[mikehoyt]

This was a question posed by one of our club members who had read about it in a book. He states it used to be a practice sometimes used when the winds were too high for the normal spinnaker.

I think that today anyone wanting to run a spinnaker in a high wind would have a sail built for that purpose so this 170 business would not be done. I was just looking for some answers to a rather interesting question.

Our local PHRF association handicapper has stated that it would be viewed as a headsail since at the midpoint its girth is less than half of that normally assigned to a spinnker so that by definition it is a jib. He further went on to say that if on board in our association it would be considered inventory and the boat would be penalized 6 secs per mile for an oversized jib.

Mike