My intuition tells me that we will, at some point in the future, add a spinnaker pole and related attachment and rigging hardware to our boat. But that makes me curious: what is the best light-air sail for this boat that does not require a spinnaker pole to fly well? And how is it handled downwind?
(If experienced Cape Dorians recommend only the iron genny, I'll know my first intuition was correct.)
Best CD36 light-air option for WITHOUT using spinnaker pole
Moderator: Jim Walsh
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Ryan Turner
Re: Best CD36 light-air option for WITHOUT using spinnaker p
Hi Russell,
I just had a fabulous light-air experience on my CD33 -- all done without a spinnaker pole. On Friday I received my new tri-radial cruising spinnaker from Banks Sails. Of course, when we set out on our first sail with the cruising chute on board the wind was blowing 20-25 knots right on the nose. Needless to say we didn't use the new sail on that leg (but it was a great time anyway!). On the trip back we had 5 to 10 knots of wind off the stern quarter which was perfect for the new cruising chute. What a lovely experience! That sail snapped full and carted us off down wind like you wouldn't believe. We were even successful in keeping it full to almost dead down wind. Later we sailed it as close to the wind as 50 degrees apparent and it did great. I wouldn't consider a spinnaker pole and all that associated gear to be important for a CD36. There was no special equipment required to fly the cruising chute beyond a spinnaker halyard and bail attached at the mast head. At the tack I simply used a single block and snap shackle to attach the luff line of the cruising chute to the anchor roller bail at the stem fitting. Sheets were led aft to a couple of snatch blocks tied to my stern deck cleats. All very easy to rig. And the balance on the helm was beautiful. Take a look at a cruising chute -- I'm absolutely in love with mine.
Ryan Turner
s/v Zenobia
CD33 hull no. 100
Oriental, NC
rdtec@aol.com
I just had a fabulous light-air experience on my CD33 -- all done without a spinnaker pole. On Friday I received my new tri-radial cruising spinnaker from Banks Sails. Of course, when we set out on our first sail with the cruising chute on board the wind was blowing 20-25 knots right on the nose. Needless to say we didn't use the new sail on that leg (but it was a great time anyway!). On the trip back we had 5 to 10 knots of wind off the stern quarter which was perfect for the new cruising chute. What a lovely experience! That sail snapped full and carted us off down wind like you wouldn't believe. We were even successful in keeping it full to almost dead down wind. Later we sailed it as close to the wind as 50 degrees apparent and it did great. I wouldn't consider a spinnaker pole and all that associated gear to be important for a CD36. There was no special equipment required to fly the cruising chute beyond a spinnaker halyard and bail attached at the mast head. At the tack I simply used a single block and snap shackle to attach the luff line of the cruising chute to the anchor roller bail at the stem fitting. Sheets were led aft to a couple of snatch blocks tied to my stern deck cleats. All very easy to rig. And the balance on the helm was beautiful. Take a look at a cruising chute -- I'm absolutely in love with mine.
Ryan Turner
s/v Zenobia
CD33 hull no. 100
Oriental, NC
rdtec@aol.com
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Russell
Dumb questions ..
Ryan, thanks for your response. Let me ask some dumb questions ..
"We were even successful in keeping it full to almost dead down wind."
How did you keep it from being blanketed by the main? (Or did you just drop the main? I've heard some people do that when sailing a spinnaker deep to the wind.)
"There was no special equipment required to fly the cruising chute beyond a spinnaker halyard and bail attached at the mast head."
Why would the jib halyard not serve this purpose?
"Take a look at a cruising chute -- I'm absolutely in love with mine."
I'm really glad to hear this. Was Banks Sails familiar with Cape Dories, or did you have to discuss things with them a bit?
"We were even successful in keeping it full to almost dead down wind."
How did you keep it from being blanketed by the main? (Or did you just drop the main? I've heard some people do that when sailing a spinnaker deep to the wind.)
"There was no special equipment required to fly the cruising chute beyond a spinnaker halyard and bail attached at the mast head."
