Spinnaker Size

[jray]

I'm thinking about ordering two spinnakers, getting ready for next season. One larger light air and one for the other faster days. Meter squared suggestions? Most of the time sailing and racing we will be two up.

[jray]

Continuing on with Rocky's post on the St Helena cup thread about the spin cut. I'm thinking about ordering probably the fullest allowing better angles towards dead down wind, better for bouy races but maybe not for some of the distance races. I'm running a retractable fixed prod so no pulling the tack around for better angles. Any thoughts one way or the other on the sail cut?

[Kevin]

I'd look at the newest viper 640 spin. They have made a change last year and the new kites are supposed to be much faster in most conditions than the broad shouldered version that proceeded it. FYI, I think our spin luff length is pretty similar to what a viper runs. They have a taller mast but run a 7/8 spin hoist, which means it's 1/2 way between the forestay and the masthead.

Kevin.

[tokyotrashbaby]

Here are my two spinnakers. red one is the 1/2ounce runner, and the purple is our all purpose ayso. Check out the difference in foot length on the two for a start. luff lengths are probably close, but the amount of sail material in the middle is the major factor; 52sq/m vs 40sq/m. if your mainly sailing with only two i wouldnt even bother thinking about a 52sq/m runner as it is alot of sail to be pulling in quickly unless its about 0-5knots at a mark rounding. when we sail two up we use the purple chute as our sailmaker really hit the nail on the head with it and we can carry it from a broad run to a tight reach with the ability to fold the luff in by about two panels and still carry it (broke the bay to bay record doing it so it isn't slow). The green and purple chute on Jon's boat i think is around 25sq/m?? (i think it is written on the head of it?). but i would drop down to around 35sq/m as your all purpose if sailing two up. another idea would be to seek some advice from your sail maker too and see what he has to say, tell him what you want and what you do with the boat, maybe take him for a sail?? he should be able to come up with something that will please you like ours did!

[slowpoke]

Any tricks to getting your runner pulled in quickly?

[Shazza 273]

Any tricks to getting your runner pulled in quickly?

You need to be good looking, and remember it's not the size of the kite that matters but how you use it

[Chad]

My sailmaker came back to me with a 39m2 "all purpose" kite, with an 18.5' foot length. I suspect the extra m2 occurs when you factor the difference between the pole lengths since the Oz folks run longer poles and didn't tell us until we'd all ordered our gear.

I'm buying main and jib first, and probably waiting till mid-to-late summer for the spin.

[jray]

The 39m2 should work great from the input I've received from some of the boats down under. The pink and green kite Shazza sent is 27m2 and the new one I just pulled the trigger on is 37m2, cut a little fuller for better down angles. We will see when the Saturday beer can races start.

[Kevin]

Waiting on the spin may not be a bad idea. I barely used mine the first year and could have done a few other things with the cash. I also bought a used viper kite which should fit pretty well with the US sized sprit. Still need to go talk to my sail maker about tweaking mine so it actually has enough luff length. Mine is 45m2 prior to the aforementioned alterations. The viper kite is 425 sqft which converts to 39.5m2.

I love looking at pictures of kites, they are just sooooo coooool.

[Shazza 273]

My sailmaker came back to me with a 39m2 "all purpose" kite, with an 18.5' foot length. I suspect the extra m2 occurs when you factor the difference between the pole lengths since the Oz folks run longer poles and didn't tell us until we'd all ordered our gear.
.

>

[Shazza 273]

The 39m2 should work great from the input I've received from some of the boats down under. The pink and green kite Shazza sent is 27m2 and the new one I just pulled the trigger on is 37m2, cut a little fuller for better down angles. We will see when the Saturday beer can races start.

Go Jon !

[Chad]

Waiting on the spin may not be a bad idea. I barely used mine the first year and could have done a few other things with the cash. I also bought a used viper kite which should fit pretty well with the US sized sprit. Still need to go talk to my sail maker about tweaking mine so it actually has enough luff length. Mine is 45m2 prior to the aforementioned alterations. The viper kite is 425 sqft which converts to 39.5m2.

I love looking at pictures of kites, they are just sooooo coooool.

Yeah, the idea is to spread the cash outlay over a few months, trying to ease the shock to the system. That way I can also break (in) the boat, and try to get some crew out on the water a few times first.

This kite is 45m2?? Even short-luffed? Looks like about 19' on the foot length, scale-guessing the hull versus sail.

[Kevin]

485 sqft. converts to 45m2.

Foot is 19'4".
Clew is quite low making visibility around the sail pretty challenging. Viper kites have a much higher clew and a 425sqft total area.
Luff is 28'6" and needs to be at least 30' in my humble (and current) opinion.
Leach is 25'5" (for completeness in giving away all my info).

Jeff and I have the same kite. I was running more rake at that event which impacts luff length for the spin a bit. But not 18" worth. No idea why we ended up with a short wide kite. Something was lost in translation. Run a tape from mast head to sprit end on your boat to get the right luff length.

Not exactly sure how we will modify the sail to fit better. That's a discussion that needs to happen fairly soon though with the sail maker.

Kevin.

[Chad]

Yep, saw the dims on Jeff's PH cert, although they apparently use a calculated area since 409.6 s.f. is 39m2:

To the eye, your kite looks closer to Andrew's 40m2 AP kite, than his 52m2 runner, which is why I was questioning it.

[Kevin]

This is a similar angle to the shot of Andrew's big Red monster kite. I agree that it's not as big as 52m2. But the clew does come back to about the same place. So the difference in area would be the extra prod length that he has which is about a meter as I recall, I have that number somewhere but don't really want to go digging for it.

All I know is that it's pretty long in the foot, too short in the luff by about 18", has a low clew and completely blocks the view to leeward. Oh, and there are about as many formulas for spinnaker area as there are spinnaker makers.

[M&S]

Doyle NZ quoted 55 sq m as the largest runner they could get to work. Has anyone explored chicken chutes?

[Kevin]

If I was to scale back a kite I would shorten the foot and raise the clew. I would keep it at the mast head unless the rig was already built for a fractional rig.

Ron has a M20 kite on his boat and it's just huge. It's got a 33' long luff and per class rules is 40m2. So maybe my numbers are screwed up, no idea at this point. Look at the 2010 epoxy cup pictures for reference. That's the opposite direction from "chicken" chute.

[jray]

The kite I got from Josh and Shazza seems about right for bigger winds. It does not work well enough in the 5-10 range. 15 and over might be just right. Haven't flown it in more then tens plus a little. Seams that the 25m2 type might be a good start.