Is a Dousing Sock Necessary?

[weinie]

I
I am intrigued by spinnaker furlers, but I'll wait to see if I can live without one.

Paul

Many great benefits for cruising and even shorthanded racing sailors!
No stress during the hoist and no need to jump the halyard like a maniac.
No hourglasses.
Gybing much more stress free... roll it up and unroll it after you tack the boat. No forestay wraps.
Never have to worry about running the tapes so you can douse and re-set multiple times without going below to clean up the mess. You can sail with the 'sausage' hoisted or just drop the whole gear to the deck and leave it there.
Can setup and hoist the 'sausage' at the mooring or dock and sail upwind with minimal windage, (say to exit the bay or harbor) until you are ready to unfurl.

In the other thread about furling mainsails, Jackdaw wrote that the introduction of additional complexity into a system undoubtedly brings about more occasion for s*&t to hit the fan, but in this case, there is very little to fail and the benefits are enormous if one is short handed. The possibility of calamity occurring is much, much less.

 

[Gunni]

I did not see mention of cost only advice on the benefits, but yes top down is a great feature but at a cost

The benefit is if you have a sock or a assym furler a cruising sailor will actually use the sail, so you need one or the other. The difficult question is do you really need to spend +3 times more for a top down furling system that basically does the same thing. I am leaning toward yes.

 

[thinwater]

On my Stiletto I never used the sock. I use it on the PDQ because the sail bag won't fit in the locker (I use the sock as the sail bag). Also, the larger the sail gets, the more useful. Crew matters too.

 

[thinwater]

Many great benefits for cruising and even shorthanded racing sailors!
No stress during the hoist and no need to jump the halyard like a maniac.
No hourglasses.
Gybing much more stress free... roll it up and unroll it after you tack the boat. No forestay wraps.
Never have to worry about running the tapes so you can douse and re-set multiple times without going below to clean up the mess. You can sail with the 'sausage' hoisted or just drop the whole gear to the deck and leave it there.
Can setup and hoist the 'sausage' at the mooring or dock and sail upwind with minimal windage, (say to exit the bay or harbor) until you are ready to unfurl.

In the other thread about furling mainsails, Jackdaw wrote that the introduction of additional complexity into a system undoubtedly brings about more occasion for s*&t to hit the fan, but in this case, there is very little to fail and the benefits are enormous if one is short handed. The possibility of calamity occurring is much, much less.

No wraps or hour glasses with a sock either. The trick is to sheet the sail BEFORE the sock is lifted all the way. That way it fills as the sock goes up.

 

[weinie]

I've had at least a couple of f-ups with the sock by getting things twisted around somehow.

 

[justsomeguy]

I've had at least a couple of f-ups with the sock by getting things twisted around somehow.

I think it kind of depends on how often you deploy it. When my socked and bagged spin sits for a time in the V berth, things just get moved around.
I blame my wife.

 

[CapitalistSailor]

Shavdog, some of the drama with a spinnaker douse can be reduced if the jib is unfurled/raised and then the boat is turned to a broad reach, so that the spinnaker is largely blanketed (be sure not to gybe!). The apparent wind also wind drop. Then as someone above suggested, release the tack line and pull in on the sheet, and shove the sail down the companionway. If there is a lazy sheet you can pull that around to the lee side if it is easier to get to. It also helps to drop the halyard a foot or so before the douse to take a little of the tension off the sail and sheet (make sure the halyard is wrapped around a winch to take the strain when letting some out). Also make sure all the lines are free to run.

Most of the races I sail are doublehanded distance races. We stopped using the sock a few years ago (on a 1000 sq. ft. sail on a 30' boat), but many of our competitors use one. Others can douse or switch out a spinnaker surprisingly fast without it. My sailing buddy will usually want us to wait until we are nearly broaching before we take it down (it's his boat), often in the dark in a building wind, so we have all the drama we need.

Good luck. Practice a few times in lighter winds and work your way up to stronger winds. Douse the sail as soon as you start to get a little worried about getting it down. Cruisers generally won't want to have the spinnaker up in strong winds anyway; they want the spinnaker to keep the boat moving on light wind days.

This link has some great techniques for shorthanded sailing. The dousing method I described comes largely from here:
http://sfbaysss.net/resource/doc/SinglehandedTipsThirdEdition.pdf

 

[Gary Ballentine]

Easier up.... Easier down on our 40.5. Just me and my wife and the auto pilot.... Great for cruisers.

 

[shavdog]

I bought a used asy on ebay....I paid up for it but to buy a new one with a rainbow of colors would have cost around $2500because of the labor .....no sock....we won't be using this sail all that much so it's not that big of a deal to us...thanks for the responses...still looking for a used winter cover for a 1994 35.5legend

 

[thinwater]

I've had at least a couple of f-ups with the sock by getting things twisted around somehow.

Yup.

I've learned to hoist it up and look at it. If the sock or line is twisted, I lower it a little and sort that out before going any farther. I have also learned to be careful to keep it straight when dousing.

 

[Gunni]

It is pretty much a thing, as the IT guys say, GIGO. Garbage In, Garbage Out. If you douse the sail in a twisted Peking fire drill it ain't going to fix itself inside the sock. You have to hoist or lay it out and untangle things prior to re-deployment.