[Pendragon35]

My Alberg 35 came with a spinnaker but no lines for it or indication of how to set it up. There is a spinnaker pole mounted on the mast. It hooks to two rings on a track. There is a spinnaker halyard. There is a pad eye ring in the middle of the foredeck.

I just want to make sure I understand what I need to set this up. As I understand I need --

1. Two lines for sheets about 70' each (I read the length should be twice the length of the boat)
2. Two 70' lines for guys
3. A line that goes from the cockpit to a block in the middle of the foredeck and then to the spinnaker pole (foreguy)

I have snatch blocks for the sheets and guys and winches to run them to.

What am I missing?

 

[Scotty C-M]

Topping lift for the pole.

 

[Faster]

Sounds like an 'end for end' pole.. a pic would be helpful.

If it is, then you don't really need double sheets and guys, saving you quite a bit of coin. You will need a pole lift and a foreguy/downhaul as already mentioned.

If you are going to be doing a lot of deep downwind sailing I'd also suggest rigging 'twingers' (google it...) they will stabilize your sail esp in a breeze and if properly rigged ease the strain on your lifelines/stanchions when sailing higher angles.

 

[SHNOOL]

Not my picture (sorry I try to credit where I can, can't recall from where I got it)... Note you are better off with downhaul at the mast base than the middle of the foredeck. Depends if there is a bridle on your spin pole.

This one is from Harken's website

 

[Faster]

Great diagrams, SNOOL..

My only beef with a downhaul at the mast base is that there's no 'foreguy' component in the down haul and no natural tendency for the pole to slide fwd to the guyed clew/tack on its own. However, it does facilitate stowing the pole along the boom without disconnecting the downhaul or pole lift... and the downhaul doesn't require adjustment with every pole 'back or fwd'.

Twingers help here by creating the 'snatch block' lead position in the top image, the steeper guy angle and the sail's lift on the pole help keep the pole end close to the sail.

 

[SHNOOL]

I collect these diagrams myself for my (albeit much smaller) rigging design.

Faster you are correct in that the pole doesnt' like to slide forward on the guy, to the clew, however we start by pulling the guy clew to the pole, and it usually stays lock step from there. We really only twing on when we start to get oscillations. This is all still very new (running under symmetrical spin) so my words aren't golden... just my observations. Also I didn't have nice adjustable twings, I used rachet blocks on the toerail, which sort of worked but were a PITA (cause you had to slide them up to twing on, and back to twing off). I'll have real twings this year. But putting the block at the mast base (again if there is a bridle on the pole) allows you to sheet/ease without monkeying with the top lift and downhaul on each adjustment. This is HUGE important for us because we are always short handed.

 

[Jeff_H]

You have gotten a lot of good advice here, especially Faster's comments on not needing to buy guys, and Shnool's comments and green diagram.

I do have a couple additional comments as follows:
- Before you purchase any new gear, you might want to confirm whether you have a symmetrical or asymmetric chute. You may only have a cruising chute, or other assym., in which case the gear is different.

-My family had a Vanguard with a similar deck plan. You may have a cheek block aft, but on the Vanguard, the sheets were lead to a snatch block attached to pad eye located back by the stern rail. We used a snatch block on a car on the outboard genoa track for the twing block.

-You should get low stretch line for the sheets since you plan to short-hand race and use the same line as both the sheet and the guys. When approaching beam reaching, the guy will tend to stretch in a gust allowing the pole to hit the forestay. This requires constant trimming of the guy in gusty conditions which is not ideal when short-handed.

- You may want to use the padeye on the foredeck for your foreguy if you will want to rig for short-handing. That allows you to run the foreguy back to the cockpit since it gets adjusted pretty frequently with windspeed changes. (Some short-handers set the foreguy up double ended so that it can be adjusted from the mast or the cockpit.)

Having the foreguy mounted in the foredeck is a mixed blessing to a short handed racer. It means more adjustments, but it allows you to bring the pole forward to the forestay after the drop without leaving the cockpit until you have time to clean up for the next leg.

Jeff

 

[Faster]

......
I do have a couple additional comments as follows:
- Before you purchase any new gear, you might want to confirm whether you have a symmetrical or asymmetric chute. You may only have a cruising chute, or other assym., in which case the gear is different.

.

When he said he had a pole stored on the mast I made the leap to symmetrical!

Otherwise, as usual, good post

 

[Pendragon35]

Thanks to all of you for the great advice and information. What's great too is no one said, "Why are you so dumb you have to ask about this?"
I'm pretty sure it's a symmetrical spinnaker; I had it out of the bag once, just to look at. There are no bridles at all on the pole. Sorry, I can't post a picture; the boat is five hours away in Baltimore while I'm stuck in snowy Albany. The snatch block attaches to a track that goes fairly far forward, so I think that could work for the guy. I think we'll experiment with the foreguy options.
I think there is a topping lift already in place for the pole.
Thanks to all!

