I have, in my email box, questions about launching a spinnaker from Peter, who has been sailing his PocketShip about a year and is ready to take the plunge.
The plunge can be literal, as spinnakers have been defeating sailors since the invention of that nefarious sail in the 19th century. PocketShip's spinnaker is easier, as it's an "asymmetrical" or "cruising spinnaker," which means it is deployed like a giant, stretchy jib. There's just a halyard, sheet, and in this case a tack outhaul because of PocketShip's sporting bowsprit.
(To halyard and sheet, a traditional or "symmetrical spinnaker" would add a spinnaker pole, a "guy," a pole topping lift, and a pole downhaul. If you don't trip over the lingo, you'll definitely trip over the cat's cradle of lines when you try to set one.)
I made up a step-by-step of how I set the spinnaker on MY PocketShip. With a long day, gentle breezes, and a chase boat I might be able to photograph and/or video this sequence, and I may get to it eventually.
- Spinnaker Launching Guide 1.jpg (33.09 KiB) Viewed 17035 times
We begin with everything calm and under control, either standing in the companionway while someone steers, or kneeling on the bridgedeck and kicking the tiller once in awhile with your foot, which is how I manage it solo. In the drawings, the wind is abeam or just forward of it, with the mainsail luffing a little. The mainsail is creating a partial wind shadow, which will help keep the spinnaker under control.
The spinnaker is still mostly in its bag, sitting on the floor in the cabin. Pulled onto the deck are the three corners of the sail. Halyard, tack outhaul, and sheet are knotted to their respective corners and led clear to their control points. The halyard is led INSIDE the shrouds. The tack outhaul must be led OUTSIDE the shrouds, as shown. The sheet needs to snake forward around the shrouds and back to the spinnaker sheet block on the rail in the cockpit. Make damned sure the sheet isn't cleated at this point!
- Spinnaker Launching Guide 2.jpg (31.98 KiB) Viewed 17000 times
Once everything is untangled and you're ready to commit, pull the tack of the sail out to the end of the bowsprit with the tack outhaul. On my boat, the tack outhaul is cleated to the mooring cleats in the anchor well, which I can JUST reach when standing in the cockpit. I'm 6'1". If you're shorter or less ape-like than me, you'll want to arrange a cleat closer to the cockpit.
From this moment onwards, everything must happen VERY quickly, especially if there's much wind at all. As soon as the tack has been hauled out, the sail will want to start filling. Cleat the tack outhaul, and be ready within, oh, 1 or 2 seconds to haul away on the halyard.
- Spinnaker Launching Guide 3.jpg (31.99 KiB) Viewed 17031 times
As you hand-over-hand the spinnaker halyard, your arms should disappear in a Muhammad Ali, hummingbird-like blur. The head of the sail needs to cover the distance between deck and masthead in a second or two. (On the racing dinghies they sometimes have a tricky 1:2 halyard that doubles the speed of the launch, but let's not get into that.) The sail will start doing its thing the moment you've gained a foot or two of height, and will billow away to leeward trying very hard to pull the halyard out of your hands and escape into the water. (This is called "shrimping," or "seining" among those of us who have done it.) Just think of those guys on the 12 Meters windmilling away on the winch grinders, and that needs to be you. They mess it up, too, often.
- Spinnaker Launching Guide 4.jpg (31.05 KiB) Viewed 17001 times
Now hurl yourself back to the helm---if you're solo, by now everything is falling apart and you need to simultaneously sheet in the flogging spinnaker, which is threatening to tangle itself around the forestay, and mind your course, as the drag of the flogging spinnaker will have pulled the bow to leeward.
If you have a crew, obviously it's all a lot easier. Off the wind, PocketShip will self-steer in increments just long enough to get yourself in and out of trouble with a spinnaker while sailing solo, but you need to have the choreography deeply internalized.
The asymmetrical spinnaker is a lot easier than a symmetrical spinnaker, but it's hard to sail "deep" with it; I find that the main is usually sheeted to about a beam reach. If you had a long way to go straight downwind, you'd need a long whisker pole so you could wing-and-wing it. That would be a beautiful sight.
Here's a photo of me about to trawl for shrimp with PocketShip #1's spinnaker:
- 061708-2.jpg (408.34 KiB) Viewed 17017 times
That was a solo launch in about 15 knots of wind, which was asking for trouble. I was showing off for the cameraman. I did eventually get it right; this is a few frames later:
- 061708-1.jpg (393.8 KiB) Viewed 16916 times
As you can see, it took me long enough to get it sorted out that I had actually sailed to the edge of the channel and needed to douse the spinnaker again. Dousing is done exactly in reverse from the launch sequence, and is equally fraught, though the sail comes down faster than it went up.
As I've written here before, I've never gone to the trouble of rigging the spinnaker so you can jibe it. IE, with two sheets. I just douse it and repeat the process on the new tack.
Yes, it's going to take practice and careful forethought. But when that spinnaker is pulling, it is pure sailing joy.
- pocketship11.jpg (175.01 KiB) Viewed 17016 times