I am about to try out my 6.0 with the spinnaker I bought. The spinnaker is a 2002 " flat " style about the same size as the New England spinnaker. Could some one give me a starting point for mast rake. Figure crew weight around the minimum 325 and winds 12-14.

Any other suggestions on spinnaker sheet block placement, spin halyard hardware would be appreciated. I am going to try to do the single line halyard/tack setup. The spinnaker will be launched from the tramp bag which will probably be a real pain for someone used to the I17R snuffer setup!

Also, how do you keep from getting the halyard all tangled up on a really fast spinnaker drop.

Thanks,

Tom Turlington
NACRA 6.0 #335

I can share what I have done in the past. I did purchase foil bridel extenders and only use slightly more mast rake then with the chute. Rick Bliss sells them, they get the pole up higher.

Most of the NE 6.0s have the spin blocks off the rear beam, with another set of blocks near the jib track.

I switched to a halyard block arrangement similar to the I20 set up and that works well allowing the mast to rotate. I currently use seperate lines for halyard and tack.

I have never had a problem with the halyard tangling, the biggest area of trouble I have found is running over the chute. We raise the haylard, then pull the tack for luanching the chute. For take downs, it is the oposite, retreive the tack and then lower the chute. This methode prevents the chute from getting run over.

A sailor from Maine built a beautifull custom midpole snuffer for his 6.0 and that is really the best way to go.

Good luck.

A quote from another sailor.....

There were some benefits, but there were also some drawbacks to having the snuffer. The two main benifit was that I could pretty much drop the spinnaker on either tack without any major hassles and the tramp was less crowded without the spinnaker bag. The two drawbacks were that it was pretty hard on the spinnaker cloth when you pulled it back in and most cases we were slower on our takedown.

I have pretty much refined my takedown procedure to an art. I can get the spinnaker down and packed in the tramp bag in around 45-60 seconds, but the more important fact is that I go from a "trimmed" spinnaker to having it on the tramp in about 10 seconds. This means we can leave the spinnaker up and trimmed until were only a few boat lengths from the leeward mark. I will drop the spinnaker and as soon as it is on the tramp we will jibe and start heading upwind while I finish packing it in the bag. This allows us to keep our boat speed longer without slowing down while I reel the spinnaker into the snuffer. The snuffer also takes about 45-60 seconds to douse the spinnaker, but during that time you have to be headed down wind and really cannot jibe and start upwind again, that means you have to start the douse several boat lengths farther away from the mark.

Wow, I haven;t been here in awhile!

You should see my new snuffer system!!!!!
more on this later.

Scott Tuma, taught me when tramp launching, dousing the spin, to first make sure the halyard wasn't fouled anywhere or knotted up, and throw it off the back of the boat while you're sailing with a stopper knot (fig 8') in the end. Why you ask? B/c it gives you some tension to 'pull' the spin down with, as opposed to it falling in the water, or having someone belay it to you to keep it out of the water., secondly, b/c it makes sure it is not fouled stretched out behind the boat as it comes down.
If you tramp your chute, and don't want to adopt this method, good luck anyway.

My new snuffer. I'll try and keep this short. After the problems of the low flung spin bag on my 6.0, it unraveling in 100+ mile off shore distance races and acting as a water brake (Great TX, 2004), I now have it in a 6inch diameter drain pipe, with a funnel like piece on the end.

However, thuis snuffer pipe runs on top and the side of my pole. And goes thru the pelicam striker on the port side, next to the forestay. My Inter chute I use(270 sq ft-faster), has only 1 grommet and an anchor point, and takes 19 feet of pipe, bag whatever to snuff completely.

On the top on the opening, is a roller or sorts so when it binds on top, it just rolls right on in to the pipe.

nothing runs under the tramp, gets in the water, fouls, etc.

Incidentally, my spin blocks are on the shrouds, and even that's a little far back for my I 20 spin.

You should see it, I'll try and take pictures of my design soon and polst them.

For years I've tried all the various ways, and down here in TX, we say there's more than one way, to skin a cat!

Todd Bouton
'If you have a piece of drain pipe on your sailboat as a snuffer, you MIGHT a redneck!' -Jeff F.