More and more on the race course we are seeing staysails becoming increasingly prevalent again. Once upon a time the staysail was a very popular sail. In the days of the RORC rule in the late 60’s it was commonplace for every serious racer to have a reaching rig of overlapping staysail and a series of yankee’s for different wind conditions. In the IOR days that followed there spawned a whole range of “under the spinnaker” style staysails, mostly sporting ridiculous names; Tall Boys, Lazy Boy’s, Golden Dazy Staysails and even the ubiquitous Blooper and numerous others as all sorts of combinations and rigs were tried. As the IMS and later the IRC rules came along, the staysails narrowed down to two main groups, sensibly called the Spinnaker Staysail for off wind work and the Genoa Staysail as the name implies for closer to the wind. The use of these sails requires a lot of thought and attention, if not used correctly they can slow a boat down drastically, but when used ac...
Add caption Last edition we spoke about the need to have a default program to dropping our spinnaker. Develop this and practise it. As the competence level increases so does our ability to incorporate more complicated manoeuvres into our spinnaker dropping techniques. The first variation is the Port side windward drop discoursed last time which enhances the boats tactical options and reduces the need for a lot of the spinnaker packing/ tidying up around the boat. It is really refreshing as part of an afterguard to have a crew that can respond quickly to a simple call from the back when approaching the mark. If they can respond to a change of mind at the last minute it is even better. Regular enthusiastic crew and practise is needed to reach this level. So let’s have a look at a few more variations The Kiwi Drop Mostly used on asymmetric spinnaker boats. Called a Mexican drop in the northern hemisphere, it is a procedure where the spinnaker is dropped as the boat is gy...
28 Jul 2009 Australian Sailing April 2009 IN THE 1987 America’s Cup hosted in Perth, Australia IV tested and developed a ‘secret weapon’ called a gennaker. As the name implies it was a cross between a genoa and a spinnaker, to be used on the reaching legs of the Olympic triangle courses. It had limited success but was innovative enough to send the other syndicates into hasty development programs.This sail was probably the first true attempt at a modern asymmetric spinnaker for keelboats. Today they are commonplace on every type and style of sailing boat from dinghies to super maxis and even most cruising boats have an asymmetric as their preferred downwind option.Asymmetric spinnakers have actually been around for a long time in Australia and New Zealand in the form of the ‘flatties’ used on skiffs and local dinghy classes like the Sharpies and Vee Jays. But today’s ‘asy’ is a long way removed from those sails. Sailing with asymmetric spinnakers presents a whole new way of sailing down...
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