Why would the jib halyard not serve this purpose?
"Take a look at a cruising chute -- I'm absolutely in love with mine."
I'm really glad to hear this. Was Banks Sails familiar with Cape Dories, or did you have to discuss things with them a bit?
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David Sabourin
Re: Best CD36 light-air option for WITHOUT using spinnaker p
Russell,Russell wrote: My intuition tells me that we will, at some point in the future, add a spinnaker pole and related attachment and rigging hardware to our boat. But that makes me curious: what is the best light-air sail for this boat that does not require a spinnaker pole to fly well? And how is it handled downwind?
(If experienced Cape Dorians recommend only the iron genny, I'll know my first intuition was correct.)
See my comments of 6/19/99 on this bulletin board. I have needed to either drop the main or pole out the clew of the chute and go wingonwing. This is when you are really broad to the wind or running dead down wind. I did do a double heads'l rig once with the yankee out to one side and the chute to the other. ( no main of course)
david
hatter11@erols.com
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Brent
just a comment on spinnaker handling
Russel,
Not sure if you ever used a asymetrical before and thought that I would throw some free bits of hard won knowledge your way. When reaching with you spinnaker and you begin to get over powered head down wind instead of luffing it up. This will hide the spiannker behind the main and you will regain control. If you head up you will expose more of you spinaker to clean air and will significantly increase the seriousness of you situation. This seems a bit unnatural at first since it is opposite form what you do with a symetrical spinnaker, but eventually it feels right.
A question I had that I did not see in your post was? Are you using a down haulk line? I saw that you attached a line from the tack to the anchor roller, but did you bring it back to the cockpit. If you do you can use this to power up or power down your spinnaker. By pulling in the down haul in you will lower the tack, flatten the sail and de-power the sail. If you let it out it will raise the tack and the sail will become fuller in shape and have more access to clean air and thus power up. By using this control method you can carry the sail a lot longer as the wind builds. I had a .6 oz poly tri-radial on my dory and often carried it into the low 20 knots range. I just made sure that the apparent wind never real got over 18 knots.
Question. Why do you use a mast head bail for your asymetrical? Does that not make it very difficult to jybe the sail? Why did you not go with a sail that could be set inside of the headstay?. I have seen many posts on this board that all say to have a mast head bail and I can see why you would need this if you uyse a symetrical spinnaker but why would you use this on an asymetrical?
Brent
sailcovers@usa.com
Not sure if you ever used a asymetrical before and thought that I would throw some free bits of hard won knowledge your way. When reaching with you spinnaker and you begin to get over powered head down wind instead of luffing it up. This will hide the spiannker behind the main and you will regain control. If you head up you will expose more of you spinaker to clean air and will significantly increase the seriousness of you situation. This seems a bit unnatural at first since it is opposite form what you do with a symetrical spinnaker, but eventually it feels right.
A question I had that I did not see in your post was? Are you using a down haulk line? I saw that you attached a line from the tack to the anchor roller, but did you bring it back to the cockpit. If you do you can use this to power up or power down your spinnaker. By pulling in the down haul in you will lower the tack, flatten the sail and de-power the sail. If you let it out it will raise the tack and the sail will become fuller in shape and have more access to clean air and thus power up. By using this control method you can carry the sail a lot longer as the wind builds. I had a .6 oz poly tri-radial on my dory and often carried it into the low 20 knots range. I just made sure that the apparent wind never real got over 18 knots.
Question. Why do you use a mast head bail for your asymetrical? Does that not make it very difficult to jybe the sail? Why did you not go with a sail that could be set inside of the headstay?. I have seen many posts on this board that all say to have a mast head bail and I can see why you would need this if you uyse a symetrical spinnaker but why would you use this on an asymetrical?
