I feel like i do all the posting.

Anyone have tips and lessons learned from flying a code zero, or any asym. for that matter.

I'm seriously considering investing in one when I buy new sails shortly(sugar momma got promoted and now makes fat commission, hells yeah).

Tack line block placement, tack line routing to cockpit, to fabricate a bowsprit or not to, best asym type for close reaching, close calls, masthead halyard rigging/ doable or too much stress on original stick, upgrading standing rigging, more slamming me for modifying one design
As usual, any and all correspondence is welcomed

upgrade to a J/109... without a sprit, the aysm just doesn't have a wide range to pull.

We tried an asym on Rhapsody bought on eBay. It doesn't get used. I cruise with the symmetrical spinnaker and do much better.

We have flown an old Melges 24 A-kite from the pole. It's a huge thrill and it powers the boat up like nothing else, in our experience. Since we arent rated for it we dont race with it. The downside is that it massively loads up the boat. This shows up in my twing line system. I am not sure the SWL of the blocks and lines is up to the job. They dont look like they would do the job for a long time. But it is so fast and ridiculously fun it's like having a new boat. We've enjoyed it from <5 kts to about 20 kts TWS. We have done it family style with just my wife & my kids & me. We do a douse jibe. I would like to be rated for it and race distance with it, which we don't do often. It might be cool to have a distance rating (using 'affordable' M24 A-sails & composite mains) and a OD buoy racing handicap. Oops, a can of worm just spilled I better go.

I had an old chute cut to an asym - not perfect but it was a $200 test.

You really need a sprit to fly it. There is not really a good tack point that works well.

Selden and Forte now has a removable sprit that looks pretty cool. I have thought about it. You could also just add an anchor roller and fly it from there but getting it out away from the boat would be better.
http://www.seldenmast.com/download.cfm?download=7837&webnode_id=3014&filename=595-261-E.pdf
http://www.defender.com/product.jsp?path=-1|118|319697|103585|312078|855335&id=1017978

I think for any real advantage you would want to fabricate a masthead sheeve and fly it from there, the fractional spinnaker halyard with an asym is not far from just reaching with the 163 class genoa.

I have thought about this a lot. I think the boat would be a PHRF smoker with a real Asym.


David
#397

We have an "A" sail that we bought this year. We had the sail maker out with us two weeks ago to do some testing on a new number 1 and to play with the "A" (ours is a "code 3"). Their instructions were to fly it from the pole with the pole set down to the pulpit. As the wind moves aft, raise the pole slightly. Although we bought it for heavy air reaching, at 60 degrees apparent in 5 - 10 knots of breeze it was about 1/2 knot faster than the number 1. We have not used it enough to know its practical limits but it is proving faster than the number 1 in 60 -90 degree apparent wind. We aren't sure where the cross over is with the all purpose kite becuase we haven't played with it enough. We do know though that it is particularly faster in heavy air 70-90 degree apparent wind where we struggle with the all purpose kite.
Our conclusion is that it is a must sail for serious PHRF buoy racing.

Russ - so do you just crank down on the Foreguy to keep the pole from moving? What about lateral movement?

This sounds like a cool way to do it, just wondering how the tack load get distributed.

David
#397

Running rigging is same for the A sail as for the all purpose chute. Downhaul (foreguy) and topping lift on the pole. Spin sheets attached to tack and clew. Big and obvious problem; without lazy sheet and guy, it can't be jibed with this set up. But then, for the races where we have used the A sail, we have not had to jibe it.

So you are you using a seperate line for the tack? Or is the spinsheet(Guy) your tack?

David
#397

The spin sheet (guy) is our tack

Cool - something else to play with!

David
#397

Well, so much for not having to tack an "A" sail.
The sail is definetely fast and controlable on a beam to slightly forward of the beam reach in 15+ knots of wind (what we bought it for). But not being able to jibe cost us 1st in class as well as overall. Wind shifted aft about 2/3 of the way down the 2nd leg. Lost some speed with having the A sail up when the wind moved aft but nothing compared to sailing with our #2 while we get rolled by an Evelyn 32 as we re-ran lines to set up for a re-hoist of the Ace. Time for a re-think.

