My Experiences
Bill, Good questions. I have an unusual set up that I inherited from the guy I bought my cruising chute from. It's hard to describe, but I'll do my best. There is a 5/16" stainless wire that is about 4" long that's in a "V" shape, with loops swaged on each end and at the pointy end of the "V". This gives me a piece of wire with 3 loops in it. I have the pointy end attached to the halyard, leaving 2 loops as attachment points. In essence, it acts as a "splitter" allowing a single halyard to be attached to 2 things instead of just one. In my case, I have a roller furling headsail attached to one, and a block attached to the other. I put the spinaker halyard through the block. Got it (I hope!)? This set up isn't ideal, but it came with the used spinnaker I bought & I've decided to use it. The benefit to me was that I didn't have to drop the mast to install the spinnaker crane. The spinnaker crane is probably ideal, but I don't use my spinnaker very often so it's not a priority to make it optimal. I have the tack of the sail attached to the bow near where the forestay attaches. I have a 3' wire lead that I use to give the sail some height so it gets more wind & doesn't get fouled by the railings or roller furler's drum. Ideally I should have it attach to a block so the tack can be adjusted for different wind conditions, but again, I don't use it enough to worry about it. I have 2 spinnaker sheets that I run OUTSIDE of the forestay so the spinnaker tacks & jibes outside of the fore-triangle. This is the main difference from a normal headsail...it tacks outside of the forestay, not between the forestay & the mast. Each sheet runs to 2 blocks I have far aft and then to the winches. Overall, the sail does really great in light air. When it's blowing less than 10 knots, I can still make decent time. It is a pain to pull out, rig & sail, though. It's not like a big genoa. You can't just set it & forget it. It needs near constant attention, but it is pretty when it's set just right & it's fun, especially on long sails in light winds where you'd rather work a sail than listen to the drone of the motor. I hope this helps. Allen Schweitzer s/v Falstaff C-30 Hull# 632
