I have a Nacra F18 with a spinnaker and front snuffer. While sailing in about 15 knots on a broad reach and moderate ocean swells (3-4 ft), I decided to use the main and jib only, surfing the offshore ocean swells. It would have been ideal conditions for my spinnaker, but I just felt like surfing the waves without it.

After about 2 minutes, I accidently had my snuffer do an impression of a pelican scooping its beak into the water. The front of the snuffer somehow got underwater. This caused the snuffer pole to break in half.

Since I am new to spinnaker sailing, I was not aware that this could be a problem. In the future, I will be very aware of the potential for this to happen. You should be too.

The good news was that back at the dock a sharp-eyed friend noticed that the broken pole was the same as the upper section of a Laser mast, which he was throwing away. I primed it, painted it flat black, sawed it to fit and it works like the original!

Was it an end pole or midpole snuffer?
In the Tybee 500 last year we broke a spin pole in half while stuffing the bows hard, and it was a straight aluminum pole without a snuffer end! So get a midpole, and keep those bows up...

BTW Using the spin will keep the bows up, as the NACRA is hard to keep up on a tight jib reach in those conditions. If you are reaching, keep your hand on the jib sheet and be ready to blow it at a moments notice.

dave mosley
NACRA F18 Rigging Tips

My boat has a front snuffer. Thanks for the suggestion about blowing the jib sheet.

yeah well...you should also add that we DID have the spinnaker up at the time but we stuffed so hard into the back of a wave that we put the bottom of the spinnaker under water which lead to the broken pole and shredded spinnaker.

good point!!!

I did something similar a while back on my Hurricane 59 - Twin wiring with the kite up in fairly big winds on the lake (we get short square waves which are a nightmare) and put the bows under, and the pole and the front of the kite, and the front beam and the pole survived (much to my surprise), it did make a hell of a twang when it came out mind - we took the kite down PDQ.

we kept her flying after this...we were the last to be flying a spinnaker (never took it down for the sleigh ride).

Yeah, Jake, but that`s not a proper "Pelican", I can still see your snuffer chute !
See attached pic, courtesy of the Spitfire web-site. Now THEY know how to do the Pelican..

Dive, Dive, Dive!

Dont know about the pelican, but they are definately deep sea fishing! Wonder if they saved it?

Having sailed a Spitfire, I would say most likley they did !

Well, that's amazing. I have heard about wave piercing, but that Spitfire looks like they have taken it a bit to far

Indeed, My opinion in all these is that if both crew stay put you can get most things back - I had my Hurricane deeper than that and it came back - we had water up to the first batten on the mainsail !