San Juan 21 Spinnaker Test

San Juan 21 Spinnaker Test or The Box of Kittens meets Giant Ball of Kite String

I have been very fortunate this week in that I have managed to go sailing three days in row. Tuesday I help Matt Homan launch his Catalina and we went out to watch and coach  Andy Forrest as he practiced sailing Matt’s Laser. Wednesday was the Rum Race as described in the previous post “Rum Race 10/10/12”. Thursday was different, we had real wind.

Steve Siegfried has been working to get his San Juan 21 rigged for racing with a spinnaker, see the pictures in “Rum Race 10/03/12”, and while the rigging has been nearly ready it has been difficult to get weather, boat, schedule, and participants in the same place at the same time. This afternoon we managed. We got on the water around five and sailed up wind to find an imaginary windward mark to use as the impetus for launching the newly rigged spinnaker. Sure enough, there was one.

The wind was about twelve knots out of the northeast, plenty of white caps, and a couple feet of chop. Relatively rough day on Lake Monroe, it really is just a wide place in the swamp. Pounding upwind, we began to go through the motions.

First we set up for a port rounding, coming into the imaginary mark on starboard. We launch out of the cabin off the port side, from behind the shrouds.

Second, but not too early, set the pole making sure that we will make the mark and that some imaginary inside overlapper is not going to force us to tack. The pole should be about level, perpendicular to the mast, resting against the forestay, the tweaker for the guy is tight, for the sheet is slack .

Third, set the pile of spinnaker on the deck behind the shrouds and hold it there. We do this to avoid those bolts and screws that are sticking out into the cabin from the freshly installed hardware, you know the ones that have little signs on them that say “TEAR SPINNAKER HERE”.

Fourth, pre-feed the foot out toward the pole as much as possible with the guy, this can go a long way toward avoiding that incredibly photogenic hour glass shape. Ideally the third and fourth step happen between the time that bow overlaps the windward mark and before the transom passes it.

Fifth, as the helmsman bears away the spinnaker is raised, the guy is pulled tight moving the pole back until it is perpendicular to the wind for the perfect predetermined course. The pole arrives at that position precisely at the time the mark on the spinnaker halyard arrives at the cleat, and the sheet is hauled in resulting in that whiplash inducing acceleration that happens every time we do this.

Sixth, minor adjustments may be required to optimize performance. Simple.

We managed to get it working in something under twenty-five boat lengths. Our course had been west-southwest, a little higher than a broad reach. To test our mettle, we came up a little, easing the pole forward and trimming the mains’l. This created several opportunities to bear away and put the boat back under the spinnaker. Regularly surfing and enjoying some real live San Juan 21 haul-ass, it soon became apparent that a douse was imminent as was the need to purchase some good ratchet blocks.

First, bear away and get a little cover for the chute behind the main.

Second, grab the sheet in front of the tweaker.

Third, blow the guy and gather up the foot.

Fourth, ease the halyard and pull the chute down neatly into the cabin/bag.

To shorten the story, let’s say we did this and headed back up in a building breeze. At the northeast end of the lake we devised a plan to take a stab at the Rum Race course, from our position that would require a standard set and two jibes which I estimated would take eighteen minutes, thereby allowing us to start at 6:15. Here we go.

The set was reasonable, not exactly picture perfect but fine for only the second time on the boat. Jibing was less than elegant, the pole got twisted so that the guy would not run through it and the pole end was bound up in the mast ring, tweakers had not been adjusted so the twist of the sheet was amplified. Sailing low made it possible to relieve some pressure and turn things around, literally. Sailing low also put us below the rhumb line to the mark and late for the second jibe. This jibe went slightly better except that the pole went back against the stays, and without a foreguy/pole downhaul (we were only using tweakers) moving it forward was a manual operation. At this point we were at the start mark (the flag on the PVC pole) albeit six lengths to leeward and a minute earlier than planned. Hey, we were practicing, we figured we were close enough.

As the wind strength had increased, it had shifted forward so we were flying the kite in about fifteen knots on a beam reach.  I am not sure exactly about the sequence of the following events but the spin halyard slipped, the tweaker released, the pole went vertical and snapped the ring off the mast, just about the time we crossed the channel into thin water a couple of hundred yards from the seawall. It felt like we doing twelve knots, speed perception increases dramatically, the closer you get to running into concrete. Steve and I calmly discussed alternative methods of getting the kite down and where to put the pole, and in spite of that, managed to get under control enough stow the spinnaker and head up away from the seawall and miss Alligator Island right there in front of the treatment plant. We made it back to the ramp with only a few popped pop rivets from the mast ring, and a bent pole end. The mighty Box of Kittens had survived her initial spinnaker trial and we celebrated with rum and pineapple.

-wb-