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PostPosted: Mon Aug 15, 2016 3:57 pm 
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Joined: Thu Mar 13, 2008 11:16 am
Posts: 86
Location: Minneapolis, MN
I am in need of help from the seasoned spinnaker sailors on this board.

This weekend I spent the better part of Saturday with 3 other H21SE owners trying to rig up my spinnaker pole. After much consternation, we were able to get the pole mounted to the front crossbar. After spending hours referring to Hobie's 4 page .pdf regarding this setup, we were unable to determine the length of the HALYARD and TACK lines. This pic refers to where the lines go, but no help with length. Can anybody help here?

Image

Ok, going further. I have two spinnakers (from two different boats). One is just the sail, nothing else. The 2nd one is in this small nylon bag called a ChuteScoop from Smyth sails. Which one should I use?

How does one keep this sail from not getting destroyed by the jib furler? I had a wind vane on the front, but took that off since it was a guaranteed ripped sail.

How does one attach the front of the spinnaker pole to the blocks on the very front of the hull? You can see what I did in the pics below. I know the blue line is too big and too long, but it's all we had on the beach..... Since I might just get rid of this entire spinnaker contraption I didn't want to cut good line.

The rear blocks on my boat are attached to the rear wing tubes under the wing seats. This worries me. It seems to be that point of attachment might pull the wing tubes out...?? Am I crazy? There are also block near the rear of my crossbar. Upon 2nd thought we used those...

Here is a pic of where we got before the mother nature had other plans and did not allow us to sail it. The lines going everywhere are a disaster....I know...

Image

I'd be very interested in any pics or video anybody could post or point to. Any other advice would be greatly appreciated. Reading the Hobie spinnaker setup .pdf is of limited help. I need to see it in action.

Thanks everybody!


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PostPosted: Mon Aug 22, 2016 6:16 pm 
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Joined: Mon Jan 27, 2014 1:34 pm
Posts: 109
Location: Bellingham, Washington
Your boat looks really nice and clean!
I'll help as much as I can :-)
I hope others with more experience will correct any of my mistakes!
I have a 21SE with a spinnaker that I use most weekends.
Having experience with other cats and spinnakers, I wanted to induce pole bend. I tie the spinnaker mid-pole to the bottom of the roller furler with a shackle that can spin. This also replaces the orange lines in your picture. I have seen pictures of other boats that use other methods to pull up the middle of the spin pole. I like to see about 2" of prebend in the pole when it is sitting static, and you should be able to lift the bows with the tip of the pole, without the pole going fully straight or inverting. I use amsteel line from the bows to the front of the pole. You can tension the pole with the bow lines using a shackle at the bows to give you a 2:1 purchase, but I find it easier to find the correct length, then tension the mid-pole to the furler. (Edit) I see that you have blocks here, you can run your line from the pole to the block, and back to the pole giving you the purchase you need to bend the pole. Use a very low stretch line for this.
I had the same halyard setup that Hobie shows in the drawing before I tensioned the pole, but I didn't like the upward pressure on the foot of the pole, so I separated the tack and the halyard, and moved the halyard lock (auto cleat) to the mast. The crew likes it this way as it is easy to pull the chute to the end of the pole and says it is faster to pull down on the halyard to raise the chute. either way seems to work fine. Your pictured method removes one step in the process...
As to the tack line length, it takes a little trial and error, but you just need to make it short enough to pull the tack to the end of the pole before the double block gets to the block at the foot of the spin pole, and long enough to put the tack in the bag. The halyard just has to reach the double block and raise the sail fully. Your adjustment is really only the tack side.

The 21 has a really big spinnaker, it makes it tough to use a pole snuffer, so most everyone just uses a bag on the tramp. Mine has carabiners on the bottom to connect it to the front of the tramp. While the skipper controls the halyard and sheet, the crew grabs the foot of the sail and stuffs the whole mess into the bag on takedown. To launch, open the bag and pull the halyard\tack after the skipper grabs the sheet.

Two spinnakers: lay them out and see if they are the same size, I understand that the 21SE has had two different chutes, a small one originally, then the much larger sail. Rig them up and see that they sheet in correctly. In any case you should be able to use the bag for either.

As to the sheets, they do run to the back of the seats on my boat and it works well enough. The pressure is more forward than up. I had to reinforce my blocks by putting bolts through both sides of the seat tubing. I did see one boat that put an additional block forward to give their crew additional purchase on the spin in heavy winds. This is probably the reason for your second set of blocks near the crossbar. The sheet is a single line that runs through both (or all 4) blocks and around the forestay/halyard to the bag on the deck.
I installed my windicator on the bottom of the pole just back from the tip and I haven't caught the sail on it yet. I'm not even sure the sail can actually reach it except during a bad takedown, like forgetting to release the tack and dropping the halyard too fast. You can also catch shrimp this way.

