Spinnaker Pole Rigging

[Faster]

You don't want a single point attachment to the bottom of the pole for the down haul. If the existing setup has a light bridle for the pole lift that's fine.. It only needs to support the weight of the pole. However the down haul has to withstand all the lift from the sail and that can be substantial in a breeze. Nowadays making an adequate bridle is a simple thing using dyneema, or wire, or even lo stretch rope.

Those forces will be concentrated at the tip of the pole; without a bridle the pole will bend until it snaps in a puff - and then you've got some fun. Add the bridle and you'll be fine.

[geehaw]

Ok will do Faster if I ever decide to fly it. Hard to believe you would bend that pole but why chance it since they want all 3 legs for a new one. Greg

[Faster]

Originally Posted by svHyLyte

Faster--I think the only difference between our descriptions is the vernacular. What you are calling a "downhaul" in our vernacular a "foreguy", i.e. a guy tacked forward of the mast verses an "after-guy", or guy tacked aft of the mast. If you look at your own illustration you'll note that the line leading to the lower bridle is identified as a "foreguy", Non?

Oui .... For me a foreguy is part of a dip pole setup with double sheets and guys.. Here the pole lift and foreguy both terminate at the tack end of the pole, and all tip loads are managed and balanced there. There is no bridle in that case.

So yes, they both hold the spinn tack 'down, but despite the mixed up terminology I think the end-for-end pole uses a down haul, and dip pole uses a foreguy....

[zz4gta]

On small boats with tappered carbon poles they typically use a single point to attach the downhaul. Twingers will help ease the load on the foreguy as well.

[zz4gta]

Originally Posted by Faster

end-for-end pole uses a down haul, and dip pole uses a foreguy....YMMV

+1 spot on.

[SchockT]

Originally Posted by geehaw

Ok will do Faster if I ever decide to fly it. Hard to believe you would bend that pole but why chance it since they want all 3 legs for a new one. Greg

You might be surprised the forces that a pole has to take, particularly when things go wrong, and the sail collapses and refills. The shock loading could rip a padeye right out or even snap the pole in two if it is point-loaded in the middle. A bridle is definitely preferable and doesn't cost much.

[svHyLyte]

Originally Posted by Faster

Oui .... For me a foreguy is part of a dip pole setup with double sheets and guys.. Here the pole lift and foreguy both terminate at the tack end of the pole, and all tip loads are managed and balanced there. There is no bridle in that case.

So yes, they both hold the spinn tack 'down, but despite the mixed up terminology I think the end-for-end pole uses a down haul, and dip pole uses a foreguy....

Humm... Well, that is a nuanced distinction. Not unreasonable however. So long as one's own crew understands what one is referring to when one asks for "Six inches on/off the foreguy (downhaul) please!" one's good to go, Non?

[rbrasi]

Last week, I got my new (to me) symmetrical spin. I also had never flown one. I borrowed a pole and off I went on a light wind afternoon. I got some advice from one of the nearby salts about how to rig/deploy. The first bit of advice- motor out at least three miles (wind tends to blow toward shore here). So, like the genius that I am, I motored out about a mile. By the time the chute was flying, I was about even with our breakwater, headed toward the beach in a hurry. I barely had time to snap a photo before dousing. Now, deploying a spinnaker single handed is a chore, but dousing is a whole other beast and I recommend having at least another pair of hands on board.

[Faster]

Originally Posted by svHyLyte

.....So long as one's own crew understands what one is referring to when one asks for "Six inches on/off the foreguy (downhaul) please!" one's good to go, Non?

Absolutely... but I think it's too bad that that terminology has become synonomous, and is widely published as you've noted..

The guy is often referred to as the 'afterguy'... making sense of the term foreguy as it opposes the aft pull and provides down pull too.

An end for end 'downhaul', esp if run to the mast base, has no 'forward' component, only 'down'. I suppose if the downhaul is run forward to a deck block and then aft, it qualifies as a 'foreguy'..

Ah well... like you say, as long as everyone on the boat understands the term, we're good... We had our own name for the cunningham... 'sly pig'... got some funny looks from guests on that one...

[svHyLyte]

Originally Posted by Faster

Absolutely... but I think it's too bad that that terminology has become synonomous, and is widely published as you've noted..

The guy is often referred to as the 'afterguy'... making sense of the term foreguy as it opposes the aft pull and provides down pull too.

An end for end 'downhaul', esp if run to the mast base, has no 'forward' component, only 'down'. I suppose if the downhaul is run forward to a deck block and then aft, it qualifies as a 'foreguy'..

Ah well... like you say, as long as everyone on the boat understands the term, we're good... We had our own name for the cunningham... 'sly pig'... got some funny looks from guests on that one...

Where the distinction becomes significant is in larger yachts with larger sails that really load up the pole. The closer to the wind one sails, the greater the apparent wind and the greater load on the afterguy, pole. The lifting force on the tack end of the pole really becomes quite enormous and one seriously needs a "down haul" (as you say) on the tack to hold the pole end in place. The afterguy positions the pole fore-in-aft, the foreguy/down-haul positions the tack end of the pole up-and down. Close reaching, with the pole near the headstay, one needs the foreguy/down-haul as nearly vertical as possible to avoid introducing unnecessary compression loads in the pole. On a larger yacht, a lower bridle is not suitable for this as the forward diagonal too sharply loads the pole, and more so if the tacking point of the guy/downhaul is aft of the apex of the bridle. (To say nothing of the loading on the deck fitting of the fair-lead for the guy/down-haul itself.) While I have never run the numbers, I'm guessing that at about 30 feet LOD with a roughly 10' pole is about the limiting length for a lower bridled pole and end-for-end gybes. On our boat, with an 18' pole and a 1570 SF Spinnaker, our foreguy is led to a point about 5' aft of the stem-head to a pad-eye bolted through deck and on the underside, to a bulkhead below. While one might argue that this is a less than optimal position when running off, at that point the apparent wind on the sail is lower and the fore and after-guys work together to hold the tack down, albeit both at relatively shallow angles. Considering the foregoing, "down-haul" logically seems to be the more apropos. Unfortunately, using it at this stage of the game would be confusing after so many years (old dogs, new tricks and all that)...

FWIW...

PS: I apologize to the OP if this thread drift/leeway into technical minutia adds little to his comprehension. It's all only terms/words and, different ships, different long splices, eh?