Cruising spinnaker setup

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Chuck

Setting up an H336 with a cruising spinnaker. Would like to know what kind/size of sheet blocks to use, and where to attach them. Also what size line to use. Sail area is about 700 sqft.
 
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Bill O'Donovan

3/8 lines should do it

Probably 40 feet each side. Use a sample line to measure off the distance from midship to the stern, back to the winches. Attach a couple of snatch blocks on each side of the back rail to run the sheets in a V back to your winches. It's that simple.
 
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Terrance M. Maloney

The Cruising Spinnaker Exposed

The following link is to a good article that should give you some insight. I am thinking of doing the same with my H28. As for the amount of line mentioned in the last post, I think that you would need longer than 40’ sheets. If your boat is 34 feet in length, your lazy sheet is going to have to go from the clew, around the forestay and back to the cockpit. This means that both lines need to be just about two times the length of the boat.
 
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Chuck Wayne

rigging a chute

Terrance has it right-on my 356 I use 90' sheets, so the lazy sheet can go from the clew around the forestay to a turning block aft, then forward to the winch-remember you need a tail long enoug to go around the winch and then to the trimmer
 
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ken matejka

tapered sheets

I agree with Terrance and Chuck concerning the length of the sheets--twice as long should suffice, but don't really need more since the lazy sheet won't be the one being trimmed and the working sheet will no longer be travelling around the headstay. I think 3/8 line is a little large. I use 5/16 which then tapers to 1/4 of T-800 for the final 20 feet--easily strong enough for my 800 sq ft chute and the taper really helps to reduce weight on light air days and keep the clew high. Turning blocks should be as far aft as possible--will keep leech open when reaching and flatten sail. I would also advise making sure you have a spin halyard at the masthead and NOT a jib halyard. If raised on a jib halyard you will be forced to gybe the sail through the foretriangle as you must not allow the jib halyard to cross the headstay near the masthead--this is asking for many trips to the loft for spinaker repairs in my opinion--to much stuff to get that light material caught on.
 
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David Foster

One sheet works for us.

Two sheets at double the boat length works as described. For cruising, we use on sheet just over the boat length. To gybe, we drop the sock, and carry the sheet and sock around in front of the forestay to rig on the other side. Then up goes the sock and we are off. Not a racing tactic, but works for occassional gybes while cruising. We put the stern turning blocks at the aft end of the toerail. I've heard of others using the foot of the stern stanchions. This is an absolutely great sail. Converts about half of our motoring time to sailing while cruising on Lake Erie. Also, you can carry a rolled 110 and the spinnaker at the same time. If the wind picks up, you can drop the sock and be ready with a well balanced rig for higher winds. David Lady Lillie
 
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Chuck Wayne

rigging a chute

David's approach also works fine-it's the "standard" cruising approach to gybing an assymetric- we chose to to rig dual sheets so you can do a flying gybe, where you blow the old sheet as the boom crosses over and sheet in the new one-much quicker (in crowded waters) and no one has to go forward
 
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Tom Short

continuous sheet

I come from a dinghy background in 505's where continous spinnaker sheets were the norm. I'm just fitting a cruising chute to my 336 and my intention is to use another block (or two)to feed the sheet round the stern rail. I would think one sheet at 90' will be ample - 2xboat lenght plus 2x cockpit. use the sheet from just behind the normal block. Time will tell Tom
 
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