I'm having trouble snuffing my spin sail in the sock on this boat I'm redoing. When I snuff it it's really hard to get it in the sock. When I launch, it's hard to get out as well, takes a lot of effort. I have a separate tack line set up. The sail has two patches and I had Dennis at SNU custom make the sock. The sock is really long and it has some extra girth to it, so I figured it wouldn't be a problem. Any thoughts on making things easier?

Have you tried snuffing with the retrieval line on the windward side of the chute? The difficult launch is probably related to the spin bunching on retrieval. It worked better on my Tiger this way

Spray the chute with Silicone, or a more exspensinve lube.
Especially sprey the chute where it contacts the chute, and spray the leading half of the chute as well.

That should help. Goes without saying- may sure you don't have any retrieval lines/block friction as well.

Rick, I haven't tried snuffing on the other side. I put it up for the first time this afternoon and that's the way the wind was blowing.

Seems the bunching is causing a lot of the problem. The sail is brand new, it was pointed out that this might cause some of the problem. That and it's a really big sail...

I think snuffing from the other side will help significantly. Lube helps too, particularly with a new, stiff spin. And apply lube to the snuffer shell repeatedly til the chute breaks in some. We used the Holmenkol stuff no longer available on the sail when new, and it helped a lot. It might be worth the money to use a quart of McLube on yours.

Is that shell the one Dennis sells for F18s? The one he built for the 22 is significantly larger, our chute is 35 sq mtr. What's yours?

Dave

Is it my imagination or does the lower patch look too far up the kite, almost to the middle? Does the kite hang out of the bag when it's snuffed?

The sail is 350 sq ft/32.5 sq meters. Matt McDonald (Flacon Marine) had it made for a 20ft distance racer he was designing that never came to be. The shell is SNU's normal offering, his current design works with most any size pole.

Dazz, not sure if patch placement is at halfway, kinda looks like it in the picture though. The sail snuffs fully. Dennis told me how to measure the sail to get the sock length, it fits perfectly.

My spinnaker always seems to snuff more easily when I'm out on the water. There've been a couple of times where I thought something was wrong on-shore, but it worked fine out on the water.

I would agree with that Jeff.

Mac, is there a pigtail on the top to help prevent it from snuffing in one big wad?

I was hoping it might work better on the water, but figured that would be wishful thinking!

There is no pigtail and I don't know how to rig one. I feel like the wad is what's causing the trouble so maybe that would help?

I'm not used to using a separate tack so that could be some of the problem maybe? Launching I pull the tack all the way out, then raise the sail. When I snuffed I started pulling the sail in and then cut the tack loose when the sail started going in the snuffer.

new spins can be much more difficult than ones that have been broken in.

all things above are correct (IMHO) - lube the snot out of the snuffer and sail - i have used http://www.holmenkol.com/ and thought it helped

snuffing on the water is easier

i also recommend silicon on areas it could get hung up on during a snuf (bridal area, bow tips, etc)

In my experience, when you're on the water, the wind tends to string the chute out a bit and it doesn't wad up as much. When I have issues on shore its usually the wadding-up problem. I'ts also usually either calm or the breeze is on the nose of the boat which are not ideal either.

You might try turning the boat so the wind is coming across the beam. This is probably a closer approximation of your apparent wind when doing a take-down on the water.

A figure eight knot in the snuffer line somewhere between the two patches might help keep the two patches from joining together into one giant glob going into the snuffer hoop...

You'll have to probably adjust where that knot goes to make sure the sail fully snuffs, but if it keeps the two patches about 6 inches apart that should keep the glob of sail from forming...

Until that knot jams on one of the snuffer points on the next hoist. Don't ask me how I know.

Use a stopper ball.

On the other hand...that really didn't help with the drag in my case either.

that's cuz you use that teensy-weensy tapered line. The knot needs to be big enough to not get hung up in the grommet of the sail patch

You guys and your tapered everythig..... :), sheesh!

asume you have a 2-patch spi.
Run the line through the first patch, put a stopperball a ft before end of line, fix the line to the 2nd patch. Make sure the stopperball protects the patches to meet together in a big mess before snuffing. Goal is to start snuffing with the 1 patch first and then with the 2nd patch a bit later. sorry for my bad english
greetings from germany