Been having some complaints from the "mobile ballast" (crew ) while hoisting/dousing the spinny. Apparently it is taking excessive effort to get the sail into/out of the snuffer (Guck Inc. Skunk design). The sail is the current Gran Segal design for Tornado, formerly owned/lightly used by Lars Guck himself. It has three retrieval patches. My older spinny is of unknown brand, also has 3 patches but the cloth is much more compliant, feels lighter and is a silicon-impregnated type of material...very slippery in comparison to the Gran Segal. The old sail goes in/out of the snuffer like a hot knife through butter.

Laying the two sails on top of each other, it's obvious the newer one is larger, (mainly at the leech...by 6-12 inches) and that the patches are not in the same location (more separation on the newer sail).
What can I do to the newer (better shape) sail to help the situation? Some have suggested converting to a 2 patch sail. Seems virtually every spinny setup I've seen has 3 patches...

The main problem I encountered was that when you pull the sail into the snuffer all of the patches are pulled together, forming a big ball of sail at the mouth of your snuffer.

Currently, I am using a system with an additional line going from the patch to the retrieval line (see attachement). In this way all the patches do not collapse to a single point and the sail remains a little bit more stretched out, which makes it easier to pull it into the snuffer. Works well for me. The overall length of the spinnaker in the snuffer increases, however.

Hope this helps.

Ceitzi

Or you could consider a series of small knots on the retrieval line to keep the patches from bunching up.

I assume the extra lines mean that you get better drops on one gybe than the other ?

The knots idea might work, but you would be VERY stuffed if one pulled thru one of the eyes.

I've one silicon coated Kite, and it does go in the snuffler much better !

The little extra line idea works the same on either side...when snuffing, the same side is pulled into the snuffer no matter what gybe your are one.

In actual fact, we have tried something like this already. At the advice of Charlie Ogletree, we added a small plastic ball along the dousing line between the upper & middle patches, with a stopper knot some 8 inches from the upper patch. This kept the upper and middle patches ~8" apart when entering the snuffer. Helped a wee bit, but the complaints continued. I will experiment with adding bits extra length like in the diagram.

Cheers!