Do you use a spinnaker when you're single/shorthanded?

[vyv_cox]

Fascinating. Way back in year dot when I was just beginning it was drummed into me that you should always unfurl the genny and then drop the kite behind it, so thats what I have always done. Your boat isnt much smaller than mine and both are masthead spinnakers so whats possible for you should be for me as well. No doubt you have a wind speed limit at which you drop the kite - what is it roughly.

You can maybe hear the sound of pennies dropping! I have never understood why people do the letter box drop but this makes sense if you havent unfurled the genny. If you have unfurled it doesnt make sense to me.

Flaming! Comments welcome.

No real wind speed limit, just base dropping on boat handleability. Once we have moved the pole forward to increase stability and she still rolls a lot we take it down. Our most memorable spinnaker run was about 6 hours down the Italian coast to just north of Rome. The wind built all day, boat touching 9 knots in gusts, lots of chop on the water, over 20 knots of wind when we dropped the kite. We moved on two days later and had almost exactly the same conditions. Superb.

 

[EuanMcKenzie]

nice looking boat by the way - its come up well

 

[Greenheart]

Very kind of you to say so, thanks. :encouragement:

 

[Birdseye]

Letter boxing is just the next step. Super safe heavy airs drop. The letter box does two things, it ensures the kite is well hidden behind the main, and it allows you to use the boom as a kind of snubbing post for the kite, so that if it does somehow fill with wind you've got a chance of hanging on.

So the kite comes down behind the genny, under the foot of the genny, between mast and main and then down the hatch . Presumably at some point you disconnect the sheet.

 

[knuterikt]

So the kite comes down behind the genny, under the foot of the genny, between mast and main and then down the hatch . Presumably at some point you disconnect the sheet.

No the kite kite goes aft of the shrouds between the boom and main down the main hatch.
The lazy guy is used to pull the sail in & down, sheets/guys/halyards disconnected after sail is down.

A (partly) unfurled genny can help prevent the kite fouling on the head stay..
One of the good things with the letterbox drop is that you don't need to go on the fore deck to get the kite down.

Found this description using Google http://j44resolute.com/articles/anatomy_of_a_takedown_pt4.htm
This is for a fully crewed boat but you get the idea.

 

[Jamesuk]

Using the pole and spinnaker not recommend solo but the new style asymmetries are pretty good.

 

[Lucky Duck]

With a decent autopilot, sufficient room and in reasonable wind strengths I don't see the problem with using a symmetrical kite, in some ways (on my current boat) dropping the symmetric in a hurry is easier than the asymmetric.