the
basic system:
SPINNAKER
SHEETING PLUS HALYARD CLEATS FOR PACKED SPINNAKER
Rationale:
I recommend one long spinnaker sheet - 58' of
5 mil. soft-braid. Continuous sheeting is neater and assures
that you never lose a sheet for any reason. The lighter, thinner sheets
are a must since they keep the chute flying in lighter airs and cleat
much
more securely in the clam cleats at the shrouds than does the more
commonly
used ¼" line. (This is important!)
Our sheets and halyard are attached to the spinnaker with small
bowlines
(which are very easy to do with a bit of practice). This saves weight
on
the sheets as well as potential mast top foul-ups that result from
using
snaphooks on the halyard. The two black clam cleats mounted to resist
outward
tension on the aft part of the foredeck
(see diagram) and the two
silver clam cleats at the shrouds (CL 217&218 Mk. 1) are a big help
in two ways.
Once the spinny is
packed in
its bucket and the sheets and halyard are attached you will note that
the
halyard hangs all over the jib sheet if the spi is on the leeward side
and flops around the mast, into the mainsail or the crew’s face if the
spinny is to windward. By taking some slack in the halyard and passing
it in front of the shroud and then hooking it over the hook at the
front
of the silver cleat and finally laying it into the black clam cleat and
putting the whole thing under tension the spinny halyard effectively
runs
up along the shroud and is out of the way until you take it from cleat
and hook just before hoisting.
The
silver
cleats are a must for fore-and-aft pole adjustment. The windward sheet
is passed under the hook and then cleated when the pole is in the
desired
position. By having this cleat at the shroud, it is easily adjusted by
skipper or crew (while hiking if necessary!)
The
HA
4077 cam cleats are useful if you intend to pre-cleat your spi and if
you
want to keep slack out of the system when the spi is not in use.
Note:
In recent years, we have also added one CL204, mounted to resist
forward
tension in the rope to be cleated, (see attempted addition to
diagram
above) on the deck beside each side of the mast. Here we can cleat
the sheet of a stowed spinnaker that leads up to the bow. In this way
we
can tension that sheet to remove excessive slack without pulling the
corner
of the spi onto the foredeck.
Installation:
The above diagram shows locations of necessary fittings. You should
note
the following, however:
-
the outside CL
204's shown should
be mounted to cleat under outward pull, the inside pair, under forward
pull
-
CL 217 & 218
need the longest,
strongest possible screws and should be in from the edge of the deck
far
enough to ensure that screw ends don’t end up outside the topsides
-
the through-deck
blocks will require
rectangular deck cuts far enough from the rubrail that you don't
interfere
with the topsides which angle inwards.
Threading
one continuous sheet: Assuming that the spinny is in its
bucket
on the port side under the foredeck, tie one end of sheet to the port
clew
of spinny. Then feed the loose end in front of the port shroud then
turm
aft and feed into port through-deck block, return through port cheek
block
on thwart, go across thwart (in front of the mainsheet!) into other
cheek
block and aft where you come up through the deck block, forward outside
of starboard shroud, around forestay and back into the bucket,
attaching
the lose end to the starboard clew. The halyard is then attached with a
bowline as described under "Rationale" (and the port jib sheet passes
over
all three spinny ropes.)
Addendum:
The photo below shows one other
useful
item - installation of a spinnaker sheet catcher to help prevent the
sheet
from going under the boat. Ours is simply thin stainless steel wire the
ends of which are wrapped around the two front screws under our
forestay
plate. You'll note that it gets a lot of abuse:
.....
la crème
de la crème: the “balls” system
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