Silly downwind idea... Or is it?

[Ben Coombs]

I have always liked the look of cruising boats with all the "extra" sails up... Ketches with jibs mounted on a temporary stay between the main and mizzen mast, double headsails, etc. It's more impressive on tall ships.

Anyhow. In light air would it be a bad idea to fly a small spinnaker between the block for the spinnaker pole topping lift and an adjustable tack line attached to my foredeck cleat? I have an old spinnaker from a Chrysler Mutineer that would fit it that space. I'm pretty sure my spinnaker pole would hold it out rather flat and could be flown in tandem with our 150 genny. I'd need a new way to hold up the pole... But I think I can manage that and all the other sheet and lead requirements. Might even run a lead through the end of the boom (held out with preventer).

I'm thinking this is a hot summer day, calm seas and light wind exercise (less than 10kts).

Might even be able to reed main and fly it in front of the genny.

Thoughts?

[jen1722terry]

I've always thought that twin light headsails were best reserved for racers with a larger and experienced crew. Both could collapse on you and make for a bit of a mess for a short crew.

We use a single cruising shoot (drifter? genaker? whatever they call them) with a sock for the hot, sultry days. Pretty easy to fly and can be doused with the sock should conditions or courses change.

But that's just us, two older and, quite admittedly, lazier sailors in no particular hurry.

Jenn and Terry

[ariasis]

Sounds like something fun to try. If you have the sail I say why not give it a shot if it doesn't work well it doesn't, but if it does well won't that look cool.

[Ben Coombs]

Exactly!

It should always look good, right? I imagine it to be a bit of a keystone cops adventure. A (hopefully) fun way to get the family working the deck more.

We are adding a new main and new 135 genoa this year. We think all the sails are original. At first I was going with a cruising spinnaker, but after measuring my current headsails it became clear we needed a more practical sail. But ever since it became an option, I want to fly something like that. We'll probably try it just for fun.

Also, the lead time it take for new sails during the sailing season is multiplied exponentially in your concept of time.

[s2sailorlis]

FYI...
http://www.cruisingworld.com/how/two-he ... better-one

[Paul D.]

I'm a fan of twin headsails for downwind work. I used a rig like this crossing from New Zealand to Australia and it made for much better downwind sailing than a wing and wing set up.

On our old Typhoon I once threw out the genny on one side and a spinnaker out the other using the main boom with a block non the end as a pole. Worked great. Almost did the same with Femme last weekend but the wind was a bit high.

Most of us don't have a need to set something like this up but in a long crossing with the wind behind you, having a set up using the boom as a pole and snatch block at the end (probably a preventer too) would do nicely. Having the clews a bit forward of the forestay can help dampen the rolling of a Cape Dory on a downwind leg.

I think experimenting with our rigs is one of the fun parts of sailing.

[Steve Laume]

Raven has a cutter rig and it doesn't work very well going directly down wind. The stay sail is usually blanketed or stealing air from the jib and will just flop around if I leave it up. If I am serious about moving down wind in lighter air, I will take down the working head sails and host, either a drifter or asymmetrical spinnaker. If you have a new set of working sails the main and jenny will have much more power than any combination you could come up with that incorporates the small spinnaker, flown at the mast. I am sure you could fly it if you dropped the main but that would be a net loss of sail area. The one advantage I do see in flying a small spinnaker at the mast is that it would be very easy to dowse it as it would be well blanketed by the main.

Here is what you want if you like the idea of a lot of down wind canvas, Steve.

https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=b ... mp=yhs-001

[tjr818]

Our Harken MK II roller furling foil has twin grooves. Now that we have a second genoa I am looking forward to trying to fly twin gennys downwind. All we need now is to add another halyard

[mgphl52]

here's a pic from back in 1998... Babette, CD Ty with lots of sail up...

[tartansailor]

Not silly at all. I like that type of thinking.
richard