can release either the tack or the sheet. Either will dump the wind out of it and allow it to flag. I prefer to release the sheet because the sheets are long enough so that the sail, even while flagging attached by the long sheets, can still move about quite a lot. keeping the the tack attached gives the sail a much shorter leash. (But I am no expert on socks or snuffers, I had one, I made a laundry bag out of it. We have five spinnakers, no socks or snuffers)

[RaymondR]

I was going to fit a top down furler so that I could use my asymmetric a bit more but this thread has thoroughly discouraged me. Looks like they can be more trouble than they're worth.

I single hand, and being a senior citizen, find that getting the asymmetric down and stuffed into a sail bag whilst concurrently controlling the halyard can be a bit of a trial, particularly if I leave it up too long. Setting the genoa and lowering it and dragging it in under the foot of the genoa seems to help keep it tamed.

[SaltyMetals]

I hv had the system w a sock on a previous boat. To close it was usually simple, just by running a bit more downwind w the main fully opened (no reef). The gennaker/spi will collapse. I found the best place to stand while closing the dock was near the boom. Otherwise the loose , flapping sail might wrap around the genoa. A trick to avoid the latter is to partially open the genoa and sheet it centrally. This stops the gennaker/spi goung through the gap. Whatever you do it is difficult solo even if you put the autopilot in the highest response setting. One final comment on thus setup is that once I had cleated the tack as far forward as poss on the anchor shoe but the aluminum plate on a 12m (40ft) Bene is not as thick/strong as it looks. Only the edge is relatively thick. The rest is much thinner. Result? In a bit of a blow my gennaker broke the plate so that the piece of plate and the stainless anchor shoe were lost overboard.

On my recent boat I hv set things up w a Selden removable bowsprit to get the downwind sail further away from the furled genoa. I then hv a Karver top-down curler w a continuous line to the cockpit. At the cockpit the line goes through a double Selden block each w its own cleat so I can lock the gennaker. The Karver furler comes with a lock but to keep things simple I took the locking pin off. Yes I occasionally had the problem of reverse wrap when unfurling but the solution i found seems to be four things. 1) v high tension on the torsion line when furling or unfurling, 2) shorten the strop at the tack. Mine was originally 1.5m (4-5ft) but hv shortened it to 0.5m (2ft). This keeps the luff a bit tighter. I do hv the option to vary the length of the strop on the Selden sprit but keep things simple so do not use it. 3) While the sail is still full, pull the unfurling line so it does about 20 turns, this will result in having unloaded the residual torsion sufficiently to avoid a reverse-wrap later when unfurling. 4) furl with the sail just about full but not under too much pressure, behind the main and at about 150-155°AWA. With this procedure and setup I often use my 100sq m (1,000 sq ft) gennaker solo but not above 15 Knts AWS. While a spi would fly at larger AWA I find my gennaker is good to about 160-165° AWA. Above that I either gybe downwind or close the main but my gennaker (by North Sails) is not really designed to be used above 165° AWA.

Hope this helps understand some of the choices that I faced.
Andrew

[Tillsbury]

I have a harken reflex tdf for my asymmetric (local sailmaker modified the sail to remove the sock). Ended up having it replaced, but eventually found a half page on how to use it (not originally supplied by harken, sadly)

Three things. Most important is (as said above) industrial tension when furling and unfurling. Mark the line and take everything you can in. Let the sheet go further than you'd expect to have to. Ease it a bit when sailing. And don't forget that you don't have to furl from the cockpit. I was struggling so went just forward of the shrouds so I could see what was going on (you can haul the line from anywhere, and it's easy kneeling by the shrouds). Never a problem since.

So don't write them off. Like furling mains and furling jibs, there are ways to handle them that make the difference between a pain in the neck and a fabulously useful piece of kit. Just remember that you have to learn these new techniques because they are a new piece of kit.

I am not interested in single handed flying asymmetrics any other way on a 50' boat.

[MikeFergie]

This depends if you are flying a main. On my cat I NEVER fly the asymmetrical spinnaker with the main up as I’m down wind and don’t want issues with building winds and a stuck main. All you do is fit a tylaska shackle on the tack to a bridal on the bows of the boat. When you want to dump the bag you blow the tack via the shackle and easily pull down the sock as there is zero pressure on it. Single handed job.

[Joli]

Racing with sym kites we always blew the halyard with the guy and sheet in place as we turned up wind. When the kite was about 1/2 recovered we eased the guy. The pole keeps the kite out of the water.

Cruising we use a sock and were advised by our sailmaker he would not sell us a TDF. He said we didn't want the problems associated with it without a large crew. Mostly it's my wife and I so we use a sock. Generally we don't blow the tack when hauling down the sock but will if the breeze is on. We will never blow the sheet since we want the kite shy to the main.

