[Jeff_H]

I know what a tacker is, but I really don''t see any possible advantage. Ideally you want the luff of the chute to separate from the rolled genoa which the Tacker would prevent. I see the real danger to having it rigged that I mentioned in my previous post. I have always jibed assymetrics forward of the forestay but I have also had wraps with small crews. Wraps occur when the boat heads too far downwind and the chute colapses inward. Add a wave or two to that and an assymetric wraps. With a symetrical chute you have a chance to pole back to clear the wrap. With an assymetrical you have a good chance of being in serious trouble. A Tacker would seem to aggrevate that problem by holding the chute closer to the stay. In my experience, at least here on the Chesapeake with its ubiquidous chop I see far more assymetrics badly wrapped than I do symetrics. While a lot more gear is required to fly a symetric, jumping back and forth between boat that have symetricals and boats that have assymetricals, syumetricals are actually much easier to fly especially single-handed.

Jeff