Russ - what I did (without the pole setup) was run a tack line through a block at the base of the forestay, then have both spin sheets at the clew - then you can jibe. But my problem was that when we were on starbord reach the tack line would put a lot of load on the forestay. But with the pole up this would fix the issue.

What I have is a block that has a strop around the base of the forestay. This holds the tack line down. I think then you would run the tack up to the outboard end of the pole and it would work well and keep everything off the headstay. Aditionally it would free you to jibe and allow you to adjust the tack height.

Just some thoughts.

David
#397

Dave, thanks. That will work; but I will also need a lazy guy for the pole. And, both guys would attach directly to the pole instead of to the sail.

One thought was to put a snap shackle on a very short tack line off the sail. Then connect that directly to the pole. On take down, we could just blow the snap shackle (assuming we could reach it.

Also, if we had to go from the A sail to the standard chute the two guys would be on deck at the pole and almost ready to run with the new chute. Hmm

Russ,

Noticed in last America's Cup, they gybed the sail, but not the pole, leaving it to leeward of the headstay. There is probably some video around on YouTube showing this.

I picked up a new A-Kite (APR 70) last season and it works very well in open winds (like offshore racing). We have run a tack block off the bow to enable us to pull the kite down in tight reaches and let the tack out on runs. It works best when set on the spinnaker pole. In the tight reaches we crank down on the tack and then tighten the back-stay to the limit. It takes a minute or two to hit full speed (hence the need for fresh winds). In offshore longer legs the A-kite performs very well especially when the competitors need to reach offshore to get the right angles for the full kites. I highly recommend this type of configuration when doing these types of races.

Bob,
Thanks for the input. We plan to jibe similar to the A/C boats. We'll run two guys thru the eye of the outboard end of the pole. On the first jibe set, the pole will be trimmed away from the forestay. On the opposite jibe (assuming the we use the A sail) we will not jibe the pole; we'll simply trim it toward the forestay. We'll attach the tack of the sail directly to the pole off of a short line with a snap shackle to the pole. We'll run two sheets off the clew. We can adjust the pole back and up on one tack but only up on the oppisite tack. Seems complicated but I don't know how else to do it.


PS. Bob, Anna will be at the club Wednesday night to show off her Gold Metal! See you there.

Russ,

Sounds about like what I saw on the AC boats, but I don't know how the strop will work on the launch. Seems like you want the tack line attached at the bag pulling the sail out to the bow as its going up. Another string to pull, but with the number of crew I have been seeing on your boat, you should be able to handle it!

Sorry to have missed Anna and Wildcat's season overall win celebration, but I was crying in my beer over my busted winch! Glad I had a ride home!

As you know, we didn't use the Ace on Wednesday. The winds were aft enough to carry Big Blue on the 1st downwind leg. The last leg was a little tighter but fortunatley the winds seemed to deminish and we carried the all purpose just fine. We were glad we didn't have to experiment with so much on the line with the Melges 30.

Next time we fly the Ace we'll probalby launch the kite with the bag nearer the bow so we can attach the tack directly to the pole before launch and eliminate an extra tack line for pulling the kite out of the bag.

Wednesday night there was no time for us to celabrate and not the place. Wednesday night belonged to our club and Anna(Anna Tunnicliffe- 2008 Gold Medalist in Laser Radials). You missed a heck of a party; A couple of hundred people, two TV stations with live coverage, newspapers and radio. Duane did a spectacular job of intro's and interview. She was so gracious with autographs etc. I actually got to touch the gold medal. We couldn't be more proud of her accomplishments!! Check out the Toledo Blade on line, they had a real nice article even though they were a little low on the head count.

Hopefully your beer was a "Sam". We'll swap out winches (or parts) with my spare one on Saturday and have you ready to rock for the Captian Morgan series.

