Hi Darryn

It may not have looked like fun but I was having a ball
That is until that huge gust came through that flattened me just as the race crew abandoned the race.

When I first started racing with the spinnaker the boats without spinnakers used to beat me around the course. I was having a great time breaking records downwind, going past everyone, but when I got to the leeward mark I would spend so long getting the spinnaker put away everyone would get back in front again.

Now, with the boat set up as described on the VMCA website, the spinnaker is nearly always down in 5 to 8 seconds. We dont start pulling it in until we are about 3-4 boat lengths from the mark. Sure you do have more on your hands than you would otherwise but for me that's the whole point of having the spinnaker - downwind without one is simply too slow and quiet on a Mosquito (Bob used to light up his pipe on the downwind legs!). With a spinnaker there are no quiet times during a race - it's a challenge.

The cat championships at McRae and the Eden regatta this year were both run with triangle courses. Whether the spinnakers do well depends on how the triangles are laid and what the wind does. Invariably one reach will be tight and the other broad so the spinnaker goes up on one of the reaches. At Eden the spinnakers won, at McRae Mick Floyd won without a spinnaker (beat me in all but one race). At McRae it was so rough at times I didn't put the spinnaker up because I was flat out just trying to avoid being thrown off the boat. Even so I was only usually beaten by seconds rather than minutes.

If we get a perfectly laid triangle course with more than 15 knots breeze then, you are right, there is no point carrying a spinnaker around the course just for one downwind leg. In practise I've found this only seems to happen at National Titles invitation races

Obviously I prefer windward leeward courses when we can get them, because like Steve said, they are more tactical. The boats tend to go all over the course looking for gusts and shifts, instead of just following each other around the wing mark. But it's still interesting trying to judge whether or not to try the spinnaker on a reach that may or may not be too tight. The spinnakers go up and down so fast that in flukey conditions they can be put up three or more times just in one leg (the Sauna Sail is a good event for that kind of racing).

The spinnaker is heaps of fun! I only take it off for the titles and that's all.