Because I can't leave it alone

[Peppermint]

Because I can\'t leave it alone

is there anyone who thought that the proposed dumping of the spinnaker in "A Question of Seamanship" Dec 2003 was a good idea?

Has anyone done it?

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[Twister_Ken]

Wot I did (once)

Only got anywhere near that situation once. Blew the guy and let the kite flag-off downwind to recover it on the sheet. more or less in the lee of the mainsail. Didn't have a snuffer complicating things, but I don't see how it would have made a difference.

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[Tiger Rag]

Re: Wot I did (once)

I had to reread your second sentence! Thought you might have been confessing to some drunken mistake!

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[bedouin]

Re: Because I can\'t leave it alone

For the benefit of those of us who haven't read it yet - could you expand the question?

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[jamesjermain]

Re: Because I can\'t leave it alone

As with all QoSs, there is more than one answer. That proposed would work and is the quickest and safest option.

However, it is not what I would have done. When dropping the spinnaker shorthanded, the first thing to do, always, is head down wind (wind safely off to one quarter though), and ease the guy 'till the pole end is just off the forestay. T

Then haul in hard on the sheet, tying it off to a stanchion base, midships cleat or even grab rail.

Now release the guy. The spinnaker will stream off down wind quite harmlessly. The boat can even be brought on to the wind without harm and the spinnaker will not try to wrap itself round the forestay.

With the load out of the sail, it can be lowered in stages and recovered under the sail directly down the main hatch. With only a little experience and a bit of courage, you can let the halyard fly and recover the sail as it floats gently down.

I can recover the spinnaker on Sweet Lucy this way quite easily singlehanded with the aid of the autopilot or even, on one fraught occasion, singlehanded without the autopilot.

<hr width=100% size=1>JJ<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by jamesjermain on 15/12/2003 15:26 (server time).</FONT></P>

 

[BlueSkyNick]

Re: Because I can\'t leave it alone

I don't have the article in front of me, but it was in last month's edition of YM, not the most recent one.

Basically, the chap was sailing down wind West to East towards the Needles with just SWMBO on board, in fairly light winds. The there was signs of a squall heading towards him, so he decided to drop the spinnaker. The snuffer jammed half way down, the wind started picking up and he was heading for landfall in about 10 minutes. There were other factors too, which I can't recall here. What do you do? Dump it (literally) or try to lower the partly snuffed sail in the usual way?

The answer was to dump it, but as you will see JJ has proposed a far more sensible approach.

When I read it myself, I thought it odd to leave a spinnaker floating around about one mile outside the Needles channel. Putting one's own safety aside, somebody else could have come a right cropper if they had gone over it, especially a stinkie at speed.

<hr width=100% size=1>I would give my right arm to be ambidexterous<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by BIGNICK on 15/12/2003 15:38 (server time).</FONT></P>

 

[Chris_Robb]

Re: Because I can\'t leave it alone

Precisly the method I think most people use. I really could not understand why the article even suggested that way which I would regard as a recipe for trouble.

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[marki]

Re: Because I can\'t leave it alone

The only reason people don't use the tried an trusted method you very sensibly suggest is because they don't know about it or are untrained in how to effect it. I wonder why these type of articles don't attempt to teach these techniques rather than suggesting dumping the sail as if it were some sort of monster? But then again if one dumped all the sails - though not simultaneously in the needles channel - it would be possible to spend all day practising going in and out of a marina using a different technique each time!

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[Twister_Ken]

Ooh your are awful...

...but I like you.

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