OK has any one taken this further? I am looking at putting in a new spin hoist sheave 1-2 ft up from the normal sheave and using a 5.5 sprit. I would be just under the J92 dimensions.
I am sick and tired of the sprit boats passing me on long reaching races. I kill them up wind but as the wind goes aft in PHRF racing the chance of winning falls behind as well.

any one have helpful info to provide before I start cutting checks.

I sail mostly solo and have similar plans for spring. A couple of questions: What sprit do you have in mind? Custom fixed or retractable? Are you think of an asymmetrical on a furler? Have you identified a sheave box? thanks

The sprit will be a custom job done on deck. it will slid out and be pinned in position. My friend is a structural engineer specializing in aluminum fabrications and welding and he did a fabulous job on his sprit but that was a Fraser 30. He will make it for me at cost.
There will be a bob stay to prevent twisting especially if I go to a code Zero as well.
but I will be able to retract it and remove it for OD racing.
I will just do a normal launch and dispense with the furler. that's more for the genakers then the big A sails.

I am waiting to see the size of Sail to select the sheave to suit the load on it.
But I will just cut a new slot and insert the new sheave. no big deal.

Necromancing this 3 year old thread...

I'm adding a bowsprit to Ananda. Likely the Seldèn retractable version, 75mm diameter. This will be supporting a running asymmetrical spinnaker that I plan on using instead of a symmetric (too much work for me, haha!).

The asym size is still being discussed. My sailmaker wants to make it 880 sq feet, but I think that's a little large. It'll be deployed and doused with an ATN sock operated from the cockpit.

What do you guys think? Should I go for it? Smaller sail? Larger?

Alex,

Since I own both a symetric (J/30) and asym (J/109) boat, I can say that the asym on a boat that is designed for symetric just doesn't work as well. On Rhapsody I have single handed with the autohelm and flown the spinnaker. I have used a sock and no sock. The sock is more pain than it's worth. Here is what works using the symmetrical spinnaker.

1. Lead all spinnaker lines back to the cockpit (spin halyard, topping lift, foreguy, twings, spin sheets). If you have twing blocks attached to padeyes within a couple inches outboard of the shrouds, you'll find the foreguy isn't needed. If you put turning block on the stanchion bases by the primary winches, you can use the primary winches easily for trimming spin & pole. I have self tailers and a harken 150 to quickly lock a line in place.

2. Put a Harken 150 cam cleat on the mast to jump the spin halyard and topping lift. Once the spinnaker is up, you take the slack out of the halyard in a rope clutch aft and remove the halyard from the cam cleat.

3. You can launch from a bag on the rail attached on either side of the 1st stanchion. I usually do a dead headed launch when single handing.

4. Attach spin sheets and halyard. Twing on tight for the pole side. Pole up using the cleat on the mast, then take slack back aft and remove from cleat on mast.

5. pre-feed the guy end to the headstay (pull it out of the bag)and take the slack out in the cockpit. Put it on the primary winch, then pull pole aft about 2 feet.

6. Pre-feed the sheet to a mark you'll make where the spinnaker just starts to fill. This allows you to raise the halyard without getting pulled up the mast, or getting the spin wrapped around the headstay. Lock the spin sheet in the primary at this setting.

7. Heading about 30 degrees off the wind, raise the spinnaker halyard at the mast. lock it in place with cleat, then head aft to trim spin and pull halyard through clutch - take out of mast cleat.

Below is a picture taken when I was single handing Rhapsody around Conanicut Island with the spinnaker. The second picture is the asym spinnaker I bought off ebay. If you want to try an inexpensive sail, I'll sell this to you for $200 plus you pay shipping. Maybe it will work better with a bow sprit, but tacked to the bow, it just doesn't project enough to get a wide range of sailing angles off the wind.

Hi Bill,

Nice, these are awesome instructions! I do plan on eventually flying symmetric spinnakers too (if I take the boat to Hawaii I'd be crazy not to).

