Cruising chute sheet lengths...

[Iain C]

Quick one...if I am buying sheets for a cruising chute for a 32' boat, how long should they be roughly? Is there a "formula" as a %age of LOA for example? I don't want to buy ones so long it looks like a snake orgy in the cockpit...or worse, buy too short!

Boat is a Bav32, sheets will go from the clew down to the turning blocks on short strops on the aft mooring cleats, and then onto the winches which are right at the very back of the cockpit next to the wheel. I'll probably tend to inside gybe, although with a radar scanner on the front of the mast it might be nice to be able to outside gybe if needed. There's a short bowsprit of approx 700mm from the stemhead adding a bit to the LOA.

Thanks!

 

[Tranona]

2*boat length. I made the mistake of buying longer at 27m and will shorten when I have a bit of experience of the maximum when fully out, but guess I will chop 5m off. I bought from Marinescene bin ends 12mm braid for less than £1 a metre.

 

[DJE]

Agree with twice the boat length. That allows you to recover the sail back into the cockpit if you have to.

 

[Daydream believer]

Agree with twice the boat length. That allows you to recover the sail back into the cockpit if you have to.

+1 but certainly no less

 

[dom]

Quick one...if I am buying sheets for a cruising chute for a 32' boat, how long should they be roughly? Is there a "formula" as a %age of LOA for example? I don't want to buy ones so long it looks like a snake orgy in the cockpit...or worse, buy too short!

Boat is a Bav32, sheets will go from the clew down to the turning blocks on short strops on the aft mooring cleats, and then onto the winches which are right at the very back of the cockpit next to the wheel. I'll probably tend to inside gybe, although with a radar scanner on the front of the mast it might be nice to be able to outside gybe if needed. There's a short bowsprit of approx 700mm from the stemhead adding a bit to the LOA.

Thanks!

I wld say you need 2x (boat length + 700mm + dist back to the winches + winch wraps & tails). You could probably take 1.5m of each sheet to account for bowsprit if you wanted.

BTW - and I know you know this stuff backwards - why does an inside gybe risk the radar as it is still ahead of the forestay? FWIW I find the bigger the kite the harder it is to cleanly do an inside gybe when the wind begins to blow. So def want to spec sheets for outside.

 

[Iain C]

Thanks for the replies. On the sheet lengths, I probably would have gone shorter, so you've just saved me from an expensive mistake, many thanks!

Radar/gybe...well obviously I don't know this stuff backwards as that is a bloody good point about the forestay (and would not be asking dumb questions about sheet lengths too haha!!) However I do remember 10 years ago, I was doing the RTIR on a colleagues identical B32, and the day before we thought we'd practice with the kite and somehow the leech tape got snagged around the radar and the tape was ripped off the sail. But you're quite right, this can't really have been anything to do with a gybe, and I also have a feeling that my radar is much lower too.

One last question...my inclination is to simply tie the sheets onto the clew with bowlines, or splice some eyes into the sheets and use a dyneema soft shackle on the kite clew, to avoid bits of stainless flogging around at head height. Any tips or conventional wisdom here?

Lots and lots of experience with kites on all manner of dinghies...still plenty to learn on yachts!!

 

[DJE]

Bowlines!

 

[dom]

Thanks for the replies. On the sheet lengths, I probably would have gone shorter, so you've just saved me from an expensive mistake, many thanks!

Radar/gybe...well obviously I don't know this stuff backwards as that is a bloody good point about the forestay (and would not be asking dumb questions about sheet lengths too haha!!) However I do remember 10 years ago, I was doing the RTIR on a colleagues identical B32, and the day before we thought we'd practice with the kite and somehow the leech tape got snagged around the radar and the tape was ripped off the sail. But you're quite right, this can't really have been anything to do with a gybe, and I also have a feeling that my radar is much lower too.

One last question...my inclination is to simply tie the sheets onto the clew with bowlines, or splice some eyes into the sheets and use a dyneema soft shackle on the kite clew, to avoid bits of stainless flogging around at head height. Any tips or conventional wisdom here?

Lots and lots of experience with kites on all manner of dinghies...still plenty to learn on yachts!!

Lol! ...when I saw the 49er and Fireball I jumped to conclusions ..apols. Soft shackles absolutely the way to go; better in light air and a whack in the face from a shackle is something to be avoided at all costs. Also soft shackles can be more convenient than bowlines, who wants to be dicking around with a marlin spike on a bucking foredeck? (Note: bowlines can be fine if one furls the sail or uses a snuffer, but that topic is dangerous on here :nonchalance

And finally, when one is going for a fwd gybe; you don't want the sheet falling beneath the boat which can be a right royal PITA . Some asymmetrics have an upward pointing blunt spike to catch the non-working sheet, others use something like this: http://riggingnews.com/2012/01/catcher.html

Me, I use what that site refers to as a "crappy batten taped to the forestay chainplate"

 

[dom]

Bowlines!

