I'm thinking of getting an assymetric kite to use for cruising and would like to know if anyone has experience. How about a masthead arrangement?

i guess the j 29 has a masthead chute with the same mast and stuff as ours...

would I do it ? I dont really know, masts seem to be on the expensive side....

why not running a regular chute with an ATN slider jobby ( plastic shoe which goes over the furled up jib, you dont need to putz around with the spi boom ) get an ATN sock for it and its easy to do with two people...

A real cruising spi on the masthead would only make sense in my opinion if you rig up some kind of bow sprit as well

thor

The J-29 masthead rig is very different from the J-30 and J-29 Frac rig. I have seen a masthead chute on a J-30, but would only use it on a run (not great for a cruising asym) and not in big breeze.

The masthead J29 rig is not the same as ours. It is a double spreader rig.

I would talk to a rigger about the stress to the frac rig on a J30 before I would do anything.

Remember our rigs are 25 years old.

Peter,

I am having my sail maker cut down one of my old spinnaker in to an asym. Cannot wait to try it out! He said cutting one down is not as good as a real asym but it is a cheap(er) way to test it out to see if I want to invest in a real one. We have not quite figured out how we will tack it to the bow but we have some ideas that we are going to try out. I had some good conversations with him about this. He use to run the Spinnaker group at Doyle so he has a lot of experience with cutting these things down. He would be more than happy to talk with you about it if you are interested.

David
#397

David --
I had the same thing done for our old C&C 26 , by our Doyle loft in Cleveland. I just used the spin pole downhaul as a downhaul (it was a dip-jibe setup). I only used the sail twice, but the first time was critical, as it got us home when the engine failed and there was only a whisper of wind midway to the Lake Erie Islands. Since I'm also adding roller furling, I think I'll follow Thor's suggestion and get an ATN tacker and run a penant up from a block attached at the stem. I'm planning to try a regular chute before having one re-cut, just to see how it works.
Thanks.
Peter

That seems like what we figured out to do. I also have a roller fuler and we were thinking we will add a block with a spectra loop to the stem fitting and then run the spinnaker downhaul through the block and use it as the tack line for the asym. For different reason I am trying to stay away from something like the Tacker but without a nice fair spot to hook the block at the stem it may be the only option.

David