Hoyt Spinnaker Gun Mount System

[dgadee]

I presume he had a patent on it. That will be well expired. Always seemed a great idea to me and would love it as an add on. Better than a cruising chute, I think.

 

[dgadee]

I presume he had a patent on it. That will be well expired. Always seemed a great idea to me and would love it as an add on. Better than a cruising chute, I think.

EP0039131A2 - Mounting arrangement for spinnaker-boom - Google Patents

Expired. Carbon pole, mount on strengthened pulpit. Practical Boat Owner, where are you when we need you?

 

[dgadee]

US4501217A - Spinnaker pole control - Google Patents

 

[doug748]

here;

Freedom 25 Yacht Sold In Aid Of Sail 4 Cancer Charity | eBay

 

[sacrosanct]

Hi Folks,
I just joined this forum and I realize this thread is so old that maybe nobody will read this. But I feel compelled to add some reality to the discussion of the Hoy Gyun Mount Spinnaker system.

With all due respect to member Daydream Believer, nearly everything you've said about the system is wrong. I've sailed my 1985 Freedom 32 for 17 years and before that I woned a Freedom 25 and two Freedom 21s. So I am intimately familiar with and expereinced with the Hoyt Gun Mount Spinnaker system. It is one of the very best reasons to own these boats, because it totally tames the chute and makes it a real cruising sail.

Here: some specifics. Previous post said:

"They can work with a forestay. The pole would fit in front of it" That is correct.

"However, the problem of having both clews fixed can be dangerous
If a gust hits you cannot release the clew." That is false. Both clews are pulled to the pole ends by the clew outhaul lines. they can easily be released by simply rleasing the relevant sheet stopper. Spilling wind is thus instantaneous.

"It would take too long to harden the weather sheet & stall the sail" Alsoi incorrect. This system has no sheets in the traditional sense. It has "reins" a line running out to each end of the [pole. Since the pole is pivoting on its midpoint, there are no loads on the reins. A child can steer the sail effortlessly by simply pulling one and relaxing the other. the sail can be stalled in a moment.

"The sail is not so efficient on a reach as the trailing clew cannot be released allowing adjustment of leech shape" Also wrong. We carry our spinnaker sheeted in hard right up to a beam reach and it makes for a real thrilling ride! Adjusting each clew is simple using the clew outhauls as described above.

"I seem to recall racing rules that banned having both clews fixed to pole ends at the same time due to i dangers of not being able to release the sail
This applied to the introduction of twin pole systems which became popular for gybing" Perhaps, but the Hoyt Spinnaker system was banned because it gave the boat an unfair advantage. Basically it transforms the spinnaker into a square-rigged sail. Gybing amounts to nothing more than steering the sail with the reins! Dead downwind it works perfectly and is really fun if you take the main down. Then you can sail from a reach to a reach with no boom crashing across the boat and no blanketing of the chute. I could go on but this post is too long as it is. I'd be happy to answer any more questions about this if anybody is interested. Suffice it to say that I am such a big fan of the Hoyt Gunmount Spinnaker System that I am trying to figure out how to adapt it to my next boat!

I now own a Steve Killing-designed Express 35. I have had two Freedoms- a 25 (with an aftermarket jib and forestay) and a 36- and would like to retrofit a gun mount to my present boat. If you come across any for sale, or enough photographs that I can use to have one built, I would appreciate it. The naval architect who designed the carbon spars for TP had one on his boat- also a 35 foot masthead rig- but he parted it out recently.

You are correct in everything you said; the Hoyt arrangement is faster and safer than anything else on the market (and it was definitely unfair in downwind legs). I used it so much the sleeve (the pole slides through) would shear off the bow pulpit every three months or so and the factory would just replace it. I believe sliding the spinnaker pole "from the cockpit" contributed to the metal fatigue. The 36 (1987 on) had a spring loaded bolt that kept the pole centered, and since you need to go to the bow to attach the halyard anyway I found this (walking forward) simplified the additional spaghetti they had in the 21/25/32 from the early 80s. The sleeve didn't fail once in the 5 years I owned the boat.

 

[MisterBaxter]

I had a Freedom 21 for a few years and this system was superb. The halyard was in a continuous loop with a downhaul attached to the centre of the sail, which ran down the front of the sail and through a sock on the foredeck. When the time came to drop it, you could just uncleat the halyard and haul in the downhaul and the sail would disappear smoothly and safely, with no way of falling into the water because both clews were held at the pole ends. I often flew the spinnaker single handed, in winds up to a F5+. One one memorable occasion I sailed under just spinnaker in a low F6!
The pole had outhauls to allow it to be adjusted from the cockpit to extend out off-centre in either direction, or to house it back along the rail. I found that on all points from a run to a beam reach I got best boat speed with the pole extended slightly out to windward.
It was a really fun boat. I saw 12 knots on several occasions. Mine had the aluminium mast which was too heavy, the carbon fibre ones are apparently a lot better. I also had the twin lifting keels which were great in some respects but the boat needed more and deeper ballast really. The fin keel model would have been a better sailing boat, I think.

 

[dunedin]

Something like this? I used to crew on one of these.

A similar system to that is/was used on many offshore Open Mini’s, the single handed racers that go at incredible speeds for their size.