Do you don't you stopper knots

[geem]

The peak loads caused by a flogging spinnaker that's even partially powered up can be huge. Good way to find out the weak points in your standing rigging.

There shouldn't be any weak points in your standing rigging. In my opinion on a cruising boat if a flogging spinnaker can pull the mast down there is something wrong. Not being a racer, we would never have the spinnaker up in strong winds especially as a husband and wife team. Our spinnaker is back in the bag at 21kts True wind. We use it for extra boat speed when the white sails are cutting it. Yes things can go wrong but pulling the mast down shouldn't be on the list

 

[Jonny A]

There shouldn't be any weak points in your standing rigging. In my opinion on a cruising boat if a flogging spinnaker can pull the mast down there is something wrong. Not being a racer, we would never have the spinnaker up in strong winds especially as a husband and wife team. Our spinnaker is back in the bag at 21kts True wind. We use it for extra boat speed when the white sails are cutting it. Yes things can go wrong but pulling the mast down shouldn't be on the list

Each to their own, but I don't fancy risking my mast finding out if everything is really A-OK. Even a kite flogging with loose sheets can shake the whole boat around.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

Each to their own, but I don't fancy risking my mast finding out if everything is really A-OK. Even a kite flogging with loose sheets can shake the whole boat around.

By your standards our boat is pretty radical. But she won’t lose her rig if the kite is allowed to flog.

 

[Ado]

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If you have a link to MOCRA rules or safety advice I think we would all love to read them. I could not find a link on the web site.

Its all changed and now offshore racing in the UK is governed by World Sailing Special Regs, they have a 68 page pdf available on their website which doesnt refer to sail handling. The document has improved greatly as it was originally based on the monohull version, now easier to comply with.

 

[Stemar]

There shouldn't be any weak points in your standing rigging. In my opinion on a cruising boat if a flogging spinnaker can pull the mast down there is something wrong.

True, but I'd rather my rigger found the one that isn't supposed to be there than have an embarrassing You Tube video turn into a potentially boat and life-threatening disaster.

My goal in sailing is to avoid stressing any piece of equipment beyond normal loads - especially the skipper.

 

[geem]

True, but I'd rather my rigger found the one that isn't supposed to be there than have an embarrassing You Tube video turn into a potentially boat and life-threatening disaster.

My goal in sailing is to avoid stressing any piece of equipment beyond normal loads - especially the skipper.

So you don't think the rig has some redundancy built in to deal with such eventualities? However, like i said in #23. Drop the spinnaker halyard in an emergency and you release all mast loads anyway. Stopper knots in spinnaker sheets and none in the halyard is the way to go IMO

 

[geem]

I've sailed 1000's of miles, including an atlantic crossing.., on multihulls.., and until about a year and a half ago, I would have said the same thing. Nearly all my multihull experience was on Gunboats and they all run only asymmetrical chutes tacked to the longeron, and sail pretty hot angles down wind.

But, it turns out that symmetrical chutes are terrific on multihulls when the route is deep down wind.

What I have learned is that a symmetrical spinnaker will permit a catamaran to sail pretty much dead down wind short handed in complete safety.

Drop the main entirely. Hoist the chute with both a tack line and a sheet on each corner. One tackline runs to the starboard bow, and the other tackline to the port bow. The sheets run aft in the normal fashion. On the windward side, trim the tackline, and leave the sheet slack. On the other side trim the sheet and leave the tack line slack. One typically sails not actually DDW but about 10deg on one board or the other. To "gybe" all that you have to do is take up the tackline on the old leeward side and ease that sheet.., and on the other side ease the old tack line and trim the sheet. Turn the boat maybe 10-20deg. Because the main is down, there is nothing to do with it.

This rig works really well -

Cats - especially performance cats have a problem in that to go downwind they are supposed to sail at hot angles - say TWA 150-155 - powered up with an A2, at very high speeds. This works great with a full crew and non-scary conditions.

but once you decide to back off - either because you have fewer crew, or because the conditions get a bit much to sail fast - then problems arise. One is that on most cats you can't ease the main very far because the shrouds are so far aft. So you still end up sailing hot angles.., only now you are doing it slowly, and the extra distance from those angles adds up to a long passage.

With the symmetrical, you can have decent speed straight down wind - right at your destination.. I have used this rig offshore on a pretty large cat with one-person watches.

The other great thing is that symmetrical chutes are available at very low cost from places that sell used sails. Nobody wants them...

We used to sail a Prout Snowgoose 37. At the complete opposite of the kind of multihulls you sail. We crossed the Atlantic using an asymmetric spinnaker set on a pole with the mainsail. The mains are tiny on the Snowgoose but it still added useful power in conjunction with the spinnaker. We were basically flying the asymmetric as if it was a symmetric but it was super stable set on the pole. The main gave us something to drop it behind if caught be a squall. We used to sail dead down wind with this set up surprisingly effectively

 

[Stemar]

So you don't think the rig has some redundancy built in to deal with such eventualities?

I sincerely hope so! I'm probably a good deal less resilient, which is why I don't do spinnakers

 

[Buck Turgidson]

I have occasionally lost the lazy sheet under the hull as I outside gybe my ASpin. It's easy enough to retrieve it once it's all run out but heaven knows how I would do it with a continuous sheet! Think I'll stick to what I have. No stoppers by the way.
And I always called it a thumb knot until someone mentioned admiralty knot on here.

 

[penfold]

I've been present for a few masts broken by filled kites, never one by a flogging sail.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

We used to sail a Prout Snowgoose 37. At the complete opposite of the kind of multihulls you sail. We crossed the Atlantic using an asymmetric spinnaker set on a pole with the mainsail. The mains are tiny on the Snowgoose but it still added useful power in conjunction with the spinnaker. We were basically flying the asymmetric as if it was a symmetric but it was super stable set on the pole. The main gave us something to drop it behind if caught be a squall. We used to sail dead down wind with this set up surprisingly effectively

Asymmetrics work well like that. We rarely do, as we are more apparent wind driven than a Snowgoose, but it’s still occasionally useful and effective. The mainsail, even a small-ish one like the Snowgoose makes the recovery so much less of an epic. Ours hangs behind the main like a limp dishrag on demand.

 

[flaming]

There shouldn't be any weak points in your standing rigging. In my opinion on a cruising boat if a flogging spinnaker can pull the mast down there is something wrong. Not being a racer, we would never have the spinnaker up in strong winds especially as a husband and wife team. Our spinnaker is back in the bag at 21kts True wind. We use it for extra boat speed when the white sails are cutting it. Yes things can go wrong but pulling the mast down shouldn't be on the list

In my opinion if a flogging kite brings the mast down on a race boat something has gone very badly wrong!

Masts fail more often under white sails than under kite, even flogging. Believe it or not the loads going upwind and through waves are a lot, lot higher than anything you’ll experience flogging a kite.