Sprit and Asymetrical Spinnaker for DS

[IntensitySails]

I am considering a set up for the DS with an extendable sprit and Asymmetrical Spinnaker for the DS. Has anyone tried this yet? It would be easy to set, fly and douse and open a lot more people to using a Spinnaker on the DS. Gybing is especially easy without having to gybe a spinnaker pole in close quarters.

Thoughts??

[Bob Damon]

This not class legal. Fine for anyone who wants to do it for fun but cannot be used for racing and any modifications to the hull that change hull shape or holes in the hull to set the sprit may also render the boat non class legal. If you have any specific questions, send me a private message that will go to my home email. Thanks, BOb Damon

[IntensitySails]

My reason for posting is to see if people also see this as a way to bring new people into the class and get new energy into the fleets. If you have ever flown an A sail you know how easy it is to control and add some horsepower downwind.

[Bob Hunkins]

Bob Damon is (of course) correct, our class rules do not allow for the use of an A-sail. My personal thoughts on this follow. I'm not a member of the governing board, so they are in no way reflective of their collective opinion.

If such a sail were ever to be adopted by the class association, it would have to be tested out informally by folks, and then perhaps used in some non-sanctioned races before brought to the class association to see what people think. It would be a long, methodical and slow process.

I don't really find the S-Sail hard to gybe on the Day Sailer. It takes a little crew training, but the spinnaker is so small that it's pretty easy to fix things like wraps. The worst problem can be dropping the guy over the bow during a douse, but with a little training it's not hard to avoid this problem. I don't like the idea of replacing the S-sail with an A-sail exclusively. I really enjoy flying the spinnaker, it's a lot of fun and getting good with it is part of that fun.

On the other hand, I think it would also be fun to try an A-sail on an informal basis for day sailing, but I would have the following comments:

1. It must use the same halyard and sheets as the S-spinnaker. I suppose a tag line to pull the A-sail tack out to the end of the pole would need ot be rigged. That's less problematic as we're allowed latitude in our running rigging, but it adds complexity, which is not good.

2. The sprit would also have to be the same pole used for the S-Spinnaker, but perhaps attached to a ring lower on the mast. If the ring must be outside the allowed positions, which I think likely, it would be necessary to have some sort of temporary ring set up on the mast or on the boat that can be removed for sanctioned racing, (so that the mast is not made illegal - if in the future such a sail were adopted, provisions would need to be made for a permanent ring.) In any event the sprit should be removable for upwind sailing.

3. I think that the jib would have to be doused which for many racing rigs in the class is inconvenient. Many racers I know keep the jib up going downwind with the spin up. I'd like to hear about the rigging from those who douse their jibs downwind - what kinds of halyard tensioner do you use, etc. Another option might be allowing roller furling for the jib, but that's more complexity, hassle and rule changes.

Thanks for the suggestion, it's interesting, but we cannot arbitrarily change the sailplan quickly and maintain the integrity of our one-design rules. If we do anything, we must proceed slowly.

[IntensitySails]

Agreed on the go slow. This is the start of that process. For convenience and proper sailing an actual sprit would need to be mounted to make this work well. Not that big a deal these days.

[K.C. Walker]

I know this topic is way old but I'm wondering if you at Intensity Sails might still be checking in. I checked your website and saw the Optichute . I was wondering what you were thinking about with this A-sail. Like you say with the Optichute, sometimes it's just for fun. How big a chute are you thinking would be doable? It seems like the standard chute is a little small compared to more modern sail plans. Do you think it would be possible to up the square footage comfortably?

I just find this fascinating and I'm surprised that no one else found it interesting. It seems like we would be able to make some kind of a sprit that would attach on the deck so as not to compromise class integrity. What were you thinking as a possibility here?

Hope you are "listening" and thanks for your thoughts.

KC