Whisker Pole for a Catamaran

[UNCIVILIZED]

Originally Posted by Palarran

Twice this year I talked to cat owners whose boom broke due to preventers. One was on a sister ship to mine. It's for sure possible.
How were these preventers rigged? Meaning at what location were they attached to the boom? And what circumstances caused the booms to pull against the preventers so forcefully that they broke?

By downhaul, do you mean pulling the boom down, or the sail down like a cunningham? Pulling the boom down would be great as the amount of twist when triple reefed is crazy. As a rule, we never rest the sail on the shrouds. I like them too much.
A downhaul for a mainsail is usually attached at the sail's head, with the line then running down the sail's luff. And it either ends at the boom, or goes down to deck level, through a block, & back to the cockpit. Thus enabeling you to pull the sail down manually.

Note that some people will sew vertical webbing handles onto the main near the luff, to make it easier to pull down. Especially in the vicinity of reef points, so that they can get that last bit of stiff sail to come down enough.

I messed up when purchasing new sails last year and should have kept my old jib. It would have been worth it to try doing a wing on wing jib, even without poles.

For the above, used sails are inexpensive. And you can even add a wire, kevlar, or spectra luff tape to a jib, & then hoist it on a free flying furler. Much like a Code 0.

[mikereed100]

Originally Posted by UNCIVILIZED

For the above, used sails are inexpensive. And you can even add a wire, kevlar, or spectra luff tape to a jib, & then hoist it on a free flying furler. Much like a Code 0.

We did just that when trying out our wing and wing system. Bought a used sail online for $150, poked holes in the luff and tied the luff to a long loop of dyneema double braid so we could use it on our continuous line furler. The sail exploded in spectacular fashion one night, but we had learned what we needed to know and had a new sail made using that knowledge.

[roberjkellogg]

Thanks for the responses!

We’ve decided the pole is out and will be looking into a barber haul set up.

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by roberjkellogg

Thanks for the responses!

We’ve decided the pole is out and will be looking into a barber haul set up.

Link to a basic barberhauler article I wrote that might be useful to you.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/saxhljkimu...ticle.pdf?dl=0

[belizesailor]

Re sailing DDW, in my cat cruising experience its been relatively common to run wing on wing. Not because it is the most efficient, but because it gets me where Im trying to go. As posted, unless you are sailing a performance boat "tacking" downwind is really not worthwhile for most cruising boats.

Also, its very easy to set up on a cat. On my boat, when running wing on wing, I bring the barberhauler line forward and run it thru a block on the bow. Rigged here it holds the jib clew forward and outboard. Between this line and the jib sheet I can now control the position of the clew pretty well and keep the jib flying. Not quite as positive control as a pole, but pretty good. I put a preventor on the main. Ive sailed many miles using this configuration. And, with roller furling jib and slab reefing main, its pretty easy to reduce sail as the wind picks up.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/cu3q8x11dz...0Wing.JPG?dl=0

[captainfitzwine]

When I crossed the Atlantic on my Lagoon 450 the Sea conditions were too rough for a spinnaker. So we did a wing on wing by adding a sheet to the jib and running it through a block attached to a midship cleat to hold the jib out flatter - no pole needed.

[tomfl]

Originally Posted by Palarran

SNIP

SNIP

But we aren't professionals.



SNIP

Not just for whisker pole use but a lot of other stuff the key is how comfortable the skipper/crew feels using it.

Stories about poles poking through sails or booms breaking are most likely a function of those using them more than the poles or preventers them selves. Also can't discount abrupt changes in the wind speed/direction.

Bottom line is if you change how your boat is set up get plenty of experience using the new toys before you take it out into the blue water.

[Palarran]

I've thought about this thread quite often over the last two months and wanted to post here again about sailing downwind. If you read the four posts that I had previously posted, they were about the problems with running downwind that I've perceived and experienced.

We just completed an East to West Atlantic crossing and then continued up to the Bahamas. It's been classic trade wind sailing and almost all the time the point of sail was nearly DDW. After many days of messing around with main, jib, and spinnaker, I think I finally get it. Crazy that it took this long and I apologize if I had made statements that discouraged this tack of sail. We used it A LOT!!

Unfortunately we tore a 15' gash in the spinnaker two days into the crossing because I didn't want to fly it without the main up. It backwinded into the spreaders and that was it. So for a period of days we sailed deep downwind with a triple or double reefed main and half a jib on the same side. With a full jib, the clew would backwind. We then tied a line very tightly between my fore and midship cleat and started to tie off the jib clew to that.

As the wind moved more Easterly, we moved the jib from port to starboard and sailed DDW wing on wing for many days effectively. The range of sail without backwinding the jib was from port 170 to starboard 160, which was fairly easy to maintain. We did jibe twice but since the sail was so deeply reefed, they were non-events. I still don't and won't use a preventer. The crew absolutely loved this sail plan and I was impressed how efficient it was. In 13 knots apparent we were consistently doing 7 knots. Palarran is a heavy boat and not a high performance boat either so to get this speed out of a triple reefed main and full (self tacking) jib was nice. The surfing helped a lot. We did hit a top speed of 16 knots surfing one particular wave, which was a new high speed for me.

5 days out from Antigua the wind dropped considerably so we pulled the spinnaker out of the snuffer and through one of the fore-hatches to repair it. It took 3/4 roll of high quality duct tape but it was soon flying again. The bets were that it would last between 20 minutes and 4 hours - it lasted 5 days. Incredible. We didn't fly the spinnaker with the main up anymore and it was fantastic. We were on a starboard tack and attached the spinnaker tack to an adjustable line off the starboard side of the forward crossbeam. We used a barberhauler on the spin sheet but let the spinnaker ride quite high off the deck. With this sail we achieved 6 knots of speed with 9 knots of apparent wind running DDW. The range of the sail was quite large without collapse - from 120 starboard to 170 port.

I learned a lot of this trip and really look forward to another tradewind passage. One final detail that really helped was the quick release shackle we had on the tack of the spinnaker. I tied a bigger loop in the small line and we could release the tack very easily. It snuffed so much easier than what we were doing before. Anyway, a little humbling for me but stoked all the same.