Spinnaker sailing!

[MarkRyan1981]

Hello all,

I've always sailed with a cruising chute, which frankly drives me crazy as it won't perform dead downwind leading to me either giving up using it or effectively 'beating' down wind to keep the wind on the quarter. I would much prefer to sail with a spinnaker, any suggestions on the specification of the spinnaker?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUk2zwyLW3U

Looking at the above video, jibing the spinnaker looks quite challenging as the pole is set so high, is this a feature of spinnaker sailing a Ballad? I sail single handed, effectively, most of the time, does flying a spinnaker become challenging in this scenario?

Any suggestions of good suppliers to get hold of a sail? Anyone have one for sale?

Thanks as always,

Mark

[Bob McGovern]

Hi Mark. I'm by no means a spinnaker expert, having never used the Ballad's. And where we sail our smaller boats, on high mountain lakes, spinnakers are suicidal. So take this with a grain of salt. Our spinnaker pole ring is on a track that slides from about 1.25m off the deck to a bit over 2m. At the top of its range, that would be difficult to reach. In mid range, you should be able to jibe it. You would absolutely need a tillerpilot or autopilot during this maneuver. The better autopilots have the ability to jibe the boat automatically while you work the foredeck. It is still a scary thing to do alone.

On displacement boats, it usually is fastest to sail close to DDW under a large, masthead, symmetrical kite. Boat will go faster at higher angles, but not much, so a cruising chute may not improve your VMG (as you note.) Also, if you sail on narrow waters, the constant jibing of an asym can get old. OTOH, they are usually easier to jibe, esp if on a furler. And many IOR boats of the Ballad's vintage have a nasty tendency to start rolling under spinnaker DDW, and even to broach. Famous for it. Not a good thing when singlehanding! I have no idea if the Ballad gets 'loose' the way many Ron Holland or Doug Peterson Tonners do. One advantage of an asym & sailing hot reaches is reduced likelihood of broaching.

If you want to singlehand a symmetrical spi, you need to really optimize your deck setup and pole handling. A snuffer may help, but those can require extra foredeck work unless you rig lines aft. And I'd recommend a carbon pole, for ease of hadling. Our spi pole is huge, basically a boom section, and far to heavy for easy handling. You'll need a good topping lift, foreguy routing, maybe a towable mast car, a clean way to douse, and some winch & cleating arrangement that will allow your sheet and afterguy to run all the way out, instantly, from across the boat. No horn cleats, in case you get pinned on your side.

Spinnakers still frighten me. Lack of experience, probably. It seems like they are fun right up until the mast hits the water and stays there. How well does the Ballad sail DDW under mainsail and poled-out Genoa (wing-and-wing)? If that would give you, say, 80% of spinnaker VMG and you aren't racing.... Lots easier to control. Our eventual choice may be an asym on a top-down furler, like the Karver. For now, we will have to learn to use the Ballad's stock kite -- which is almost as large as our house!

[Liese]

Maybe a Parasail from Istec is a solution.
I know the DIGGER owner at www.diggerhamburg.com and he has posted his experiences with the Parasail (in german only - but Google translate might be helpful) here:
http://www.diggerhamburg.com/2012/08/21 ... ein-segel/

Best regards,
Joerg

[MarkRyan1981]

Hello Liese,

Thanks for the tip, it looks a great concept, shame the Parasail is a bit pricey for my budget, coming in at £2,725 including the VAT makes it too expensive to justify the use I will get out it!

I'll try and get some quotes from local sail makers for a started symmetrical spinnaker... and Bob, only use it in very, very light winds to start with . I sail with my one year old, so broaching is not really an option!

I will likely not get it for this season... maybe next... or maybe find one on ebay second hand...!

Thanks all, I'll report back what I find...

Regards,

Mark
www.albinballad.co.uk

[Bob McGovern]

Used spinnakers are good for learning with; we are still getting them tangled on the spreaders, hoisting them wrong, etc. Hate to rip a new $2000 chute! We bought a very used spinnaker for practise on our smaller boat -- a smelly, much-repaired sail with a royalty stamp "1969 Intl Dragon NA Championships"(!!!) we called "The Skanker". Cost us $75, took us around Catalina Island, taught us a bit about sail handling (like: the tillerpilot is MUCH BETTER at steering under spinnaker than we are.)

Alas, The Skanker is no more. A 25kt gust caught it on our lake and clawed it to ribbons. I was supposed to sew a new one this winter. Then the Ballad came along.... It is sometimes helpful, too, to learn with a smaller spinnaker than the stock One Design monster. We call them "chicken chutes" around here. Can't be too small or it won't fly right; but say 75% normal area. Since I sail the small boat often singlehanded or with one helper, we just use the big nylon genoa poled out to windward most days sailing DDW.

