J/30 Class Association Forums J/30 Forum The Boat, Sails and Equipment Asymmetrical

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:

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