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PostPosted: Sun Mar 13, 2016 7:30 pm 
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My first outing with the spinnaker left me frustrated that I had to take down the jib to fly the spinnaker. This, because of the way I rigged my jib. Thinking I would have to choose one or the other sail to keep the boat simple and easy to sail I was left a bit dejected.
Then today I realized that the solution may just lie in the very way I have rigged the jib.

My jib furls into the main's mast and the jib tack line releases the tack of the jib allowing the jib to move aft. It has a short line at the clew that attaches to the base of the mast with a quick release.

My solution: Before flying the spin, I can release the jibs tack, disconnect the jib's clew line and pull back on the clew line until the jib is where I want it and then just cleat it there. By doing this I have all sorts of possible options. I could fly the jib as a 120% jib just aft of the spin, enough that I can jibe with the spin. See pic.


Image

Or... I can continue to pull on the jib clew line rotating the jib aft into a position where the main completely overshadows the jib and the sails lay side by side. The jib is now effectively canceled out and the main/jib rest against each other working as one sail. In this position, the jib does not interfere with the spin from getting air and the main can be taunt providing more lift and add to the speed. See pic.

Image



Image


The advantage is that once I snuff the spinnaker, a 2 second release of the jib and the jib is back in business. I have run the main and jib side by side on the water before and it works fine. They cling to each other and pretty much act as one sail.

At this point, this has not been tested on the water but I will give it a go next week. No reason to think it shouldn't work. This would be a hassle free way to change back and forth from downwind to upwind sailing and vs versa. Never once having to take the jib down. This would also be a quick way to disable the jib temporarily in higher winds.Maybe I can get some video next week if it works out.

Below is a past video showing the details of how I rigged the jib for anyone that missed it.


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2016 AI - Spinn & Jib

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PostPosted: Sun Apr 10, 2016 9:20 am 
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This original thought of sliding the jib back failed to be the best solution. I do not have what is working well. I attached a bungee to the front of the cockpit using Hobies bungee end pieces. They cost less than $1 each. Simple to do and make. I attached it to screws that are already on the crossbar. No drilling. Now, If I want to switch from jib to spinnaker, I just drop the jib and tuck it behind the bungee and raise the spinnaker. The whole time the main can be out if you wish.

Here is what the bungee setup looks like.
Image


Here is what the Jib looks like stowed away. The main can be furled independent of the jib at this point.
Image


I takes no more that 15 (more line 10) seconds to take down or raise the jib or spinnaker so I can switch from one sail to another in about 30 seconds or less if I rushed to do it. Being careful which aka bar screws you use to attach the bungee allow you the make sure the jib stays out of the way of the crossbar cleats that you use. The tucked jib does not interfere at all with peddling the mirage drive.

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Greg

2016 AI - Spinn & Jib

“Out of sight of land the sailor feels safe. It is the beach that worries him.”
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 10, 2016 9:21 am 
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This original thought of sliding the jib back failed to be the best solution. I do now have what is working well. I attached a bungee to the front of the cockpit using Hobies bungee end pieces. They cost less than $1 each. Simple to do and make. I attached it to screws that are already on the crossbar. No drilling. Now, If I want to switch from jib to spinnaker, I just drop the jib and tuck it behind the bungee and raise the spinnaker. The whole time the main can be out if you wish.

Here is what the bungee setup looks like.
Image


Here is what the Jib looks like stowed away.
http://i1281.photobucket.com/albums/a52 ... ettfp7.jpg

I takes no more that 15 (more like 10) seconds to take down or raise the jib or spinnaker so I can switch from one sail to another in about 30 seconds or less if I rushed to do it. Being careful which aka bar screws you use to attach the bungee allow you the make sure the jib stays out of the way of the crossbar cleats that you use. The tucked jib does not interfere at all with peddling the mirage drive.

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Greg

2016 AI - Spinn & Jib

“Out of sight of land the sailor feels safe. It is the beach that worries him.”
– Charles G. Davis

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PostPosted: Thu Mar 22, 2018 10:07 am 
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Good information Greg. Thanks for posting.

