Spinnaker rigging

Hydro Therapy · Jul 2, 2016

I just bought an A spinnaker and rigged it. I've only flown it once so far so I can't speak about longevity but I ran my halyard through a internal block on my masthead. So far it's been fine.

Hydro Therapy · Jul 2, 2016

I had a lot of questions when I rigged mine. It's not specific to your boat but you may want to go into the O'day site and look in "Ask an O'day owner" pull up the thread called, "Question for O 240 owners".

justsomeguy · Jul 2, 2016

willsnow said:
...would the sideways pull of the assymetrical be too much for the mast head with no side stays that high up?

It certainly could, depending on what kind of breeze you fly it in. You'll need to drill for the new hound above the forestay, but every inch higher translates into greater unsupported loads. It's a balancing act.

BudGates · Jul 2, 2016

You didn't say how big your spinnaker was. You could go a couple of feet above the shrouds without any problem. However, if your spinnaker is so large that it needs to go much more than that the side loads can be quite high. My drifter is so big that I had to attach it to the mast head. My solution to the problem of side loading was to add jumper (diamond) stays.

McIntoshUSA · Jul 2, 2016

I recently added a spinnaker block to my mast head for a new to me asymmetrical spinnaker. My masthead had plenty of space on the front to drill an 1/2" hole in it and I got a 1/2" pin and SS cotter key at Home Depot. It seems to work great. My mast head is made of hard cast aluminum. A little hard to drill through but I could do it.

BudGates · Jul 2, 2016

willsnow said:
It's a nice, manageable size. I think it's length - in the chute scoop - is just barely longer than my forestay. I got a dynema runner to go from bow eye to tack and help clear the pulpit, so I would probably need a hound about a foot above the forestay (which is also where the shrouds terminate).

In that case these sites should be helpful.

http://bwyachts.com/web catalog 31203/sails/spinnakers.htm

http://www.macgregorsailors.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=15495&sid=7fded686fe53bb0da94ec91de14e789c