how do you tack an assymetrical spinnaker?

[ste27]

Originally Posted by paulk

That IS the way our mast was designed to be used. That was my point. There is more than one way to skin a cat. There are lots of different boats sailing all over the place.

So they all exit above the forestay? Do they swivel at all?

[paulk]

They all exit below the forestay, without swivels. The wing halyards manage to not chafe on the forestay when they're used for spinnakers because they're pulled forward, not down, by the spinnaker. The angle of the forestay is steep enough to keep it pretty much out of the way. The central jib halyard doesn't get used for spinnakers.

[maxmunger]

This is contrary info. If the exits are below and behind the forestay, then the working halyard is below the forestay. If the halyard is below the forestay then after any gybe, the halyard must go over the forestay to the opposite side. Even if the bails were even with the forestay, the sag of a block and halyard would still not be above the forestay. Therefore, the halyard must chafe on the forestay while on that gybe.

Many masts do have cranes that position spin bails to P/S as is on my friends C&C. However, the bails and their blocks are above the forestay, so when gybing the halyard stays above and in front of the forestay.

[ste27]

Originally Posted by paulk

They all exit below the forestay, without swivels. The wing halyards manage to not chafe on the forestay when they're used for spinnakers because they're pulled forward, not down, by the spinnaker. The angle of the forestay is steep enough to keep it pretty much out of the way. The central jib halyard doesn't get used for spinnakers.

Fair enough if youre running DDW, but if it's an asym I would assume you're not, and the second you gybe you go from chafing and all kinds of weird forces on your forestay. Add a sheave above the forestay, even if it just takes the line from one of these "wing" ones and feeds it through that externally

[paulk]

We've not had undue chafe on our halyards or our forestay over the past twelve years we've raced & cruised our boat. We did replace the original rope/wire halyards that were getting too many soldiers with all textile about 8 or 10 years ago. I'll have to see if we have a photo or scale drawing of the spar's sheave setup. Our spinnakers are symmetrical.

[maxmunger]

A pic would be nice. What kind of boat do you have? This list is pretty specific to Catalina 30s