Brent
sailcovers@usa.com
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Don Carr
Re: just a comment on spinnaker handling
Brent;
Take a look at UK sails website, very good explaination on their asymetrical spinnaker and how to trim. According to them..I have no first hand knowledge yet, use the taking pendent running through the block to a foredeck cleat. To set the sail run out about 4-6 ft of pendant intially and trim up the sail with the sheets then set the tack just slightly higher than the clew. From a physics perspective it makes sense. Just an FYI..
carrd@erols.com
Take a look at UK sails website, very good explaination on their asymetrical spinnaker and how to trim. According to them..I have no first hand knowledge yet, use the taking pendent running through the block to a foredeck cleat. To set the sail run out about 4-6 ft of pendant intially and trim up the sail with the sheets then set the tack just slightly higher than the clew. From a physics perspective it makes sense. Just an FYI..
carrd@erols.com
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Ryan Turner
Re: just a comment on spinnaker handling
Hi Brent,
It was me (Ryan Turner) not Russell that made the post on asymetrical cruising spinnakers.
About your comments:
"Not sure if you ever used a asymetrical before and thought that I would throw some free bits of hard won knowledge your way. When reaching with you spinnaker and you begin to get over powered head down wind instead of luffing it up. This will hide the spiannker behind the main and you will regain control. If you head up you will expose more of you spinaker to clean air and will significantly increase the seriousness of you situation. This seems a bit unnatural at first since it is opposite form what you do with a symetrical spinnaker, but eventually it feels right."
Good comment. I didn't have my main up this weekend when I flew the cruising spinnaker -- kind wanted to check it out all by itself this time out. I did have a little too much wind at one point in the sail on Sunday. I dealt with it by easing both sheets way out and dousing the spinnaker with a dousing sock. It was a little wild for awhile there but it worked great.
"A question I had that I did not see in your post was? Are you using a down haulk line? I saw that you attached a line from the tack to the anchor roller, but did you bring it back to the cockpit. If you do you can use this to power up or power down your spinnaker. By pulling in the down haul in you will lower the tack, flatten the sail and de-power the sail. If you let it out it will raise the tack and the sail will become fuller in shape and have more access to clean air and thus power up. By using this control method you can carry the sail a lot longer as the wind builds. I had a .6 oz poly tri-radial on my dory and often carried it into the low 20 knots range. I just made sure that the apparent wind never real got over 18 knots."
I have got a downhaul line attached to the tack. It extends all the way back to the cockpit after passing through a snap-shackle block attached to the anchor roller bail. One problem I've got with using it to adjust the luff tension is that I've only got one sheet winch on either side of the cockpit. No other winches at all back there as my reefing lines and halyards are all winched and cleated at the mast or boom. Since I've got to have one winch free for each sheet on the spinnaker, I've really got no way to control the luff tension using the downhaul line. For this trip I just set it at the recommended height above the bow pulpit and cleated it off to a deck cleat at the bow. Any suggestions?
"Question. Why do you use a mast head bail for your asymetrical? Does that not make it very difficult to jybe the sail? Why did you not go with a sail that could be set inside of the headstay?. I have seen many posts on this board that all say to have a mast head bail and I can see why you would need this if you uyse a symetrical spinnaker but why would you use this on an asymetrical?"
Being no sort of expert at spinnaker handling, I just followed the sail makers instructions and set the sail up so that all my lines and the sail ran outside of the stays, shrouds, etc. With this set up it is easy to jibe the spinnaker by simply running off down wind, easing the lee sheet until the spinnaker flys out in front of the bow, completing your jibe, and then trimming the new lee sheet. Maybe they suggest using a halyard attached to a bail at the mast head so that the spinnaker can be handled like this.
Ryan Turner
s/v Zenobia
cd33 hull no. 100
Oriental, NC
rdtec@aol.com
It was me (Ryan Turner) not Russell that made the post on asymetrical cruising spinnakers.
About your comments:
"Not sure if you ever used a asymetrical before and thought that I would throw some free bits of hard won knowledge your way. When reaching with you spinnaker and you begin to get over powered head down wind instead of luffing it up. This will hide the spiannker behind the main and you will regain control. If you head up you will expose more of you spinaker to clean air and will significantly increase the seriousness of you situation. This seems a bit unnatural at first since it is opposite form what you do with a symetrical spinnaker, but eventually it feels right."
