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

I have recently acquired J-30 #193. I am interested in how various people rig and launch the chute. Twing lines mounted where and led where? Sheets led inside or outside lifelines? Launch from cabin or deck? Light air sheets up to what wind range? Recommended resources and/or diagrams appreciated.

Twings, from the obvious stanchion, for us. We have a nice harken ratchet with a camcleat on the block, and we lead straight out at max beam, tail to the rail.

We don't fly lightairs, just have stripped tails for our sheets, so the weight penalty is pretty tiny. (Some original boats had seperate sheets/guys, that's total overkill with modern lines)

Some boats hatch launch off the forehatch. (Gotta have a clean, modern hatch, or be a sailmaker, to make the work) Some people bag launch. We bag launch from the middle of the leeward rail, although if we replace our forehatch, one of these days, I think we'll seriously look at that.

- David

Same line arrangment as David describes. Cam cleat on mast for the halyard. Topping lift runs aft, but I'm considering putting another cam cleat on mast for it too. Also have a foreguy lead from a block on the fwd deck leading aft on the stbd side with a cam cleat on deck.

We have a Layline bag that hangs in the companionway and launch from there. Takedowns stuff back in the bag. The bag is suspended on SS wires that run fore/aft so we can slide the bag forward while racing to easily go below.

Spinnaker halyard on cleat at mast. I believe you can find a bracket at Layline to mount the cleat.

Foreguy is double ended so that adjusting the guy is easy on either side of the boat.

We also launch the chute from a bag in the companionway. North's rectangular spinnaker bags happen to be a perfect size for that. We almost always douse the chute on the port side.

we have our twing lines run thru a medium bullet block mounted on a stanchion base (on the wire support); the spinn sheet runs thru another medium bullet block, which is tied to that end of the twing line. The Twing line runs thru the stanchion block to a fairlead mounted between the windows on the cabin top sides, then aft to a standard harken camcleat. Works great, must have twings. To rig it, we first rig the twings, then we run the sheets.

The spinn launches great from the companionway launching bag. I wish I'd first seen the Chicago boat's method of hanging the bag from light line running fore & aft along the cabin roof. Mine is mounted to 4 pad eyes, one per corner. My bag stays put. Their bag slides all the way forward to the fwd bulkhead, out of the way so when you want to use the companionway, you just shove the bag forward. That is a nice tweak. Figure out the simplest method of doing anything and begin there.

We keep it simple by running spin sheets inside the lifelines all the way around. No need for twings sailing down wind. For the rare breezy tight reach we put the guy in a snatch block on the rail.

Do you have a digital photo of how you run this back to the cockpit that you could send on an e-mail?

I ment to ask Tempty 311 if they had a digital photo of the set up.

Bob, I'm wondering how you deal with your spin-sheets when you are dead downwind.They must cross to the ouside of the lifelines somewhere.
My stanchion on the left of the cockpit got a lot of abuse last year because the guy was chafing against it when we were on a tight reach. We have one snatch block on the stanchion base midship.

By the way, I'm suprised how many of you launch the bag from the companionway (we do too).

I've haven't noticed since it doesn't cause any problems, but I suppose where the sheets go over the upper lifelines they may press against them slightly.