Typically we pull it down at 20 true or 10ish over the deck. The kite is about 3,600 sq ft so we don't fly it in squally or heavy weather.

[thinwater]

I prefer a snuffer for a chute that has any fullness:


a. The snuffer serves as a sail bag. Just lower it into the locker directly.b No bagging.

b. You aren't going to keep a furled chute up sailing to windward anyway, and lowering the snuffer is way easier than unrigging the furler.


I do like reachers on furlers, though just lowering and bagging is easy too. Often as not I lower the furled sail anyway if we are sailing to weather more than a few miles. It's just windage.



If the deck of a 40-foot boat is pitching and there is a lot of drama, you're not doing it down wind the way you should. A harness and jackline will also solve the problem.

[Fbfisher]

Originally Posted by SaltyMetals

...On my recent boat I hv set things up w a Selden removable bowsprit to get the downwind sail further away from the furled genoa...Yes I occasionally had the problem of reverse wrap when unfurling but the solution i found seems to be four things. 1) v high tension on the torsion line when furling or unfurling, 2) shorten the strop at the tack. Mine was originally 1.5m (4-5ft) but hv shortened it to 0.5m (2ft). This keeps the luff a bit tighter. I do hv the option to vary the length of the strop on the Selden sprit but keep things simple so do not use it. 3) While the sail is still full, pull the unfurling line so it does about 20 turns, this will result in having unloaded the residual torsion sufficiently to avoid a reverse-wrap later when unfurling. 4) furl with the sail just about full but not under too much pressure, behind the main and at about 150-155°AWA.

Hope this helps understand some of the choices that I faced.
Andrew

Conversations with Selden and my rigger are in alignment with the steps 1 & 4 you’ve outlined. We are mocking up a way to mount a removable bowsprit. My anchor locker hatch isn’t completely flush with the deck, so still sorting out how/if it can be attacked so as to get the tack end of the sprit 36” in front of the head stay and the aft end attached to the deck. Please post pics of your sprit mounted if you think it may inform my effort.

[ilCigno]

Originally Posted by Fbfisher

How much pressure do you allow in the sheet when furling? Do you let the sheet go and let the sail flail in the wind while furling, or...?

In my experience it works best if I ease the sheets almost fully. With very light pressure in the sail it furls neatly and the sheets don’t get tangled around the furler on deck level. You want the sheets to nicely wrap around the sail, by just letting them go freely that won’t happen. As said, it takes some practice and mistakes will happen, though less often as you get the hang of it. But isn’t that the nature of sailing?

[sailingharry]

I was going to post my own thread, but this is still fairly recent and right in line with my questions.


We have a 43 foot boat, and an asym in a sock that we love and use often. Currently, our tack attachment is a bit of a kludge, but I'm working up a small sprit that will give a clean line from the spinnaker crane to the tack -- clear of the pulpit. We are also considering converting from the sock to a furler.


We have two issues with the sock, an ATN unit.


First, oddly, we have troubles getting it to un-sock. As the sock goes up, it gathers spinnaker inside, until there is so much it jams. We lower, pull on sail cloth, raise -- lather, rinse, repeat. Rarely does it go up cleanly. Dousing is super simple. It's an irritant that we can live with.


Bigger issue is handling it. The mouth on the sock is so large that it creates a large hard spot in the bag, and it is very hard to get it below. Best way to get it below is through the forehatch, but that usually jams. I try, like an obstetrician aligning a baby, to get the hoop lengthwise rather than crosswise, but it's usually not easy. I wish I could use Thinwater's approach of dropping it straight into the sail locker, but I'm stuck with the fact that after a year on the boat I haven't found that. LOL.


It seems that a tightly rolled asym might fit into a much smaller and easier to handle bag. For those that have used one and then the other, especially on the same or similar boat, can you comment? Is it smaller and tighter? Or does the rope add a new level of unmanagability, much like trying to store a coil of standing rigging?

[ilCigno]

I have only experience with my 29ft boat, but the coiled sausage isn't that rigid. You get an impression by my Youtube video from about 00:08:00
https://youtu.be/EgDgTZdAMQ8

BTW it seems to me that your shute is perhaps made of the the wrong material. I've never seen a problem with these going up. Consult your sailmaker I would say.

[Fbfisher]

I’ve had the bottom asym get packed into the sock so that it gets bunched when deploying. Tugging on the sail resolves the issue, but yes it’s just another thing to deal with in the process. The mouth of your sock seems unusually big, or your forward hatch unusually small. The asym wrapped tightly around the high torsion line takes up less space than an asym in a sock. The parts for my furler are ordered. I’ll post the results once installed.

[Fbfisher]

Originally Posted by ilCigno

...You get an impression by my Youtube video from about 00:08:00
https://youtu.be/EgDgTZdAMQ8.

“Video Unavailable”