Crew Organization for Spinnaker Hoists, Jibes, and Douses By Ullmans Sails

Getting Back to Basics
Crew Organization for Spinnaker Hoists, Jibes, and Douses
Wed, 7th Jan 2009
By Ullmans Sails

Read it here

http://www.ullmansailssandiego.com/sailing-news-san-diego-southern-california.php?news_id=54

I think this a very useful article from them, do visit their websites; Its along article which I am very tempted to break them into smaller post, Going to be very useful if we are to train up new crews. What is missing in from article is gybing an asymmetrical spinnaker with a dip pole setting.

Anyway, I particularly likes this point

Pit Person:

1. Ease the pole down to the bow, quickly and smoothly, using the topping lift/uphaul. DO NOT hit the bow person in the head! This might make them very upset and cause dissention.

It doesn't hurt when the adrenalin is pumping, the jibe need to be hoist ,spinnaker to be drop; but you will feel it during the upwind.

Sean

Platu 25: Dropping the spinnaker

In a windward leeward race, we always do the windward drop, this is how I usually do it, drop the pole , have someone man pole , hoist the the front sail and take the spin clew from the man pole guy, jump into the front hatch , call for drop, collect everything, out of the hatch and hike out for mark rounding [really important] ; have a quick look through the sail ties/halyard, call all clear to the helmsman.

Some may have some concern about jumping into the hatch; this is actually the match racing styles, but the platu hatch may be a little small for guys with big frame; so another workaround would to have the pitman go into the boat; where the bowman pass the spinnaker to the pitman waiting inside the hatch and he does the collecting while the bowman fire the spinnaker instead.

Preparing the drop,
This is crucial for a successful drop, things to make sure before a drop will be the down haul,check if it is in the way of hoisting the front sail; but since we are dropping the pole 1st, this will not be an issue;

so another thing to make sure are the the front sail sheets, we are doing a windward drop and going for a port rounding; therefore is always a good habit to move the sheets to the start board side of the hatch.




Sean

Platu 25: The Spinnaker pole

Initially I have wanted to write this post together with the post on Spinnaker Hoisting, but I decided not to, to avoid the post being too long, and also I want this post to focus on the setting of the spinnaker pole.

While I was in Thailand Platu open, I notice some of the platu boats have a very creative way of storing/ setting up the spinnaker pole. Their system are very similar to those use in a Laser2, where they store/launch the pole from the boom. So imagine this the pole stored beside the boom with the topping lift and also the down haul still attach. I see this as a, another way to take some strain of the bowman. With the pole now located on the boom, bowman will not be the nearest to it anymore, will the Pitman help?, or the pole is meant to sprung out of the boom by itself when the topping lift and down haul, are pulled, but both of the topping lift and down hauls are loose in the first place to put the pole beside the boom, so does that mean 2 lines have to be pulled? either ways this gives us an interesting thoughts to ponder. My first thought, this system could end up creating more work than the standard system, maybe not for the bowman, perhaps for the pitman.

I also notice that most of the platu boats have a fixed down haul. I can understand this given the design of the boat, but its still a big no no to me.

Why not a fixed down haul and also on why I understand them having the down haul fixed.
If you have sailed a few one design boat before you will notice not all have the same system. In a platu, the topping lift, the down haul, the spinnaker pole are set/hoist outside the front sail. While on some other boat ( lets call it boat B) the, the topping lift, the down haul, the spinnaker pole is set/hoist in between the 2 front sail sheet.

Lets imagine a scene, a typical one , windward mark port rounding, bear a way set, downwind, a jibe, a windward drop, and then to leeward mark port rounding.

With the above scene, Boat B would have change the down haul before the drop, so that the front sail is clear to be hoist. For more elaboration, after we hoist the spin, we drop the front sail on the port side, after a jibe, we will need the front sail to be hoist on starboard side en route to a port rounding, to do that, we will realize that the down haul is in the way, therefore we will need to un-clip the down haul, move the front sail to start board side and clip the down haul back, now the front sail is clear to be hoist. During the drop , we can hoist the front sail first, then drop the pole and drop the spinnaker.

On a platu if we did it the exact way on a boat B, we will find the topping lift inside the front sail, which is wrong.

So in a platu we normally do not change the down haul, instead during the drop we utilize a crew to act as a man pole, while we lower the pole 1st before hoisting the front sail, and dropping the spinnaker. This very much justify the fixed down haul, but in racing shits happens, in times we may be under pressure by another boat, and we will find the down haul getting in to our way at times, so in times, in those time we may find the needs un clip the down haul.

But sometimes, I do use the boat B way, on a platu; especially when we are under crew and do not have a Man pole. How do i deal with the topping lift inside the front sail? I un-clip it, and bring it outside during upwind, you may think tacking after mark rounding may be a problem before i sort out the topping lift, I overcome this by making sure the topping lift have enough slack and not lock, therefore when the boat tack, the front sail will be able to change side without the interference of the topping lift. It will just drag the slack of the topping lift aside.

Sean

Platu 25: Hoisting the Spinnaker.

With the last Platu Regatta still fresh in my mind, I am going to do some posting on hoisting and dropping techniques.

Its always good to be out racing; as the exposure will enables us to acquire new techniques.

Hoisting the spinnaker always seems relatively easy, and because of such view Bowman are expected to do it right and fast.

Where do we Hoist the chute from?

In Ocean Marina Yacht Club, Pattaya the Platu racer there seem to favor a hoist from the Cockpit, while I always hoist from the hatch; unless I did some improvisation on the last drop , Perhaps later I will do a post later on how Bowman improvise in different scenario.

Now back to the topic,
Putting myself in their shoes and having hoist a chute from a cockpit before, I could only see one clear advantage from hoisting from the cockpit, it put less strain on the bowman. Hoisting will be easier as there is less friction in the cockpit compares to the hatch, the chute is reachable and manageable, the Pittman will now be in charge of the drop, and there is no worries about water coming in from the hatch in choppy sea condition.

Why do i still favor a hoist from the hatch? I am going to take some of my words back, the only advantage I actually see on a cockpit hoist is that water does not comes in from the hatch. A hoist from the hatch will enables the spinnaker to fill in much faster, with the spinnaker already near the bow it will not take much time for the trimmers to brace the spin sheet and fly the chute. Strain or no strain we just have to deal with it. Flying the spin as soon as possible and getting the boat moving is our main priority. Water coming in from the hatch can be minimize by putting the spin completely inside, or a decent helm-ing .



Sean