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PostPosted: Thu Mar 22, 2018 3:52 pm 
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Thanks budgates but this is no longer the way I use the jib. I later bought another snuffing bag from Hobie (just like the one used for the spinnaker). The jib is on one side and the Hobie spinnaker is on the other. I change my choice of sail by changing the quick releases at the clew, tack and head of the sail to the sail I want to use. The process is very fast and the snuffing bags do not interfere with folding the amas in.

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Greg

2016 AI - Spinn & Jib

“Out of sight of land the sailor feels safe. It is the beach that worries him.”
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 23, 2018 5:36 am 
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The snuffer works great for thin nylon sails but the jib that I'll be using is fairly stiff (intended for a Hobie Getaway). My plan is to install it on a roller furler and possibly mount the furler so that it can be moved back to the mast while using the spinnaker. (I won't know for sure until my TI gets here and I have a chance to play with it a while.) Chances are while the wife is aboard I'll be sticking with the main alone.

I read somewhere that you use a single sheet for your spinnaker. Do you just pass the sheet in front of the mast when you jibe?

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PostPosted: Fri Mar 23, 2018 2:05 pm 
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budgates wrote:
I read somewhere that you use a single sheet for your spinnaker. Do you just pass the sheet in front of the mast when you jibe?


I used a single sheet for the jib, not the spinnaker, a few years ago. Made for fewer ropes to contend with. But in the end, I just switched to using the spinnakers sheets for both sails, switching between sails as I go.

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2016 AI - Spinn & Jib

“Out of sight of land the sailor feels safe. It is the beach that worries him.”
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 25, 2018 5:15 am 
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So does this mean that you no longer use the self tacking system for your jib?

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PostPosted: Mon Mar 26, 2018 10:36 am 
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That is correct. Don't take that to mean it doesn't work. It does but not as well as when you maximize sheet tension and sheeting angles. I decided that performance was more important to me than the simplicity and convienence a self taking jib provided.

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Greg

2016 AI - Spinn & Jib

“Out of sight of land the sailor feels safe. It is the beach that worries him.”
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 26, 2018 12:28 pm 
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I understand that. I had wondered about the sail performance with that system. In fact, I've been a little concerned about performance of the boomless main as it is. Guess I'll see for myself if spring ever gets here. We've gotten another 4-5 today already and still falling.

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PostPosted: Tue Mar 27, 2018 7:05 am 
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Location: Sarasota,Key West FL
We always ran the 3 sail setup and liked it. The only difference with our setup was we ran all of our sails on masts with rotofurlers. I never had much luck with snuffers, (apparently I suck at designing snuffers, lol). I always concentrated on upwind performance and the ability to be able to point really close to the wind upwind, (15-20 deg off the wind upwind), and in particular ‘low wind’ performance, (winds under 7mph). In the typical low winds we have around here (we typically on are out in under 5mph winds, ( which is 80% of the time here thru the summer). The stock sail offers no propulsion whatsoever, (it just luffs and literally does nothing), most everyone else stays home on those days, (pretty much all sailboats), why own a boat you can’t use most of the time.
We have always ran dual halyards, it wouldn’t take much effort to add a pulley and a second halyard line to the front of the Hobie mast topper. On my TI we had a giant loop for the spinnaker halyard for a short time back in 2010 but hated it, and switched to a fixed rear stay and a single halyard and pulley for the spin mounted on he front of our mast topper. To keep the halyard pull down line(s) from tangling up in the sails we run both the halyard down a single 3/8” dia pvc waterpipe.
I really like Chadbachs side stays attached directly to the top of his jib, (so they go up and down with just the jib, (solves the flexy mast problem without effecting performance at all when the jib is not deployed, (brilliant solution).
Hint, we made our halyard lines extra long so when we drop any of the foresails we can leave the halyard at the top of the foresail mast, (which is at the back of the boat when the masts are laid down), we just grab the loose halyard line and bungy or tie it to the front aka crossbar someplace handy.
With a big jib, ( ours is 33sq ft) and a barbor hauler for the main downwind performance is not half bad, as a result we seldom use our spinnaker anymore, (except in key west, we always brought it along down there), up in Sarasota we typically leave the spinnaker at home hangin in the garage, 80% of our sailing in sarasota is upwind because of geography and prevailing winds.
We also keep all the control lines and furler lines for all the foresails connected all the time and never removed, (even when the masts are laid down for transport and storage).
Just tryin to give you ideas here, that’s all
FE

