I am thinking about changing my spinnaker halyard cleat (spinlock) to a regular cam cleat.

Any thoughts on this?

why do you think it will be better?

I keep breaking spin locks.
Less resistance when hoisting the spinnaker.
Less resistance when dousing the spinnaker.

I can clearly see how the line is getting caught up in the spinlock.

Is is mounted on the frontbeam or on the mast?
IMHO the advantage when sailing solo is that the Spinlock requires a lot less power to uncleat. What kind of rope are you using?

Tony:
The spinlock is mounted on the front beam.
I believe my line is 6mm in diameter. As far as which specific line, it is the line that was included when I purchased the boat.

I've never had a problem un-cleating my cleat - mounted on the front beam BTW.

Simon so you are using a regular cam cleat?

Robi, a Spinlock will re-cleat itself on a douse, if you put any resistance on the halyard, such as when you sit on it. That cannot happen on a cam-cleat. I have broken several spinlocks, I won't use them. I see no advantage to them, only problems when they fail or re-cleat on a douse.

Tim your setup is cleat on mast, what do you think of that setup compared to mine? Not sure if you remember how mine is setup. I will take a gander at yours next week.

Yes, one of these I think:



with a guide on top.

I really like mine on the mast with a separate tack line. I can reach both from mid tramp when hoisting, and I can douse from the off side (port side) without having to go forward. The only time I have a problem is if I have to set it on port tack, I can't do that with the tack and halyard on the starboard side, but I haven't had to yet.

Simone thanks for the image.

Tim: I wonder if your system can be setup where a single line is used to hoist and douse? I would really like to keep the single line setup.

To do that, you would have to rig it like yours, with the single cleat (spinlock or cam) on the front beam somewhere. I think it's slower to hoist as you have to pull 3 feet at a time, hand over hand and the halyard passes through two extra blocks which adds drag (effort) to raise it.

With my cleat on the mast, I can use my full 195lbs. to pull down on the halyard, I can raise the spin in about 3 good long pulls and cleat it. It only takes me one long pull on the tack line (first) to set that. It is a little slower (half a second?) on the douse as I have to stop snuffing for a second to uncleat the tack line when the spin is 2/3 in the sock, then go back to snuffing. On the hoist, I pull the tack out before the halyard. On the douse, I release the tack line last. This prevents the spin getting under the bow.

Timbo,
Can you post pics of your set up? It'd be great for those of us trying to envision it. Thanks.

dave

Dave, the short answer is, no. No digital camera. My boat has the standard Blade setup, there is a picture of the under tramp tack line cleat in the other post. The halyard is a simple cleat on the mast with a turning block. Simple, works great. If you look at those Alter Cup pictures closely, you will see the same mast cleat that I have.

We've been running the new type spinloks on the T for a few months with good results. I have the halyard lock on the mast:


with a flapper turning block lower down:



This allows crew to haul the sail up be pulling upwards instead of "jumping" it from above...keeps the feet well planted into the tramp for stability. The system also makes cleating automatic during the hoist, remain cleated during gybes when someone trips on the lazy section of halyard on the tramp and surprisingly it does not re-cleat during douses if the lazy side gets a snag or resistance.

The new type spinlok does have a higher SWL than the original type. I have been running 4 mm Pirhana (a type of the new Paraloc) line, but the pic shows standard tapered line with stripped 3mm spectra core.