[aemilia3]

Hello Mark,

We use the spinnaker onboard Aemilia quite regularly. However I made some adjustments to make it manageable when sailing with two people. The biggest struggle I had with spinnakers and the Ballad was the heavy 3,6 meter long pole, specially when gybing. So when many years ago a friend started his own little composite workshop, I was one of his first customers and had him made a carbon fibre spinnaker pole, which weights only a fraction of the original one. I made some dyneema bridles on it (also lighter then steel wire and doesn't damage the costly pole) and together with two nice working end fittings the whole setup made a huge difference! I also work with double sheets on each side, which makes gybing even easier, as you've always on pair of sheets which don't have any tension on it. In light to moderate conditions it's manageable to sail a spinnaker single handed after some practicing. However it demands even more 'thinking ahead', as timing is generally critical in in order to execute a manouevre smoothly or in disaster. I have been sailing also on a fiends Ballad with a asymmetrical spinnaker on a small bowsprit, but I definitely prefer the symmetrical spinnaker on our own Ballad. It's far more effective and allows you to steer very deep (almost dead downwind) in good speed.

[aemilia3]

Just to make an addition to my earlier post, I received a series of photo's of Aemilia III when we made a spinnaker gybe, minutes before we entered the harbour of Boulogne. I've posted the on my website.
For a second-hand spinnaker you might want to check on the websites of the One Design classes like the Sigma 33 OOD. Owners of One Design classes are generally buying more often new sails to stay competative, while their old kites might still be good enough for learning.

Frans - Aemilia III
http://www.aemilia.org

[Bob McGovern]

Frans: thanks for the information, and for the useful website! Could I ask a few more questions?

What conditions do you fly the spinnaker, or not fly it?

Do you store the pole on the mast, or on the deck when not in use?

Is the Ballad prone to the 'IOR roll' that many boats of this age exhibit under spinnaker?

---------

Mark: good advice from Frans about looking out of class for used spinnakers. Also, it is easy to cut down a somewhat large spinnaker (like from a Sigma 33, as Frans suggests) to the right size. Since most fabric wear and repairs are along the edges and foot, cutting the sail down can result in an almost-new spinnaker.

I still can't get over how huge the spinnaker pole that came with the boat is! Should we cut it down for a reaching strut? Our mast has rings for a reaching strut.

[aemilia3]

Bob, when sailing singlehanded or with my wife and/or my kids, typically I hoist a spinnaker till 15-16 knots true wind. On the rare occasions when I race her with with a racing crew, I might consider spinnakering till a little over 20 knots. The typical rolling is something that is familiar to Albin Ballads too. However keeping things in control has a lot to do with the way the spinnaker is shaped a how it is trimmed by the crew. Typically when the wind increases, the rolling gets worse. As I described earlier, I have double spinnaker sheets. The first pair of sheets is lead to blocks at the back of the boat, the second pair I have lead trough a extra pair of block on my genoa track. When spinnakering I use forward sheet as the luff sheet and the backward sheet as lee sheet. However, when the wind is getting stronger and the boat tends to start rolling, I use the forward sheet as lee sheet too. It really help to have a better control on your spinnaker. If the wind is getting to strong to spinnaker, I use the spinnaker pole as a wisker pole for my genoa or jib.
When the spinnaker pole is not in use, I just hang it along the railing. Since the carbon pole is very light, I don't feel this is harming the railing this way. I use two pieces of rope to hold it in it's place and use a extra security line. If you are looking for a secondhand spinnaker, my advice is to use the max. sizes as described in the BODA rules as a reference:

Spinnaker
Leech (SL) shall not be greater than 11300 mm
Max width (SMW) 6730 mm

Referring to the Sigma 33 Class spinnakers, you'll see that the measures are very close to the Ballad spinnaker (actually the Ballad Class rules allow slightly bigger spinnakers!)

Sigma 33
Light spinnaker leech between 11.20 - 11.10 and width between 6.44 - 6.35
Heavy spinnaker leech between 11.10 - 10.90 and width between 5.90 - 5.80

So a Sigma 33 class spinnaker is very useful on a Ballad. But I am sure there are many other types of boats which have spinnakers with similar size.

[Bob McGovern]

As I described earlier, I have double spinnaker sheets. The first pair of sheets is lead to blocks at the back of the boat, the second pair I have lead trough a extra pair of block on my genoa track. When spinnakering I use forward sheet as the luff sheet and the backward sheet as lee sheet. However, when the wind is getting stronger and the boat tends to start rolling, I use the forward sheet as lee sheet too. It really help to have a better control on your spinnaker.

So the idea is to 'choke' the foot of the spinnaker and reduce oscillation by pinning the leeward sheet forward & inboard? That makes sense.

Our Ballad came with a spinnaker but no turning blocks aft. No hard mounting points on the aft corners, either. Have you added special blocks for the spinnaker lee sheets back there, or do you just use the toerail track, farther forward? And for the windward (luff) sheet, is the toerail car ahead of the secondary winch, or behind it? (I ask that only because the afterguy, or luff-sheet turning block, sees incredible loads if behind the winches. It would be cool if the Ballad spinnaker could be turned ahead of the winches! Much smaller hardware required. Like half the working load.)