Cruising Spin or Drifter?

[patturner]

Hi gang,

Anyone have experience with a Drifter and could you comment on it's performance over a Cruising Spin? We have a cruising spinnaker, but frankly it always seems like it takes alot of attention. I'm not a set-it and forget sailor, but when on a long sail I don't want to have to be "constantly" trimming the thing either. We sail in the San Francisco Bay and usually have more wind then we need so a light air sail rarely gets used, but we are heading for Mexico in a couple of weeks and I know there will be more light air and downwind sailing down there.

Any insights would be appreciated.
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[Russell]

I love my drifter, its pretty simple as far as triming and attension, its just like flying a large genoa.

[patturner]

Thanks Russell,

Do you also have an Asym? I would be interested in how they compare.
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[Russell]

Thanks Russell,

Do you also have an Asym? I would be interested in how they compare.

Yep, I also have an asym, but I have not flown it enough to give much input. Spent the last year sailing to windward, not much downwind work.

[Troy Scott]

I had one long ago on a CD22. It was my favorite sail. I used it often. It needed a whisker pole when the AW was less than 30 degrees off of the stern. It was EASY to fly. I'm looking at buying an asymmetric spinnaker now, but I want to follow this thread.

[iropicc]

hi saltshaker imho the drifter will be built of lighter material than the asym. the drifter will have considerably more draft built into the sail than the asym. the asym depending on sailcloth weight can be used on more points of sail and in higher wind speeds than a drifter. the drifter is a very specialized sail used in very light air and always well off the wind. the mexico trip will probably be the only time you will have a need for the drifter.

[Russell]

hi saltshaker imho the drifter will be built of lighter material than the asym. the drifter will have considerably more draft built into the sail than the asym. the asym depending on sailcloth weight can be used on more points of sail and in higher wind speeds than a drifter. the drifter is a very specialized sail used in very light air and always well off the wind. the mexico trip will probably be the only time you will have a need for the drifter.

Perhaps my drifter is not a traditional drifter then, I use mine even close reaching without any problems, I cant pinch as high as I can with the yankee, but it works very well pretty tight.

This is the drifter I have: http://www.hood-sails.com/MP-G.htm

[Didereaux]

Personal experience brings me to the conclusion that the assymetrical is a far more versatile sail than a drifter. I am hoping my definitions are correct. The drifter is a hanked on sail while the assym/gennaker/Code0 is held down at the tack only. At any rate I have used those two types of sail.

The assym when attached with an adjustable tack line(thanks to Carter Brey for tipping me off about using the downhaul for that) is highly adjustable and offers a larger coverage, course-wise. The drifter is merely a badly blownout lightweight genoa and requires quite a bit of twiddling with the whisker pole to set well the closer ot downwind you get. It sets now farther than an assym as you head up. Downsidw is that you MUST gybe the assym, whereas you can with much fuss and fluster get the drfter to come through the slot, of course I am discussing a sloop rig and not a cutter. Both sails benefit in performance far offwind by having the sheet rove through a snatch block on the end of the boom, and of course on such a point you would have the main down.

At any rate those are my experiences and thoughts concerning the two sails.
g'Luk

[Russell]

Didereaux, my drifter is set free just like a spinnaker, it is not a hank on sail.

As far as flexibility, I would say the two are equal. form the beam forward you use a drift, from the beam aft a spinnaker. They are two different sails with different purposes. If your only getting one you chose the one thats right for where your going. If headed south from the US east coast to beat your way to the caribbean, a spinnaker will be useless but the drifter may prove useful. If doing the coconut milk run across the pacific from panama the opposite would be true.

It is possible to pole out the drifter and sail downwind with it, but your boat would be incredably off balance and you would need a huge pole, I have no desire to try it. But with that in mind, I would say that makes a drifter more versitile, you cant go to windward with a spinnaker.

In an ideal world one might have both, but if only getting one make the choice based on where you will be using it. And note that in reality most cruisers (not all, but I would say 85% of them) opt to turn on the iron genny rather then mess with some light wind sail, unless they know the wind is going to be light for a long period.

[Russell]

Its worth noting as well, if you have a good sail maker who caters mostly to cruisers, you should sit down and talk with them about your needs in a light wind sail. Some of the modern light wind sails these days are seriouly blurring the lines of definition and he may come up with a single sail the fills your needs, though not ideal in every area, more flexible then a cut and dry traditional spinnaker or drifer.

[Didereaux]

Now I am confused...now THAT's a revelation! heh I was under the impression, told by a couple of not-sailmakers that a drifter was a hank-on made of very light1-1.5oz material and very full bellied( I borrowed to try this out from the local broken boat store). Which is what I tried out. And that the assym/gennaker was made of similer material but was not hanked and could be flown tacked to the stem, off a pendant or as I do/did with an adjustable tack line run back to the cockpit.

Because of the belly of the drifter I found that I could not run it any closer or not much so than I could the assym.

So whatever I am calling the two sails rightly or wrongly that is a description of my experiences with the ones I have described.

How does your drifter differ from an assym?

[Didereaux]

Now I find that one of the sailmakers offers the 'drifter' with these options. A wire luff, with and without a couple of hanks for the forestay.

Also I think maybe one guyu on a site had it right when he said"...there are an infinite number of combinations between the common genoa and the symetrical spinnaker!" And as I am finding out the various sailmakers put their own names to their particular flavor of the day. So's yet again we be on our own! ;)

[John Vigor]

If it helps, Wallace Ross, in his landmark work Sail Power, defines "drifter" as "a very lightweight genoa or spinnaker."

In other words, drifter refers to the weight of the sailcloth, not the cut of the sail.

John V.

[Russell]

If it helps, Wallace Ross, in his landmark work Sail Power, defines "drifter" as "a very lightweight genoa or spinnaker."

In other words, drifter refers to the weight of the sailcloth, not the cut of the sail.

John V.

Interesting, then that would make what I am calling a drifer, not a drifter but then, it does make it a drifter.

It is a very lightweight and large genoa, that is true, but it is not lighter then a spinnaker. Both my spinnaker and my "drifter" are of the same weight cloth. I do think the term drifter is accurate for this sail, but maybe to clear confusion it should be called a "genoa drifter" the other style perhaps should be called a "spinnaker drifter", though I doubt my post here is going to suddenly make all the sailors in the world adopt this terminology, at least for the purpose of this discussion it can make things more clear!

[Didereaux]

If it helps, Wallace Ross, in his landmark work Sail Power, defines "drifter" as "a very lightweight genoa or spinnaker."

In other words, drifter refers to the weight of the sailcloth, not the cut of the sail.

John V.

Oh, that heled oodles John! Genos are hanked, Spins never! Prety much covers the spectrum. So 'Drifter' becomes meaningless except as it describes the situation, drifting about in light winds. Kidding aside, the part about the lightweight material being the 'drifter' component does make a certain amount of logical sense...leaving the other names to apply to the cut and method of flying the sail.

Square one is becoming ever more difficult to discern! heh