Better not disagree with you since you witnessed and even photo'd my bunched up asymm squashed beneath the spi pole with the snuffing line wrapped around the radar !!
That is why I was wearing a climbing harness and not an LJ :ambivalence:

 

[Muddy32]

Lol! ...when I saw the 49er and Fireball I jumped to conclusions ..apols. Soft shackles absolutely the way to go; better in light air and a whack in the face from a shackle is something to be avoided at all costs. Also soft shackles can be more convenient than bowlines, who wants to be dicking around with a marlin spike on a bucking foredeck? (Note: bowlines can be fine if one furls the sail or uses a snuffer, but that topic is dangerous on here :nonchalance

And finally, when one is going for a fwd gybe; you don't want the sheet falling beneath the boat which can be a right royal PITA . Some asymmetrics have an upward pointing blunt spike to catch the non-working sheet, others use something like this: http://riggingnews.com/2012/01/catcher.html

Me, I use what that site refers to as a "crappy batten taped to the forestay chainplate"

+1 but the rule of thumb is to outside Gybe, above Force 4. With a radar reflector I assume you are in cruising mode.

 

[flaming]

Thanks for the replies. On the sheet lengths, I probably would have gone shorter, so you've just saved me from an expensive mistake, many thanks!

Radar/gybe...well obviously I don't know this stuff backwards as that is a bloody good point about the forestay (and would not be asking dumb questions about sheet lengths too haha!!) However I do remember 10 years ago, I was doing the RTIR on a colleagues identical B32, and the day before we thought we'd practice with the kite and somehow the leech tape got snagged around the radar and the tape was ripped off the sail. But you're quite right, this can't really have been anything to do with a gybe, and I also have a feeling that my radar is much lower too.

One last question...my inclination is to simply tie the sheets onto the clew with bowlines, or splice some eyes into the sheets and use a dyneema soft shackle on the kite clew, to avoid bits of stainless flogging around at head height. Any tips or conventional wisdom here?

Lots and lots of experience with kites on all manner of dinghies...still plenty to learn on yachts!!

If you want the Rolls-Royce of sheet options you have the joined into a single tail that you can then either tie or snapshackle to the sail. That's what the J's are doing.

Like this - but bigger as this is for a 29er.

Makes gybing a lot easier as you're never dragging a knot or a shackle past the forestay - only effectively continuous rope. And you only have to tie one bowline.

 

[Iain C]

Haha to be honest if it's blowing a 5 I suspect a B32 will be quite happily chugging along at hull speed under white sail alone. But I might modify the quote to "of course, in a 5 and above we tend to outside gybe the kite" and use it in the bar...

 

[Iain C]

Ooooo...Flaming...I like that. What breed of rope is that?

Reminds me of something we used to use in 12s an 18s, a lark's head knot in the sheet around the clew, but a slippy dyneema "bridge" stitched into the gap between the two sheets aft of the clew which slipped around the jib...worked pretty well.

 

[Motor_Sailor]

If you want the Rolls-Royce of sheet options . . .

That's the best system for small keelboat headsails as well.

 

[lw395]

If you want the Rolls-Royce of sheet options you have the joined into a single tail that you can then either tie or snapshackle to the sail. That's what the J's are doing.

Like this - but bigger as this is for a 29er.

Makes gybing a lot easier as you're never dragging a knot or a shackle past the forestay - only effectively continuous rope. And you only have to tie one bowline.

Some dinghy sailors even splice the sheets to the kite.
In a dinghy, you would probably not have a total of 4x loa in the kite sheets, you knot the tails together, so the lazy sheet is extended by the tail of the working sheet.
Obviously the knot won't go through any blocks.
There's only one thing worse than an excess of spaghetti in the cockpit, that's a sheet that's too short.....

 

[flaming]

Ooooo...Flaming...I like that. What breed of rope is that?

Reminds me of something we used to use in 12s an 18s, a lark's head knot in the sheet around the clew, but a slippy dyneema "bridge" stitched into the gap between the two sheets aft of the clew which slipped around the jib...worked pretty well.

Any rigger should be able to do that for you if you don't fancy doing it yourself. Personally I'd put a snapshackle on the end rather than a bowline. Unlike jib sheets, snapshackles are fine on kite sheets as when the flog they do so away from the boat!