Spiinaker Drops Part 2

Losing the kite

A lot can go wrong on the race track and retrieving the spinnaker is one area that is fraught with danger and too often goes wrong. A successful drop relies on a few key points. It is a drill that involves multiple crewmembers all working in synchronisation. They must all be able to do their roles in the right sequence. So allow a lot of time for each to do their job. One of the bigger issues these days is to find regular crew and this can be a real problem for a lot of racing boats. If you have a chopping and changing of the guard on a regular basis then it is important to have a default setting for your spinnaker work. This would entail a tried and true retrieval system that is fairly safe. A familiar dousing technique enables you to incorporate a few newbies into their roles with a minimum of fuss. Be precise with your instructions of when and where they need to be and what they need to do and look out for them. You can work all this out doing very conservative spinnaker work as part of your pre-race drill. It still amazes me the number of boats where the first hoist of the day is at the first top mark. What hope has the newbie got?

I find when working up a crew of mixed competence levels it is always easier to just develop one procedure on most manoeuvres and then once mastered, differing systems can be incorporated. Most racing boats will have quite a few variations of spinnaker dousing they can utilise for different race positions. But all have a lot in common. The crew must know their roles. Make sure all the halyards and sheets are ready for the job and will not snarl. There must be enough time allowed to enable the manoeuvre. Don’t rush it; snappy crew-work comes with competence, not with haste. Let’s have a look at a few different ways to drop the spinnaker.

The Leeward Spinnaker Drop

The leeward drop is the standard way to drop a pole flown symmetric spinnaker. It is relatively simple, hoist the headsail and then ease the pole quickly to the forestay whilst hauling in on the sheet or the lazy brace if using a brace/sheet system, once the pole is at the forestay fire off the brace quickly (get all turns off the winch) and the spinnaker is hauled down into the cabin hatchway or into a sail bag. Do not fire off the brace until the pole is at the forestay, your skipper will soon get sick of the damage caused by the pole smashing into the forestay. The pole is removed last; it can wait until after the mark unless you need to put in a quick tack. Sheets and braces can be tidied up at the most opportune time; we don’t want all the crew tromping

over the boat while we are trying to get up to speed. Spinnakers that are dropped onto the cabin floor will need to be repacked for the next hoist.

On larger boats or in heavy conditions, a slight variation is to ease the pole to the forestay and get the bowman to fire the snap-shackle. This minimises the risk of the spinnaker filling and getting torn out of the crew’s hands, a ragging sail is much easier to retrieve than a set one! As the pole is eased forward the spinnaker down haul must be tightened to enable the spinnaker tack to be at a height where the snap-shackle can be reached. One word of caution, when the snap shackle is fired the pole will snap back when the load is released. Do not put your head in the way. Keep your head below or to leeward of the pole.

The leeward drop works along similar lines on an asymmetric spinnaker as well. Fire or release the tackline and recover the spinnaker via the lazy sheet. It is important with either spinnaker style to have the headsail up as it helps to blanket the dropping spinnaker.

Port side Windward Spinnaker Drop

This style of drop is very popular in the sprit style performance yachts and fleet racing yachts with symmetric spinnakers. The emphasis is always to drop onto the portside into the front hatch. This means that the spinnaker is ready to deploy again without having to repack it. It can be hoisted from where it was dropped, no need to even unclip the sheets, as it came down so it will go up. On most laid race courses the top mark will have a port hand rounding with a bear away set and require a port hoist. If for some reason a big wind shift or such has left the gybe set the only option, then unhook the sheets, braces and halyard and clip them together. Pull them around the forestay and re-hook them up for a starboard hoist.

On a sprit asymmetric with a port gybe approach to the bottom marks, it is a relatively simple operation. Fire the tackline, throw the sheet and haul in the spinnaker on the windward sheet around the forestay and flake it away. As with all drops it is important to monitor the rate of descent of the spinnaker. Another of my pet hates (I have a few) is to see the spinnaker being hauled down as the halyard person is too scared to let it run freely. Of course there are instances where the drop has to be curtailed as the spinnaker is getting out of hand. But generally speaking you can drop a third quickly, monitor it in the middle stages and once under control let the rest run. So many times you see the last remnants of spinnaker being pulled down and the halyard person is still gently easing it with turns on the winch when it could have been smoked metres earlier.

On a symmetric boat it is a bit more difficult as the pole must be disengaged and out of the way to facilitate the port drop. This means the spinnaker must be floated in over the last few boat-lengths poleless.  Once the spinnaker is flying without the pole, a designated “human pole” can be used to hold the spinnaker out away from the boat. Upon arriving at the mark the spinnaker is hauled around to the port windward side and dropped straight into the front hatch. A quick tidy up and the call “clear to tack” and you are away. With the spinnaker dropped in the front hatch it is usual on larger boats to have a sewer man to assist to haul it in from below using the lazy brace, do not take any weight on this until the spinnaker is dropping as it can upset the sail trim (another pet hate)! Once down a quick run of the spinnaker tapes to prevent any twists on the next hoist is always a good idea. The poleless windward drop requires finesse flying the sail and is a good one to practise.

Next time

As always it is best to sail within your limitations, but in order to improve we must keep pushing them a bit outwards. Next edition we will look at a few variations, the Kiwi Drop, the Envelope Drop and the famous Samurai Douse.