Good comment. I didn't have my main up this weekend when I flew the cruising spinnaker -- kind wanted to check it out all by itself this time out. I did have a little too much wind at one point in the sail on Sunday. I dealt with it by easing both sheets way out and dousing the spinnaker with a dousing sock. It was a little wild for awhile there but it worked great.
"A question I had that I did not see in your post was? Are you using a down haulk line? I saw that you attached a line from the tack to the anchor roller, but did you bring it back to the cockpit. If you do you can use this to power up or power down your spinnaker. By pulling in the down haul in you will lower the tack, flatten the sail and de-power the sail. If you let it out it will raise the tack and the sail will become fuller in shape and have more access to clean air and thus power up. By using this control method you can carry the sail a lot longer as the wind builds. I had a .6 oz poly tri-radial on my dory and often carried it into the low 20 knots range. I just made sure that the apparent wind never real got over 18 knots."
I have got a downhaul line attached to the tack. It extends all the way back to the cockpit after passing through a snap-shackle block attached to the anchor roller bail. One problem I've got with using it to adjust the luff tension is that I've only got one sheet winch on either side of the cockpit. No other winches at all back there as my reefing lines and halyards are all winched and cleated at the mast or boom. Since I've got to have one winch free for each sheet on the spinnaker, I've really got no way to control the luff tension using the downhaul line. For this trip I just set it at the recommended height above the bow pulpit and cleated it off to a deck cleat at the bow. Any suggestions?
"Question. Why do you use a mast head bail for your asymetrical? Does that not make it very difficult to jybe the sail? Why did you not go with a sail that could be set inside of the headstay?. I have seen many posts on this board that all say to have a mast head bail and I can see why you would need this if you uyse a symetrical spinnaker but why would you use this on an asymetrical?"
Being no sort of expert at spinnaker handling, I just followed the sail makers instructions and set the sail up so that all my lines and the sail ran outside of the stays, shrouds, etc. With this set up it is easy to jibe the spinnaker by simply running off down wind, easing the lee sheet until the spinnaker flys out in front of the bow, completing your jibe, and then trimming the new lee sheet. Maybe they suggest using a halyard attached to a bail at the mast head so that the spinnaker can be handled like this.
Ryan Turner
s/v Zenobia
cd33 hull no. 100
Oriental, NC
rdtec@aol.com
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Ryan Turner
Smart questions ..
Hi Russell,
By the way, there are certainly cheaper ways to go than the way I chose. There are discount houses that will sell you asymetrical spinnakers that are ready-made and available off the shelf. I'm sure they would be great but I wanted the help and support of someone local who knew what he was doing. Practical sailor had a great article on the sailmaking industry awhile back. Check them out for contacts on less expensive sails.
Ryan Turner
rdtec@aol.com
All questions are smart. Especially when they get sailors talking about sailing!Russell wrote: Ryan, thanks for your response. Let me ask some dumb questions ..
I didn't use the main on this trip. But the sail maker tells me that you can sail the asymetrical and main wing-on-wing dead downwind after you get the hang of it. I guess that you accomplish this by sailing to a deep broad reach using the spinnaker and main, then bear off and jibe the main. At this point you're going dead down wind wing-on-wing. I haven't done it yet but it's supposed to be possible so I pretty sure I can.Russell wrote: "We were even successful in keeping it full to almost dead down wind."
How did you keep it from being blanketed by the main? (Or did you just drop the main? I've heard some people do that when sailing a spinnaker deep to the wind.)
I think the jib halyard doesn't work well because the asymetrical spinnaker has to be flown and jibed outside of all shrouds and stays. If you use a seperate halyard attached to a bail at the masthead the spinnaker can be jibed around the front of the forestay instead of having to drag that huge sail through the foretriangle.Russell wrote: "There was no special equipment required to fly the cruising chute beyond a spinnaker halyard and bail attached at the mast head."
Why would the jib halyard not serve this purpose?
