Does anyone have any really good ideas on how to keep the spin sheets out of mischief while sailing to windward.

I'm thinking some sort of clips on the main beam, would be happy just to stop them falling off the main beam and into the water!

Cheers

Dazz

I've seen lots of variations.

One of the best was a pigtail on the clew for the spin sheet, sucked the sheet into the snuffer more. (Or was the the halyard/retrieval line?)

I used to use a turning block on a fairly loose bungee near the rear beam that the spin sheet went thru.
It kept things tiddy on the tramp, and the sheet never went off the boat, but had plenty of slack to trim, tack, etc.

I'm sure someone will give you some great ideas about this.

The pigtail on the spin clew works great but it still leaves the sheet on the tramp to flop around.

On my tramp, I have a grommet in the back (two actually, one for the halyard and one for the sheet) that has a bungee running through it connected to a block that the sheet runs through. It stretches the sheet out all the way to the back of the tramp so theres no slack to go overboard. The downside of this is that it sometimes gets knickered up with the halyard and mainsheet back there. Butt-cleats also get in the way sometimes.

The BEST solution I've seen is the one that I saw on the Keysailing boats where a bungee is run all the way out to the front of the spinpole, all the way to the rear beam (for plenty of stretch) and then the sheets are taken from the turning blocks on the front beam, and run out to the sides under the tramp and then sucked up via that bungee. The bungee allows you plenty of slack to sheet the spin but enough tension to keep the slack under the tramp and out of the water. I wish I had pictures of it because I want to reproduce the system on my boat.

Running the retrieval line through the clew works well for us. It sucks the clew into the back of the chute with a heap of spin sheet. You need to cut a metre or so off your spin sheet every so often until you're happy with the length; short enough to be tidy when doused, long enough to work when hoisted.

Another system is to have a spin sheet turning block with strop shock-corded to your front beam so that when there is tension on it the shock-cord releases about a foot. Only effective for small amounts of slack take-up (1 metre max) but it will move the sheet forward on the tramp.

Ok I will give the pigtail a go!

how long is it normally? will a longer halyard be needed?

I seem to remember reading something about it on this forum a long time ago. seriously cant find it.

I would also be interrested in your ideas.
many thanks

We recently set this up and it works well. You get a metal ring around an inch (2.5mm) or so and put the ring on the snuffer line below the bottom grommet.

I was told the pigtail is around 18 inches in length, we started with ours a little longer around 28 linches.

One end of the pignail attaches to the ring, the other end to the clew. When the spin is snuffed the sheets are fairly tight.

Did you use shock cord or rope?

We just run the retrieval through the clew, either through the knot in the sheet or the eyelet.

We used to use the pig tail system then stopped, can't rember why, prob because it collopased the kite too much in ligt airs.

Then we just had the sheets goin through a bungy loop on the tramp, and the bungy disapeared off under the tramp. Stopped using that as it was bugging me when i trapped downwind.

Now we don't have anything and that works fine, we've got thin kite sheets, 6mm, which helps and i try to stuff it under the toe loops when possible, works fine really that.

Keep it simple

Piece of spectra. I think most of the F18s were using it at Tradewinds.

Hey Guys,

Thanks for all the input!

In the end I used 18 inches of dyneema core and spliced onto a 25mm ring. put an eye splice in the other end so i can loop it through the clew of any kite.

needed a little extra halyard, but its a pretty happy trade off.

Flippin' Yanks!

Don't blame us, you invented it!

ok, ok its 2.5cm for an inch but come on, the effort was there!

The following way to "tame" spin sheet worked quite well for me:
We put a small piece (about 20cm) of velcro tape (the "hook" side of the velcro) on the front beam. If you use a somewhat soft spin sheet (such as FSE racing sheet) then it will stick to the velcro very well. Supposed that the velcro is in the right position (or long enough), the sheet will just fall on the velcro and stick to it after lowering the spinnaker.

Ceitzi