Tim,

You mentioned that the horizonal mouth snagged....curious as to how it snagged and were you using a set up similar to the tornadoes???

Curious that's all

David

I have never used a horizontal ring-type chute mouth, because I have seen how they perform!!!

When I first set up the spinnaker it was easier for me to make a mould and glass up a chute that fitted on the bridle rather than get into bending and welding aluminium.

Once I had that setup I found I could get it to work snag free almost all the time (there's no such thing as always!). By contrast the Taipans and F18s that used the horizontal ring seem to have the crew regularly out the front of the boat trying to stuff the spinnaker back into the chute.

To me it seems logical that facing forwards and up is the right angle to allow the spinnaker to go in. Sometimes the spinnaker can drop below the chute mouth before it goes in and if you have a horizontal ring it has to be dragged up and over the ring in this case.

One problem with the ring is that it is the wrong shape. If you look at skiffs like 14s and 49ers thay have made the mouth wide because they have found that is the easiest shape for the spinnaker to be drawn into. A circle just doesn't work as well.

You'll also notice that setups using a ring, usually have little pieces of string running all over the place to stop halyard, retrieval line, sheets or the spinnaker itself getting caught in one of the corners. A moulding is just so much neater.

There are spiral shaped moulded chutes used on F16s, F18s and Tornados which attach to the pole rather than the bridle. These look good and should work on a Mosquito. The Formula Catamarans builder in SA would be able to supply this one.