Technique: Single Handing the Spinnaker

I've been wanting to single hand the spinnaker for a while but two things have been standing in my way - firstly the worry of getting a wrap and secondly getting the spinnaker down without fuss.

A couple of weeks ago I was sailing with my Mum and step-dad and got the wrap from hell, while we ended up sorting it out after a lot of fuss it inspired me to actually research how to get out of it. Gybing the main and sailing deep / by the lee can, after today, be confirmed as working, at least once.

Watching this video (part of an AWESOME series) convinced me that the takedown wouldn't be too bad.

And so it was!

After a hour and a bit of working upwind to get space I hoisted the kite, let the autopilot do the steering and trimmed to it's somewhat meandering course.

Having settled down I did three gybes. On the first one I forgot to slack the uphaul so it took ages to get the pole off and I got a wrap but gybing the main cleared it up nicely.

My approach to gybing was:
- Run about 160 deep
- Square back the pole (get clew to near the forestay)
- Push boat through the wind and gybe main
- Go swap the pole
- Trim pole, new sheet

This might not work in stronger winds, as the pole had some load on it after taking the boat through the wind. I took this approach as I thought it would be less susceptible to wrapping, but I'm not sure that's the case. Next time I'm going to try gybing the pole first, then swinging through the wind and gybing the main, as we do when sailing with a crew.

As it was the second two gybes worked perfectly, taking me about 3 minutes to get from trimmed on one side to trimmed on the other, next week I'll have another go and perhaps reduce this.

For the takedown I controlled the halyard with my backside, released the guy and pulled into the companionway and it was all super smooth.

A couple of shots from up the mast. Position has great potential for amazing photos and video but I need to get the camera better mounted to the rigging (and without it being a hazard!).

Pictures: North Sails webpage and Kraken

Looking at the North Sails 36.7 class webpage  I noticed that a couple of the banner pictures were of Kraken. Great pictures though sadly we were suffering an issue with the genoa halyard clutch slipping plus a couple of other basic trim issues but apparently good enough to go up on their site.

I'm not sure how long they'll be on the site so they're below.

This beats seeing Kraken's main sheet combo advertising high tech lines in the apsltd catalog....

Video: Double Digit Speeds

After skirting with the high 9s for the last year we finally made it to double digit speeds. While we got there on several occasions one of them was on camera.... a couple of times surfing waves we hit 10.7 and a couple of other times 10, with lots of time spent at 8 and 9 knots.

Would have been great to have a little more wind and slightly larger waves to get surfing more frequently but now I'm getting fussy and we need to build up steadily!

Technique: All wrapped up

Bringing Kraken back to Oceanside from SD an unfortunate set of events concerning a kelp wrapper, kelp flosser, pot of coffee and absent minded autopilot led to the spinnaker wrap from hell.

I think the central section rolled around the forestay twenty times, tightened and ballooned out to hold itself snugly in place.

After twenty minutes of pulling at it ineffectually I unwound the bottom section, then the top section, pulling the spinnaker around the forestay repeatedly, first the little bit left, then more and more of the sail until I was pulling 900sq ft of angry, well at least resistant, nylon forwards and backwards.

This worked. My muscles still ache and my legs are still bruised from straddling the forestay pulling air filled nylon for about about thirty minutes. My stepdad kept the boat reversing for this time, fighting an inverted rudder against sloppy waves but reducing the air flow I was fighting. Overall it was a mess and a day later my shoulders still ache, I figured there has to be an easier way to sort out as mess like that.

The first thing I found....

Another suggestion was to gybe the main to reverse the vortex.

Next time I'll try those - as it sounds a bit more straightforward, but nice to know that if all else fails I've got a slow and laborious but functional out - better than cutting the sail away!

Racing: SDYC Yachting Cup

So, a couple of months back we took Kraken out into the San Diego NOODs (National Offshore One Design) racing against 8 other 36.7s. Unfortunately personal reasons kept us out of the second day, which prevented redemption for the solid last place on day one. While in last we were steadily gaining on the back of the fleet, and in the last race of the day got messed up as we suddenly needed to round a leeward gate in a bunch of traffic, and got distracted.

The Yachting Cup fielded 6 36.7s and gave us a chance to build on what we learnt at the NOODs. Our results were 6,5,5,4,4,3 and for the 3 we crossed the line right after the first two boats, so headed in the right direction.

The event was excellently run and parking right in front of the yacht club was a nice bonus (plus a first med mooring for me). Docking at the end of the first day was accompanied by a mariachi band, something I'd now like for every docking, ever. The beers passed in over the transom seconds after making the lines were also something you could get used to. Props to SDYC.

Props also to Team Kraken. We had several new faces on the boat and they brought a lot with them and our old (? six months of racing now! ?) hands performed with increasing confidence as we moved up the field. Still a long way to go, need to get better at reading the shifts - especially downwind -  and better at sorting out tactics - especially downwind - but hopefully we continue to mix it with other boats in a way that allows us to work on this.

Final props go to the other 36.7s on the course, who were courteous and cheered us across the finish line on several occasions. Heartwarming.

Helping a J/70 save batteries (Kraken's first tow with us)

End of the day racing

Looks like someone said something funny.... eyes in the boat! :)

Not a bad home for the weekend!

Happy with the way we improved!