Proper way to fold a sail

[Faster]

Spinnakers: Starting at the head, pull the whole sail through working out the twists and keeping the luff tapes separate. Then, with a clew on either side of you, stuff the center foot into the bag, and then pull the spinnaker into the bag, making sure the luff tapes don't cross as you do so - and keeping the clews out. (this works better with two). Once the head is in the top of the bag, fold the clews in there too. Many bags have a velcro strap to lace the three corners together to keep them from getting lost as the bag is tossed around below. Failing that, leave the three corners hanging over the edge of the bag, and snap the lid over top of them. This leaves the bag closed with all 3 corners ready to attach.

The ideal Spinnaker setup is one where you hoist from and dowse into the bag leaving all lines attached. This setup works particularily well with smallish fractional rigs and small headsails - the bag hangs in the companionway. Packing is not required because the sail always goes out the reverse of the way it went in, and vice versa.

I like to fold headsails in such a way as to have the entire luff stacked on one edge.. this gets the hanks close to hand when bending on, and in the case of lufftape sails, it's a much cleaner feed into foil during the hoist. This usually works best by taking a triangular first fold between tack, foot, and LP, then taking the normal flaking folds towards the head. Then roll it or bag it as to whichever bag style you are using.

[tenuki]

My headsail folds up by itself when I pull on a line, it's like magic.