How to tame the spinnaker if the “pendulum” starts, the tricks to get away with it

The spinnaker is a sail that has partly gone out of fashion but continues to retain priceless appeal and objective usefulness in some situations. It is no longer used in cruising, replaced by the more comfortable gennaker, although a spinnaker’s ability to bring the boat to the lee remains unmatched by other sails. It is still used extensively in the ORC racing world, where it coexists with asymmetrics and is very suitable especially for boats with little planing that would have little benefit from using gennakers. However, as we mentioned, it remains the most suitable sail for sailing in the true stern swell, and there are those who continue to yearn for the good old snags under spi.

Spinnaker in high winds, crews shake

When the time comes to hoist the spinnaker in strong winds, less experienced crews begin to feel anxiety, and fateful might “escape” from someone in the cockpit the question, “Do we hoist it, or is it better to go just mainsail and jib?” Let’s pretend that for this time the answer will be “Yes, we will hoist it,” and let’s see then how to manage one of the most “fearsome” sails.

Spinnaker in strong winds, it all starts with a good hoist

We start precisely from its hoisting. If we are racing on the spinnaker, four members of the crew must work in synchrony: the helmsman, the halyard trimmer, the trimmer at the sheet and his helper at the boom. The hoisting starts, gradually, a few lengths before the buoy. The bowman must, previously, stretch a part of the base of the sail, the portion leading to the clew of the sheet, out of the bag and lay it on the edge so as to facilitate the opening of the sail as soon as it catches wind. Especially if hoisting takes place in a stiff breeze, the helmsman will need to position the boat already almost at the stern to avoid the risk of the strake getting caught with too tight an angle to the wind.

Once the hoisting starts the most common mistake trimmers make is to immediately get anxious about capping the sheet. Nothing could be more wrong. Cocking the sheet early will only hide the sail, which will not yet be perfectly square as we hoist it, behind the mainsail. Doing so will make it difficult for the spinnaker to take in air and inflate, the helmsman will have to tack, and the sail will suddenly inflate putting stress on the rig and risking getting out of control right away.

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Spinnaker and strapping? No thanks

Jibingis one of the least pleasant experiences that can happen in sailing, especially because the so-called “unintentional jibe “obviously occurs under spinnaker. It happens when you are sailing very low in the stern in a strong wind, and it is the exposed upwind portion of the spinnaker that is pushing the boat to the lee with all that goes with it. The game then is to keep the spinnaker square enough to get down enough leaning, but not too much. In 25-30 knots we will never keep the tang fully exposed as we would perhaps do in 12-15, but we need to be a little more conservative, keep the sail less exposed and not always seek maximum leeway, to avoid unpleasant consequences.

Watch out for the pendulum effect

In these conditions, it is necessary to have the spinnaker sheet barbers capped, to keep the sail more stable and steady, and to be careful when triggering the so-called “Pendulum.” The boat, especially if there is a wave and a lot of wind, starts to swing upwind and downwind because of the load on the sails. If the hull plunges, and reduces the load by “running away” at speed, this effect diminishes or almost cancels out; if the boat is not too fast and stays in displacement mode, the pendulum is lurking.

When the boat hangs upwind, in strake, it means that we are leaning too much at an angle and with the spi very square: so the helmsman must heel slightly, the trimmer at the boom leaves a few inches and the trimmer at the sheet cocks. By doing so, the boat returns to balance because we have the sail with a less exposed center of gravity upwind, less square and powerful. Beware, however, of the way we make these corrections: if the boom is let go in excess, or if the trimmer pricks the sheet too much, the sail will move quickly to leeward, and in tight air and wave conditions this can trigger the opposite pendulum and an almost inevitable overstress.

The tricks of the trimmer

The trimmer, after hoisting, must wait for the sail to get air, inflate, and only then caulk the sheet slightly to get it in control. By that time the trimmer aid should have already squared the tangon according to the intended gait. The lower you sail the more upwind the sail will be exposed, and vice versa.

The two trimmers must work in synchrony. If the sheet is left the tangon goes square, and vice versa, this is when it comes to macroregulations. As for fine tuning, it will never be static. The trimmer will continuously, virtually nonstop search the sail ear. That is, it will leave until the windward leading edge of the sail makes the typical “ear.” At that point it will dick slightly, and then it will leave again immediately afterward. Carrying a spinnaker too cocked, without going for the ear, means keeping it too much under the mainsail, depowering it and losing horsepower.

Mauro Giuffrè

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