this is slightly out of control

[Dihydro77]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQIrMSI9YBo&NR=1

[T34C]

"Slightly"????

[Idiens]

Depends a bit on what happened next. Maybe a mess, maybe a good recovery. But it looks very dodgy, I would not have wanted to be the skipper.

[Faster]

If you spend any time at all flying a spinnaker in a good breeze, you're likely to end up in this situation a time or two.

Really just a routine round-up, actually. Broaching to leeward and stuffing the pole into the ocean is a much more dangerous scenario.

But broaching in any manner in such confined waters would be nerve-racking.

[CharlieCobra]

I wouldn't fly the chute like that in such close quarters either. However, that was a nice, easy broach compared to the one I had a few weeks back. The boat in the vid did a nice job releasing the tack for recovery there.

[nolatom]

Okay, maybe they were showboating when they tried to enter the harbor (?) with the kite up, and got a big puff/squall.

That said, they let the sheet and guy go, rounded up ("controlled" broach) without dipping the end of the boom in the water, and probably recovered, or we would've seen yet more video.

Spinnakers are like common stock, as opposed to blue-chip--big reward, but big risk too. More interesting for us spectators, innit?

[Jim H]

This related video is more descriptive:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rvf_SPfx1Y&NR=1

[T34C]

The issue isn't really WHAT happens so much as WHERE it happens. It is hard to say what is further up in the channel they are sailing in, but it should have been pretty obvious that they were going to get some wind shifts sailing in the lee of those buildings.

[TrueBlue]

Looks comical, but I imagine having to go aloft to untangle a spinnacker wrap could spoil an otherwise fine sailing day.