I had the local Banks Sails rep come down to my boat and look things over. He took some measurements (of the I and J dimensions I think) and ordered the sail. It fit great when I flew it.Russell wrote: "Take a look at a cruising chute -- I'm absolutely in love with mine."
I'm really glad to hear this. Was Banks Sails familiar with Cape Dories, or did you have to discuss things with them a bit?
By the way, there are certainly cheaper ways to go than the way I chose. There are discount houses that will sell you asymetrical spinnakers that are ready-made and available off the shelf. I'm sure they would be great but I wanted the help and support of someone local who knew what he was doing. Practical sailor had a great article on the sailmaking industry awhile back. Check them out for contacts on less expensive sails.
Ryan Turner
rdtec@aol.com
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Russell
Then for tacking, you would ..
Snuff it, tack, and let it back out?
Or would you just wear around?
Or would you just wear around?
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Ryan Turner
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Brent
Re: just a comment on spinnaker handling
Ryan,
I ususally adjust the height of the spinnaker after I hide it behind the main other wise it is just to difficult. I too only had the two winch but since one sheet is the lazy sheet and has no force on it I would use that winch to adjust the tension. Ususally, after hiding the spinaker behind the main it had collasped enough so that I could trim it by hand. The best way I have found to fly an asymetrical is to treat it like a really, really big head sail. So, by thinking about it like that you should only need minimal control lines and will not have to worry about keeping two sheet on winches all the time. Since you have your head above the forestay jybing will be difficult without a bowsprit. The only time I have ever seen an asymetrical work easily when it was hoisted above the fore stay was on the race boats with the retractable bow srites. This gave the necessary clearance between the forestay and the tack of the spinnaker so that you could jybe easily. Becasue of this reason I kept mine under the head stay and then ran the lines outside of the shrouds and jybed it like a headsail. I'm sure I sacraficed a bit of sail area because of this set up, but the ease of sail handling was well worth it. This setup also shortened the length of the sheets and did away with the need to have the sheets run around the head stay. The only place for the sheets or the sail to get hung up was on the mast and I would rather clear a foul, short handed, at the mast than at the fore stay. Since you have it set up so your sheets run outside the rigging here is a really simple life saving trick to use so your lines don't get fouled at the forestay. Run a line from the forestay to the bow pulpit and tie it off at both ends. this closes the gap between the two and will prevent the lazy sheet from lodging in between the fore stay and the bow pulpit and getting stuck.
Fair winds
Brent
Sailcovers@usa.com
I ususally adjust the height of the spinnaker after I hide it behind the main other wise it is just to difficult. I too only had the two winch but since one sheet is the lazy sheet and has no force on it I would use that winch to adjust the tension. Ususally, after hiding the spinaker behind the main it had collasped enough so that I could trim it by hand. The best way I have found to fly an asymetrical is to treat it like a really, really big head sail. So, by thinking about it like that you should only need minimal control lines and will not have to worry about keeping two sheet on winches all the time. Since you have your head above the forestay jybing will be difficult without a bowsprit. The only time I have ever seen an asymetrical work easily when it was hoisted above the fore stay was on the race boats with the retractable bow srites. This gave the necessary clearance between the forestay and the tack of the spinnaker so that you could jybe easily. Becasue of this reason I kept mine under the head stay and then ran the lines outside of the shrouds and jybed it like a headsail. I'm sure I sacraficed a bit of sail area because of this set up, but the ease of sail handling was well worth it. This setup also shortened the length of the sheets and did away with the need to have the sheets run around the head stay. The only place for the sheets or the sail to get hung up was on the mast and I would rather clear a foul, short handed, at the mast than at the fore stay. Since you have it set up so your sheets run outside the rigging here is a really simple life saving trick to use so your lines don't get fouled at the forestay. Run a line from the forestay to the bow pulpit and tie it off at both ends. this closes the gap between the two and will prevent the lazy sheet from lodging in between the fore stay and the bow pulpit and getting stuck.
Fair winds
Brent
Sailcovers@usa.com