Yes Pepin saw me mucking about before the Weds night last and indeed I rigged a 2:1 uphaul, it works a treat but and it is a big but.

At our club we tend to race triangles and often the spinnaker is uphauled on a reach which means that it is real tough haul to get it the top with 2:1. Dead downwind as a more normal windward leeward cat course its works well. Downside is that it leaves ( and I won't describe in words why ) more halyard on your tramp, one would have to make the retreive a 2:1 as well before things would equalise.

I want to persevere for a while with the 2:1 uphaul as it means I can use D12 which won't put those irritating little burn holes in my spinnaker which I occassionally get as its quite a naturally oily and slipperry feeling rope. I've tried to have D12 as the entire halyard but as yet have not found a way for the cleats to jam on it, out on the wire on maximum strain the cleats ( including a spinlock ) eventually let the halyard ease through.

You are right, it is not a 1:2, I was mistaken. The only reason for this system on the viper is to move the cleat onto the mast while still keeping it a one line operation.

The way I was thinking about it you can probably do a 1:2 on the halyard:

* You set the halyard from the head of the spi, to the top block, down a bit around another floating block (let's call this the "spi halyard block") and up the mast to a fixed point somewhere. The block should be as high as possible but still allow the head of the spi to enter the snuffer. This can be a stripped line as it will never see a cleat or a hand.

* you set a single line from the spi tack, to the front of the pole and then back along the pole to finish in a single block ("the spi tack block"). This block should be almost touching the main beam when the tack of the sail is at the pole end. Again, a stripped line.

* You then route a third line starting from the spi halyard block, down to the main beam pulley, forward along the pole, around the spi tack block and then back to the beam cleat. Followed by a little circle around the trampoline and into the snuffer to the three patches.

Now when you pull you have a 2:1 on the tack and a 1:2 on the head. This should give you half the distance snuffer/top pulley plus twice the length snuffer/end-pole for the retrieval line. The issue there is I'm not sure it is long enough to allow for the spi to go all the way up, some additional length on the trampoline when the spi is down may be needed. If you put a back to back block on the tack line, like I'm assuming Wayne has (I didn't look wednesday Wayne, I have no clue what you were doing it is even worse, as it will be a 1:1, and you 'lose' one length snuffer/pole for the retrieval line. To compensate the missing length should be on the trampoline when the spi is down.

As for the burns on the spi, I have some too. I'm using a regular dyneema line with a polyester cover. I don't know what to use to avoid the burns while keeping the line nice on the hands...

You are sort of describing the system I have but the real problem is not in the uphual and the outhaul but the retrieval line, we need to figure out a way to get that 1:2 to equalise things out a bit plus its getting the spinnaker down quickly enough to prevent the sheets going undr bows etc.

By the way what is the convention 2:1 or 1:2 for a rope that pulls 2 metres for every 1 metre it is pulled ?

Your main sheet is a 7:1. What you describe is the opposite, so a 1:2.