Keeping the sail off the forestay: You will probably run your sheets outside (on top of) the spin halyard. This will force the sail around the front of the pole during a gybe. You can gybe the sail "inside" or between the luff of the sail and the forestay, but most don't. Unless the air is really, really light, the chute should remain flying well away from the forestay during a gybe. The skipper controls how much pressure you have on the chute by how fast and clean the boat makes the transition.

Two other things: The asymmetrical spinnaker has a luff and a leach, it will NOT do well if you fly it backwards. Hang the sail and you will see that the tack is longer. I'd recommend that you label the sail so you can leave it in the bag when you tie on sheets, tack and head. This leads to the second point, the length of the sail needs to reasonably match the distance between the pole and the spinnaker tang. If the sail is longer than that distance, it will not work well. The sail should be a bit short of the tang allowing you to tension the sail against the prebend in the pole. If the sail is much shorter than that distance it will still work, but I expect performance would suffer.


Everything said, it really is much easier done then it looks and sounds. If you want, you can contact me at NWDIVERTODDatGMAILdotCOM and I'll give you my phone number. We can walk through it with you looking at your boat.

Todd

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Todd
Hobie 21SE
Bellingham, WA


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PostPosted: Fri Sep 23, 2016 6:18 am 
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Joined: Mon Jul 21, 2014 8:26 am
Posts: 11
Any chance to see a close-up photo of the spinnaker pole attachment point?

Thanks

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Sailfaster
Joe / Hobie 21SE 486
Destin, FL


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PostPosted: Fri Sep 23, 2016 1:07 pm 
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Joined: Mon Jul 21, 2014 8:26 am
Posts: 11
Disregard last. Saw the pic I needed on another thread.

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Joe / Hobie 21SE 486
Destin, FL


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PostPosted: Fri Jan 13, 2017 8:23 pm 
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Joined: Sun Jun 21, 2009 7:32 am
Posts: 424
Location: Lake Gaston, NC
I know this an old thread, and I'm late to it.

The pole needs to be higher-up close to the furler, but not high enough that it will slam into it.

Forget the single line tack and halyard. Use separate. Tack can go out before you round the mark, then pull kite up in lee of the main.

Before dropping spinnaker, halyard drags in water straight behind boat. I learned that from Pete Melvin. It prevents almost all tangling problems.

Put anti-fouling shockcords from the diamond wires to the eyes on the crossbar bolts-also saves lots of tangles.

The rears of my wings are tied down to the gudeons.

My spinnaker bags are sewn into the tramp. The front have plastic rods in them that forms the front into a semi-circle. There are two grommets in the tramp that hold a 3/8" shockcord that can quickly be snapped over about the middle of the semi-circle. Pulling the halyard to raise opens the front of the bag automatically. The backs of the bags have open mesh sewn in to allow water to flow through in sporty conditions, and tie grommets to secure in really sporty conditions.

To stuff, crew kneels on bag, brings kite into position between legs, slams the door shut over the sail, and pops the shockcord over it.


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PostPosted: Mon Mar 06, 2017 4:31 am 
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Joined: Sat May 02, 2009 5:22 am
Posts: 675
Location: Columbus, Indiana
What diameter pole are you using? And how long is that pole?

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PostPosted: Tue Mar 07, 2017 5:26 pm 
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Joined: Sun Jun 21, 2009 7:32 am
Posts: 424
Location: Lake Gaston, NC
My pole is an old, broken Ampro carbon fiber windsurfing mast. It's about a foot longer than the stock pole, and flies the old, huge, built for Prosail spinnaker just fine.

Our spinnaker sheet has two ratchets on each side. My 110 lb. Wife was crew for me the last two years of ProSail. One ratchet wasn't enough. The sheet goes to a ratchet at the rear of the wing that has remote control lines for one/off that hang under the inside edge of the wing on the opposite side of the boat .

The sheet goes from the rear ratchet underneath the wing to a turning ratchet so that the sheet comes onboard the tramp ahead of the skippers position. Those front ratchets stay turned on in almost all conditions, but only take a quarter turn of the sheet, so not so much drag always as a half turn around the back one.

The back one is turned off remotely just before a jibe to allow the sheet to run fairly freely, even with the front one on.

Crew is free to turn off front ratchets manually as she sees fit. She can easily hold the sheet in any conditons we would fly the kite, and in strong conditions, it will still ease if she releases some tension on the sheet.

The remote control lines go through tubing behind the rear crossbar, up the back of the back wing leg, and turn to go forward.

Trapeze shockcord is separate under each wing with several turns through small blocks, so there is actually more travel than stock, without having the shockcord underfoot on the tramp.

We had to carry 30 pounds of lead to bring it up to minimum weight, but were able to manage just fine in any conditions.


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