EDIT:
The main reasons why I did everything the way I did had everything to do with setup and takedown time. I don't want to spend any more than 15 minutes setting up and 10 minutes taking down, but it's pretty useless to me launching just a stock boat, (can't get anywhere unless you really love peddling), so I tend to lean toward complex boats, where I have all kinds of options to suite any conditions I may encounter, (up to around 260 sq ft of sail).
The below video shows me setting up my TI on a typical day up in Sarasota, (we typically leave the spinnaker at home when in Sarasota), setup of the spinnaker in addition to the jib, (either a wing jib or regular jib, ( I have both)) is done with the second halyard line, and takes a couple extra minutes. We wanted a boat with similar performance and capability to a Windrider 17 or WETA tri, but still have the ability to easily car top, and also use as a kayak (when traveling around the country, 40% of the time we only use the kayak, leaving the sails and AMA's back at our campsite, (but we often take the wing along kayaking for kayak sailing (without AMA's). Actually since 2008 I don't ever recall taking any kayak out without a furled up kayak sail strapped to the side, (lol just in case we find wind).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Az2_doAgzCM&t=3s
[youtube2]Az2_doAgzCM&t=3s[/youtube2]

This video pretty much shows what it's like sailing in very low wind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zW62S1_RfYQ&t=25s
[youtube2]zW62S1_RfYQ&t=25s[/youtube2]


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 28, 2018 4:25 am 
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I appreciate the input Fusioneng. The winds here are usually light so I will also be concentrating on upwind and light wind performance. Last summer I was trying to sail my 10' Montgomery with very little success since the winds were less than 3 knots when a pontoon boat sped by and tossed me around in his wake. That might upset some people but it was the only entertainment I had for at least an hour.

I wish that Hobie offered a jib rather than a spinnaker for the Island series boats but I can understand them wanting to avoid the excess stress on the bow from the luff of the jib. (I saw the structure that you added for that.) My philosophy is that, although a spinnaker is optimum for downwind sailing, any sail can get you downwind but I want to be able to sail to any location on the lake upwind or down.

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 28, 2018 10:27 am 
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Greg,
With the flexy Island mast, when you're flying the jib and changing points of sail, are you constantly having to adjust the halyard/back stay to keep the jib luff tight? Or is it, pull the sail out, cleat off the line, then forget about it? I'm thinking about trying the Hobie spinnaker style halyard/back stay rigging versus my standard halyard with a fixed back stay, but I don't really want to be constantly adjusting it.

Thanks,
Chad

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 28, 2018 11:54 am 
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Non you pull up the sail and forget about it for the most part. Once you set it, it stays at the same tension. Sometimes I may want to point really high and I will pull and adjust the luff extra tight. What I am adjusting is the jib sheet to maximize the performance based on wind angle just like you do the main.

If you switch, you will likely want to keep your mast toper and modify it to work with the Hobie halyard as I have discovered that the new mast topper extention does not prevent line/sail snags after all. The topper needed to be longer not higher. I'm sure we will be hearing from others about this soon.

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2016 AI - Spinn & Jib

“Out of sight of land the sailor feels safe. It is the beach that worries him.”
– Charles G. Davis

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 28, 2018 3:37 pm 
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vetgam wrote:
If you switch, you will likely want to keep your mast toper and modify it to work with the Hobie halyard as I have discovered that the new mast topper extention does not prevent line/sail snags after all. The topper needed to be longer not higher. I'm sure we will be hearing from others about this soon.


That’s interesting to know Greg. I’ve been waiting to hear just how well the extension piece worked. I had mine on order since November last year and was told by my dealer it had arrived a couple of weeks ago but as it’s over an hours drive away I have yet to pick it up.

I’m keen to hear more and maybe a response from Hobie- Matt, any comment?


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