cruising chute ....sheets

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harstonwood

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Hi all
Just ordered a cruising chute for a 40' Dufour. Whats diameter sheets would be recommended? prefer as light as is sensibly possible
Also would soft shackles and blocks on rear cleat work?
Finally can the tack line terminate at midsheet cleat or should I bring back to the cockpit
Thanks!
 
Definitely, bring the tack line back to the cockpit. Makes it easier to gybe if your going to pull it through the gap between the luff and forestay.
 
A little depends on the cut of the sail. Some have a fairly straight luff which needs tension from a single length down haul or can be fastened straight to a fitting on the bow or pole etc
Some have varying degrees of curved luff like the shoulders of a spinnaker. These need the foot to be adjusted all the time to get a really optimum performance. So that will dictate if you want the downhaul into the cockpit or not.
You might also consider the drop. I sail single handed & the spinnaker chute was chucked in the garage ages ago!!
I find that it is much easier to drop the chute into the cockpit under the boom. This allows me to control the cockpit controlled halliard whilst pulling in the sail. My down haul to the foot is long enough for the clew to come back to the cockpit where I can keep it attached until I have the sail down below. This means it as to be long enough & controllable from the cockpit.
One last point is that in a breeze a chute on a 40 footer will be 80 M2 or more & in a gust will be heavily loaded. This means adjustment has to be done from a winch , not by hand from the spring cleats
 
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There is an argument for having a snap shackle with a loop of string on the pull. Then if you have to dump the sheet to allow it to be lowered you can simply use a boathook to pull on the loop to release the shackle

I have an electric windlass with capstan and gypsy. I take the anchor off the windlass, release the locking nut and wind the tack around it. Then I can use the "anchor up" to pull in on the tack

My SWMBO calls the cruising chute the divorce chute!

Good luck

TS
 
My set up, 36ft
10mm sheets. plastic snap shackles for REALLY light days, metal for a bit more wind.
Soft shackles ( strops thru ally toerails), non captive spi blocks.
S/t spi winches. ( I like , a lot).
A 4:1downhaul with jammer on the foot line, led back aft along toe rail.

Short handed sailing so one or two other bits that prob won't be of interest...
 
sailorman said:
the sheet might be better with a snatch block @ max beam
Click to expand...
Only if it is breezy enough that most cruising people would not want to fly the chute anyway.

In general the sheet should go well aft. Choked down amidships in heavy breeze but not otherwise. If you really want to do this the better way is to run the sheet through an Antal ring with a line led down to a block at max beam. If you want to choke down the chute you pull the line, which pulls the sheet down. Of course you need somewhere to make off that line.
 
Blueboatman said:
A 4:1downhaul with jammer on the foot line, led back aft along toe rail.
Click to expand...

How does that work? I'm not very happy with my tack line arrangements and your idea has some appeal, but how do you let the tack out again if the jammer is on the tackle? Or have I misunderstood it?

Pete
 
Pete, jammer and tackle are permanently rigged and lie along the scuppers to just forward of the shrouds.. A eye splice in the tail of the chutes tack line engages with a snap shackle on the tackle.

Nice big block on the stem head btw to reduce chafe.


( In addition) I have two more snap shackles on u bolts along the centreline , a couple of feet apart, these take the bight of my snuffers up/down loop and keep 'em hands free and prevent twists..just a 'nice' amount of stiction...
Sheet goes round winch couple or three times thence tailed back up to mast when I'm hoisting..

And lastly I have Vee lines from toerail up and back zigzagging along the lifelines for'd..stops anything sliding over the side..
... Perhaps more info than you wanted but I've tweaked it to make it really easy to use singlehanded. Gets far more use than I dared hope..
 
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Have 8mm Dyneema lightweight and hi performance - floats too with shackles so that I can dump quickly if single handed and similar to blueboatman have got a snap shackle just fwd of mid ships to accommodate the snuffer continuous line foot.
 
harstonwood said:
Hi all
Just ordered a cruising chute for a 40' Dufour. Whats diameter sheets would be recommended? prefer as light as is sensibly possible
Also would soft shackles and blocks on rear cleat work?
Finally can the tack line terminate at midsheet cleat or should I bring back to the cockpit
Thanks!
Click to expand...