Can you elaborate on the problems flying an asymmetric on a boat not designed for one? I know that without a bowsprit, the asym is just not far enough away from the main to fly cleanly. By adding one, the luff should have enough room to rotate to weather as I turn downwind. It's deep broad reaching that I want - Ananda already goes like a bat out of hell on a beam reach, I'm not worried about more speed reaching.

your success with an A sail is based on your typical sailing program ... the America Cup boats using monohulls used both A and/or S and I believe with the same size pole. But it did project out in front of the forestay.

10 years ago I used the J/30 pole on a Oday 27 and was pretty happy with the results using an A with a sock. We could jibe it flying it outside the forestay, but that took a bit of coordination. But easy plan was to sock and unsock.

There is a J/30 in RI who has used the A sail well and constructed a semi fixed bow sprit, but his marina decided that when he was deployed at the slip he was oversize and they started to charge him more.

When we do spin runs as a day sail we make sure we are doing a comfortable spin reach coming back. No one on the crew likes deaddown ... boring.

Alex,

I think the cut on the asym I used on Rhapsody has the sheeting angle too low. It is hard to tell if that was contributing to the narrow wind angle that the sail carried. Perhaps the pole extension you mention may fix this.

Vic, great to hear I'm not alone on this. I have a 40' slip so I'm not worried about being charged for the extra length. I also will be mounting a fully removable sprit, so it can be stored belowdecks when needed.

I like boring! I often sail shorthanded or with non-sailing friends, and San Francisco is not known for its light wind days.

If our standard J30 spin is 700 and he is recommending 880 for SF I would also be inclined to back off.

You may not feel comfortable with non race crew.

A's do work wing on wing which confused me a lot at first. But 880 is a big sail in heavy wind and traffic. The sock only works easily if the sail is shadowed.

We use a 1000 sqft spin on an F31 and it can take some serious manpower at times to launch and retrieve in cruising mode.

Vic,

Yeah, I have the same concerns. I think it's going to come in somewhere around 800. I think one difference might be this is a cut specifically for deep downwind sailing, not for reaching, so it's bigger than it otherwise would be. Here's how Don from Pineapple put it:

"In 20 knots true wind, if you're sailing downwind at 10 knots of boat speed, the breeze on your sail is more like 10 knots. So, yes, a bigger sail will sail downwind better than a small one. The big sail would be less happy to sail true wind angles of 90 or less in 20 knots, but in 10 knots you'd be sailing around at high angles like 50-60 degrees. Tight reaching.

If your goal is sailing 150-160 apparent wind angles in no more than 20 knots, then you're going to want the bigger sail. If you get caught needing to sail higher angles then you can reach with your main & jib. If you want to crush across the bay from Sausalito to Pier 39 in 20 knots then you may want the smaller kite."

That is an awfully narrow range sail ... sounds like a race sail for long distance where the wind is predicted to be just right for it. Hey 155 is where we love to sail the S.

It still won't get the boat up on plane in 20 and you will be lucky to run at ~8 kts in comfort. And you will need crew weight in the back of the boat.

I think we are all better off with a standard AP spin on a pole. You have a lot more options on course changes and spin control. And for sure one 15 year old can do foredeck in non race conditions easily. We have 70+ year olds that play foredeck spin all winter here. Our standard Program A day sail is upwind 3+ miles, and get in position to return with wind 110 to 160 or 200 to 250. Nice safe fun spinning.

Vic,

Here in San Francisco bay, the wind is always funneled in under the Golden Gate Bridge, through a long alleyway we call the slot. In the summer, it starts off lighter in the morning and builds to 20kts at 1pm and often 25kts or so around 4pm, before calming down a bit into the evening. So these deep angles are the ones I will sail if I'm outside the gate and coming in.

On tight reaches I already bury the rail and push hull speed with main and jib, so I'm not really looking to carry more sail area for those.

