dumb asym spinnaker question

[jmschmidt]

To do an outside jib with an a-sim requires sheet of almost double length. Inside jib, not so much.

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

... Mostly I'll just sock the asym first, but I've done it by letting the asym fly out around the forestay as well ... lots of fun that is .
...

Most cruising boats Ive been aboard with asyms end up doing the same. Easy to get something fouled with all that extra line and flying the sail around outside the forestay. Ideally in cruising mode you are just doing long runs with the asym anyway.

[Canibul]

We're getting to the point where I have to decide which bits of the huge pile of sails ( 10 of them in total) I want to put on board, and what to do with the rest. Now I have a question about spinnaker poles. This boat came with two jibs and two poles, which the original owner used to sail wing and wing across the Atlantic. We took all that off the boat when we got here, as we cleared everything out to refit the boat. I'm looking at these two spinnaker poles and wondering whether to junk or keep. Maybe put one of the jibs back on and one pole, just in case? We don't need the jib, we have a 130% genoa on the boat, plus a drifter, an asym spinnaker, and the main. I know I don't need the spinnaker pole for any of those, but I know they can come in handy as a boom over the bow, etc. We also have an unsocked spinnaker, but we don't plan to take it. The guy we bought the boat from said that the spinnaker poles were dangerous and he recommended not using them for anything, since we have the asym. We have yet to use any of this stuff except for the genoa and main. Is there really any use for two spinnaker poles on a catamaran?

[2Hulls]

Originally Posted by Canibul

Is there really any use for two spinnaker poles on a catamaran?

Since no one else has replied, I'll point out that a recent thread covered this topic: What pole: spinnaker or whisker. It's not far down the multihull page.

As is usually the case, you'll read diametrically opposed views. On your boat, with a narrower beam than many other cruising cats, and because you already have them, you may make decent use of poles. In my view you don't need them. But if you've already got 'em, it makes sense for you to try them out and decide what advantages exist for your specific boat and your specific sailing preferences. You get to experiment and make a decision with first hand information.

Dave

[monte]

I agree with Dave but if you're planning long passages I'd hang on to them and try them out. Some sailors swear by poles out headsails for long downwind routes. Some benefits are easy to reef for squalls and at night, and also the ability to just ease the sheets to spill the wind in squalls. You could virtually have them forward enough to dump all of the wind so long as your sheets are long enough...
Read maxing outs blog post referred to in the thread Dave mentioned

[Canibul]

Thanks for the reply. They're off the boat at the moment, and they were clamped to the stanchions when we bought her. I didn't want the weight or clutter. I was wondering if there were any other reasons to have them on board, if we're not planning to use them as intended. We've gone on a bit of a simplify binge lately. We figure each of the three previous owners of this boat added the stuff they individually thought the boat should have for both full time in the tropics and then a couple transatlantics with a season in Ireland. But nobody ever took any of the old stuff off.

I'm planning to climb the mast this week to remove a Magnavox sat nav antenna. Does that tell you anything?

So I'm looking at these two poles, which sell for almost a thou each, wondering what to do with them. No market for them down here. There are only a half dozen people on the island who even own sailboats big enough to live on.
They might end up in the pile with the SSB/tuner/pactor modem, the PUR 35, Cozy Cabin propane heater, Revere 6 man ocean life raft, two Blake heads, television, microwave, Radar, DVD players, and about a dozen extra life jackets we've already taken off. There were enough pots and pans on this boat for a small fleet.