When sailing downwind with your spinnaker and your bow stuffs hard, like up to crossbeam, presuming your crew is locked in on the wire... what should be done with the spinnaker... should it be blown to reduce momentum? OR held tight to hopefully lift the bows? OR is it too late to do anything and just cross your fingers?
We've tried the first two and found about the same success rate but i'm leaning towards the idea of staying trimmed in... any other methods? How about trimming the spinnaker in to reduce flow but still keep generating lift?
Turn the boat towards the wind. If you try to bear away the rudder of the heeled boat will push your bows down. If you got a problem with heeling moment give sheet to the spi, but normally you lost so much speed, that there isnÄt too much pressure anymore. Of course you have to react in time, at least one rudder should be in the water. If you see the gust coming before the nose dives, bear away, if waves causing the nose diving change your course a bit. With this strategy I never pitchpoled with the spi, but I sailed forgiving boats (at least I think thez are forgiving)
Cheers,
Klaus