I am curious if your flying this from the standard spin sheve?
And what your rating is going to be.

Here in the north west we sail a lot of courses in light air and that extra sqft would be great on the down wind run

So I've decided against the bowsprit/asym for now. Try as I might, it would've been too involved a project to get the aftermarket bowsprit to fit right, and I'm not convinced it even would then. I'm going to get a 155% genoa instead.

My plan was to fly it from the standard spinnaker sheave, yes. With the oversize asym (compared to J/30 standard size) my rating would've taken a hit in northern cali here, but as I don't even have a rating, I wasn't too worried about this. I configure Ananda entirely for pleasure sailing, any racing I do is just for fun.

So OK ... I'm thinking this is not an ideal configuration for anything over 15 kts, if we were going to try to fly something like this oversize A on a tricked out J/30. Here it is on a J/105. Flame out of Naples.

I picked Ananda up from the yard on Saturday and hoisted the asym for the first time on the way home. Conditions were moderately light and shifty (5-15 knot winds), and I tried angles from 90 apparent to 155 or so with pretty good success.

I've still got a lot to learn about trimming the asym and I've never sailed with a symmetric so I can't really say whether it was comparable or worth it in terms of performance, but it was a definite improvement over the jib & main downwind, and especially closer to a beam reach. I know I did a few things wrong, including having my tack too close to the deck. Next time will be a blast for sure.

Here are some pics!

Alex - Nice pictures and glad to see you got the Asym up and flying. I assume you launched it with the sock I had with it. Make sure you keep the lines to raise and lower the sock tied to something that doesn't interfere with the spinnaker after you launch. Otherwise, retrieving the lines makes the douse more difficult :-)

ps - I can't tell from the picture where the tack is connected. Did you use the block with the adjustable line lead aft that was in the bag? That allows you to adjust the tack height from aft.

Yes, I flew it from the sock. I knew from research to tie the sock control line to the center deck cleat to keep them handy.

It's tacked to an ATN Tacker, a plastic device which wraps around a furled headsail. I have a tackline which runs from that to a block just aft of my furler, back to the cockpit. The tack height is something I need a better way of controlling.

do you know what the lengths are for the three sides?

Our biggest achilles heel when racing this past year was the downwind spinnaker leg. Let be take a step back; our biggest achilles heel was the lack of a full, consistent crew (specifically an experienced foredeck hand). Every turn around the windward can filled me with dread for I knew fluttering, hour-glassing, re-rigging chaos was sure to follow. Eventually, it got to the point that I would hand off the tiller and go forward myself to try and get the chute out cleanly only to look back and find that weeks thrown together crew looking with wide eyes at the pile of lines in the cockpit, unsure of what to put where or when to pull what.

I've had a vision. After fetching our windward mark and turning down, a gennaker smoothly unfurls and fills while the genoa silently furls in with no poles, guys, twings or topping lifts involved. It seems the whole modern race world works with code zeros and big drifting sails (didn't see any spinnakers in the volvo ocean race or on the ritzy racing machines on Sailing Anarchy); does it make sense for an older racing boat like the J/30 to follow suit (at least as it concerns PHRF racing?)

I'm thinking speed gains and ability to stage a competitive racing season with 2 or 3 dedicated crew. I'm thinking of fabricating a 3' or 4' bowsprit and flying a socked a-spin or a gennaker on a furler. Does it make sense to fly it all the way to the masthead or stay at the headstay?

Just some early planning for next season...

I fly an asym from a sock on Ananda, off of a 2' carbon fiber aftermarket sprit with a bobstay to take the sprit tension.

I considered a furling system but my sailmaker was pretty pessimistic about a furler working on the J-30 - the spinnaker halyard exits basically at the forestay, which is way too close. A furler needs at least 6-8 inches of clearance to operate properly and preferably even more.

The sock is great, though, and the sail flies beautifully:

/

What did you use for an asymm? custom made? Also, did you install a sheave at the top of the mast or are you using the original spin block?

Thanks!