Racing on Galveston Bay

[Jackdaw]

Hope to have new spin sheets and soft shackles ready to go soon. I know I need to keep both sheets on, but they are a mess going through the arch legs to have a clean run to the winch. There’s got to be a better way.
Need to have the crew keep the lines managed better during the races. And that crew was me last race.
Big discussion after this last race whether jibing back and forth is the right way or wing-on-wing when the leg is almost DDW. I believe the long boom on my boat shadows the fractional spin too much and you have to go so high to gain speed that so much extra distance is travelled and negates the speed gained. If we trim the main to not shadow the spin, we’re not using our largest sail. This race, we spent most of the last downwind leg with the a-sail wing-on-wing in the light air and passed a Catalina 355 jibing their a-sail.
Maybe I’ll just not race unless two legs are reaches.

Question:
Why don't you pre-run your sheets?

Based on wind and course, you know what side you are going to deploy on at the start, so with the kite down the hatch, bring the sheets up and run them around everything, bringing them into the boat at the blocks. Halyard and tackline too.

Even if you find you need to launch from the other side, a crewmember gathers the whole thing up and 'runs it around the forestay'. Then its ready to go on the other side.

 

[Bill19233]

Question:
Why don't you pre-run your sheets?

I miscommunicated this. The sheets and twings are pre-run, they never get put up, both sides always out. The shackle (soon to be soft) hangs on the lifeline by the launch hatch. The sheet goes back to the turning block, then through the arch legs, to the winch, and the tails are coiled in the blue performance bags hanging on the arch.
I don't connect the sheets to the clew until we launch the sail. I've tried to have them hooked ahead, but it always ends up twisted around the sail or on the wrong side of a shroud when the sail is launched. And, we have two different spinnakers and only one set of sheets. I've had to switch spinnakers halfway up before when I've gotten apparent wind angle wrong after a mark rounding.
The long sheet run has drag and snags and is a pain to keep both sheets connected to the clew unless you know you're going to jibe. So, we're always late with the jibe. In light wind, some crew disconnect the off sheet before a walking jibe. It seems we're always dragging spin sheets through the water.
I know the right way is to launch the sail without a sock, with both sheets and tack already attached. I wish I had the luxury of same crew every race and would love to get in several practice launches before the start, too.
Maybe in my next life on my next boat.
We were getting a lot more firsts and seconds the first six months of 2020. Too many upwind legs lately, the last race had two beats and a DDW. Only one win lately, two reaching legs, we finished 20 minutes ahead of 8 other mostly longer WL boats in a ten mile race.