 

[Faster]

Very important to add a bridle to the downhaul.. esp if the downhaul attachment point is mid-pole. The loads on the downhaul can be significant and that loaded centerpoint can lead to a pole with a undesirable bend if things to snaky on you.

Very easy these days to rig a simple bridle with Dyneema or some such.

Generally the pole's weight is largely supported by the Spinnaker so a bridle on the pole lift is not nearly so critical.

 

[sailingfool]

... Note you are better off with downhaul at the mast base than the middle of the foredeck. ...
G]

I would hesitate to adopt this practice unless you've done some careful load analysis for that configuration. With the pole full forward and a bit of a breeze, the load on the the foreguy will be much greater, led to the mast, than with a standard setup such as the middle of the foredeck. May be OK, but if a gust loads up the spinnaker and the foreguy fails, you stand a chance the freed pole will go against the foreguy and the mast will come down. A few years ago while beam reaching in marginal conditions with a far-forward pole, a gust loaded loaded up the spinnaker and before the boat could round up, the spinnaker halyard turning block at the base of the mast blew apart. I was pleased the older lewmar Ocean block proved to the be the weak link, not the foreguy.

 

[SHNOOL]

I'm also sailing a MUCH smaller boat, so take my statement with a grain of salt with the block at the bottom of the mast on a bridled pole. This is standard fair for, the J/24, J/22, Capri 25, and S2 7.9 (in fact that is the original location for the S2)... So keep in mind a much smaller spin. it makes short handled handling of the spinnaker a bunch easier. Might not be doable on a 35 footer!

 

[PaulinVictoria]

We don't have a foreguy at all on our J24 racer, just twings. You'll want one on a 35' though.

 

[zz4gta]

For a 35' boat, and doing mast/bow on a 36.7 for the past 3 years, you'll need sheets and guys if it's over 10 knots. Can it be done without guys? Yes, but why go through the headache every time you gybe the pole?

+1 on the downhaul, use a bridle and double end it if you can. There are some great pictures of how to rig this up, or shoot me a PM with your email addy and I'll get some for you.

 

[Jeff_H]

I would hesitate to adopt this practice unless you've done some careful load analysis for that configuration. With the pole full forward and a bit of a breeze, the load on the the foreguy will be much greater, led to the mast, than with a standard setup such as the middle of the foredeck. May be OK, but if a gust loads up the spinnaker and the foreguy fails, you stand a chance the freed pole will go against the foreguy and the mast will come down. A few years ago while beam reaching in marginal conditions with a far-forward pole, a gust loaded loaded up the spinnaker and before the boat could round up, the spinnaker halyard turning block at the base of the mast blew apart. I was pleased the older lewmar Ocean block proved to the be the weak link, not the foreguy.

My 38 footer was originally rigged with the pole downhaul attached to a bridle and run back to the base of the mast. I used it that way when I first got the boat and it worked fine even in winds approaching the high teens. One thing about an old raceboat, they tend to have tried all kinds of things so I can rig the foreguy to a hardpoint near the bow, or a point halfway between the mast and that hard point. I ended up using the middle position since I am able to pull the pole forward from the cockpit by tensioning that line, and yet it requires less adjustment than the location forward.

Because I single-hand my boat, I end-for-end jibe and do not use lazy guys. Lazy guys only work when there is someone in the cockpit to let out and take up the slack.

Jeff

 

[seaner97]

Jeff- any good diagrams or references for single handing a spinnaker? I end up going wing to wing because I know what I'm doing that way, but in lighter air, the spinnaker might be welcome if I could figure it out.

 

[SHNOOL]

Yeah I'd like to see some symmetrical single handed setups too... only way I can fathom it is with a REALLY good tiller pilot!

 

[Faster]

I don't think the procedures or rigging are really any different.. things just take longer and require more careful 'pre-thinking'. The additional need for a way to steer the boat during gybes is critical too - in some boats simply tying off might do, in other cases you can get creative with an AP and remote (what I do). Presetting the downhaul with limited slack makes getting the pole back on the mast a bit easier, as does thoroughly 'squaring up' and going DDW just prior.

I've seen some people center the main during the gybe but if it gybes on you in much of a breeze I think the boat may tend to round up harder than simply letting the main properly gybe over.

Gybing single handed is much more problematic in heavier breezes and waves, of course, as the course stability is much harder to maintain.

IIRC Jeff posted a video some time back of a singlehanded spinnaker gybe in a bit of breeze.. maybe he can dredge it back up.

A crewed gybe should only take 15-20 seconds or less... a solo can take minutes... Timing and choosing your moments is important - don't try it in 20 knots of breeze the first time!!

 

[AdamLein]

IIRC Jeff posted a video some time back of a singlehanded spinnaker gybe in a bit of breeze.. maybe he can dredge it back up.

This one?