Spinaker snuffer option

I am adding a ring attached to the clew of my chute so as to suck up some of the spin sheets on retrieval. The chute is very similar in size to an F18. Any thoughts on how long the tether between the ring and clew should be? Also I have seen some people using bungee versus a short bit of spectra, any thoughts on this? What advantage does the bungee have?

Collin

Don't know about the bunji - but the tail I've put on both the F18 and the N20 was about 10 inches long from the clew to the ring.

i have used bungee and it worked well. for some reason i needed about 18 inches for it to work with my lines and spin setup. the advantage (i think) is that it was flexable... and actually allowed a little spongy play when i retrieved the spin.... this might help prevent a tear when retrieving the sail. i think the disadvantage may be that it may cause extra friction when raising or dousing.. and that could lead to small "burns" in the sail. I try to pull the tack line slowly to avoid this as well.

i liked this until 1 time when my spin became completely tangled in it (it basically wrapped around a big ball of spin) and i couldn't get the sail to open... nor could i get it to go back in the chute.

this was of course in 20+ wind and caused me allot of grief as i ran over my sail (shrimped) and had to cut the halyard to save myself from capsizing.

It was probably caused by me manually packing my spin in my chute on the beach (it was too windy to open the spin on the beach to make sure it was all correct). all the lines were actually correctly run... but

I have since removed that extra ring/bungee to avoid an extra line to get tangled in

Thanks guys. I appreciate the feedback.

I'll admit to being confused here. Are we talking about a simple pigtail? I'm not sure what is being described with the ring and sucking up spin sheets...

live long and prosper spock

At the clew, where the sheets attach, you tie a small piece of line with a ring on the other end. Your snuffer line will then go through this ring before it goes through the snuffer rings/grommets on the spinnaker. Now, when snuffing and the sail bunches up, the clew will be at the bottom of the ball of spinnaker fabric as it goes into the hoop. When snuffed, it will draw in 4 to 6 feet of each side of the spin sheet since the clew is now nearest the bottom of the snuffer sock instead of right at the opening. It does require a slightly longer halyard/snuffing line.

In some cases, this can make launching the spinnaker easier if you have a very resistive launching system. I've also seen it make launching tougher...user experiences will vary.

Good idea, notice any difference in effectiveness between end and mid pole snuffers?

never tried it on an end pole - but it is effective on a mid-pole setup.