We have two sets of lines for the chute. (39' boat.) One are 12mm, great for easy handling in reasonable airs but too weighty for light airs. The other are very lightweight and pretty thin, which is great for light airs and means the sail doesn't get mis-shaped by the weight of the sheets pulling the clew downwards.

I think you're referring to the clew at the mid sheet cleat. The 'tack' is the line that goes to the bow. (Also the origin of the verb 'to tack': before square riggers, you'd have a square sail with one of the two clews tied forwards and the other played as a sheet. When you wanted to go about (OK, they may have gybed or 'worn' in those days), you would attach the other lower corner to the bow, i.e. change the 'tack'. When the wind was coming from the port side, you'd have the port-side lower corner attached to the bow - the 'port tack' - and when it was coming from the starboard side you'd play that corner with a sheet and attach the 'starboard tack' to the bow.
 
bbg said:
Only if it is breezy enough that most cruising people would not want to fly the chute anyway.

In general the sheet should go well aft. Choked down amidships in heavy breeze but not otherwise. If you really want to do this the better way is to run the sheet through an Antal ring with a line led down to a block at max beam. If you want to choke down the chute you pull the line, which pulls the sheet down. Of course you need somewhere to make off that line.
Click to expand...

I play with this too. But can you help me: if I choke the chute's clew , which is sheeted aft, to outside the cockpit, downwards with a barber hauler exactly as you describe to a point at the base of the shrouds, doesn't this power it up by closing down its otherwise more open leech?
 
prv said:
How does that work? I'm not very happy with my tack line arrangements and your idea has some appeal, but how do you let the tack out again if the jammer is on the tackle? Or have I misunderstood it?

Pete
Click to expand...

I definitely wouldn't put it on a jammer, for exactly the reason you state. Could go horribly wrong.

On ours, the tack line comes aft to a coachroof winch so we can let it out under control. If I were to leave it on the foredeck, I'd use a 4:1 block as has been suggested, just so that it can be done reasonably safely.
 
BelleSerene said:
I play with this too. But can you help me: if I choke the chute's clew , which is sheeted aft, to outside the cockpit, downwards with a barber hauler exactly as you describe to a point at the base of the shrouds, doesn't this power it up by closing down its otherwise more open leech?
Click to expand...

It depends...

Kite trim (and chutes are just a type of kite) is a touch more complicated than jib trim.

When you're reaching you are absolutely right that what you want is an open leach, as in this case the kite is functioning as a jib.

However, when you turn much more downwind it all changes, and a new set of rules come into play that are in essence the opposite of conventional sail trim. Basically, when the breeze gets up you would normally ease the sails to spill wind - and opening the leach is part of that - but with a kite you do the opposite, you strap it down. So you want it over sheeted, tight on the tack and get it pretty flat. What you're aiming for is to change it from "bag shaped" to "board shaped".
 
flaming said:
It depends...

Kite trim (and chutes are just a type of kite) is a touch more complicated than jib trim.

When you're reaching you are absolutely right that what you want is an open leach, as in this case the kite is functioning as a jib.

However, when you turn much more downwind it all changes, and a new set of rules come into play that are in essence the opposite of conventional sail trim. Basically, when the breeze gets up you would normally ease the sails to spill wind - and opening the leach is part of that - but with a kite you do the opposite, you strap it down. So you want it over sheeted, tight on the tack and get it pretty flat. What you're aiming for is to change it from "bag shaped" to "board shaped".
Click to expand...

And, I would add - to prevent it oscillating so much. Choking down will keep the kite and hence the boat more stable.

Probably not necessary in the conditions that most cruising people / couples need to worry about. In the conditions in which a racing crew would start to think about choking a kite down, most cruisers would probably have dropped the kite already.
 
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