Spinnaker and Code 0 or Drifter?

When I had my 150% genoa on the furler, I found that I didn't have the right sails for sailing off the wind or in light airs. The genoa was too heavy a fabric to fly in light airs, and would twist when sailing off the wind.

I contacted my sailmaker and his suggestion was to add a spinnaker and a Code 0 to my sail wardrobe; the spinnaker for off wind, the Code 0 for light airs.

Being how I used to single hand my 45 foot Morgan cutter, I was very interested in how these sails would be managed. The options for the spinnaker were a sock or a continuous furler.

The sock would require me to go forward to douse the sail, which would then cause the balance to shift to weather as the sail was taken doused while no one was at the helm.  

The continuous furler caught my attention as I could retrieve the sail from the cockpit with ease. This also would make jibes easier as I could furl, jibe, and unfurl on the other side.  

Now, as a rigger, I was very interested in how these sails would all be attached to the vessel. The continuous furler needs to be forward of the headstay and the drum; I also had a bow rail in the way. My only option was to add a bow spirit to move the tack point further forward. In my case, the tack needed to be around 4 feet forward to clear everything; that's quite the addition!

That much of a bow spirit would certainly need support to keep the upward pull of the sail from ripping it up off the deck. Now I need a bobstay and a bobstay tang, which needs to be attached to the stem. Then I need whisker stays to keep the spirit from being ripped laterally. As you can see, this got complicated in a hurry! We haven't even discussed where the deck members would go in my crowded forepeak.  

I already didn't like this idea, but since I don't have an iron jib, I needed the sails to keep me moving in all conditions.  

Aside from the incredible complexity of the addition, there was the cost factor as well. Each sail needed is own furler, plus the cost of the spinnaker and the Code 0. I scraped the whole endeavor when the calculated cost climbed over $20,000 for sails that would be used "sometimes". 

In the Pardey books, they frequently mentioned using their drifter. It is pretty much a giant nylon genoa, but with a higher clew, allowing better trim when off the wind.  

I mentioned this idea to the sail maker but he didn't seem too crazy about it. He did have a good reason, if drifters were so wonderful, all the race boats would fly them. You can't beat a spinnaker on a run and a Code 0 will take you to windward like a boss! But I'm not racing, I'm cruising! 

The drifter was a very cheap sail! If I had kept my furler, I could have gone with a flying drifter and not have it stayed. But since I decided to switch to hank on sails, it was very easy to have a hank on drifter made that would fly off of the existing headstay; no extra rigging, no extra parts, no extra cost!  

Our drifter is about the size of a 180% genoa, so a rather large sail.  

In light airs, the drifter is king! We can reach, run, tack, and jibe; all while moving along towards our destination. We usually do about 1 knot less than the wind. Our takedown wind speed is 7 knots apparent, because the nylon will stretch and can easily tear if flown in too much air. This said, we have had it up in winds of 15 knots (as we scrambled to get it down) and it doesn't appear to have sustained damage. A Code 0 is made of a much stronger laminated material, allowing it to be flown in winds above 20 knots! So I see the sail makers point there, but I like to reef in winds above 20 knots instead of flying a monster sail. 

Off the wind, the drifter is also wonderful! it has a bit of a full belly, which doesn't let it point as high as a Code 0, but this gives it plenty of depth to fill with air on a run. On a board reach, it simply fills with air, and pulls the boat along on a gentle ride. On a run, the drifter can be placed wing on wing, with it flying by the lee. On Wisdom, we have around 1200 square feet between the main sail and the drifter. This will catch any whisper of wind and move you towards your destination. 

They say the two least used sails are the trysail and the spinnaker.

I have flown my trysail only once out in the Atlantic and boy was I glad to have it! Yet I have used the drifter about 25% of the times we go sailing. It really is our light air sail that we can use on all points of sail. We don't have to switch between the spinnaker and the Code 0 as we make our way around shoals entering rivers in the Chesapeake since it can run and reach.

I feel that we fly it often because of its versatility and ease of management. 

Do you have a spinnaker or a Code 0? How often do you fly them? Do you think the average cruiser would benefit from these sails over a drifter?

Let me know in the comments down below and click the subscribe button to receive email notifications as posts are listed. 

Summer Cruise Day 8

Today was a very special day! Today is the day I proposed to Maddie!

We raised anchor and set sail in very light airs, ghosting along on our Southbound heading. We ended up about 6 miles off of Tangier Island when we dropped the hook on a little mound in the bay. It was only 14 feet deep in an expanse over 20 feet

We were relaxing on the deck, snuggling up while staring off into the horizon at the little of Tangier Island we could see, when I ruined the moment by telling Maddie I needed to fix a line that had come loose. 

I made that up because I needed an excuse to go below deck to grab her ring! I had planned to propose to her on the trip when certain criteria had been met: A calm day of sailing, A calm afternoon with no big waves, Never be stuck windless, Be out in the Atlantic.

3 of the 4 criteria had been met, and I thought to myself: We might not have a day like that again on this trip!

I went below, grabbed the ring, came back up and got down on one knee and asked her to marry me! It was such a magical moment!

I keep getting asked what I would have done if she had said no? It would certainly have made the rest of the trip very awkward!

We were happily engaged with no way of telling anyone because there is no phone signal that far out in the bay. Maybe I should have thought that one through a bit more...

That night we slept well as the waters were calm as glass and the only suggestion of civilization was the faint glow over the horizon from city lights. Once again, the night sky was amazing!

Summer Cruise Day 7

After two sleepless nights, Maddie was starting to wear thin. She couldn't sleep because of the waves smacking the stern. In the morning I looked at the weather forecast and saw that they were calling for severe thunderstorms that night; this meant that it would be a night of waves smacking while being rocked around.

To appease the admiral, I decided to plot a course for somewhere nice where we could recharge our batteries, be protected from the winds and waves, and rest up! St. Mary's River was our destination!

Mind you this, we could have sailed South on a beam to broad reach and covered insane amounts of ground, but for the Admirals happiness, we tacked up the river towards our destination.

We sailed into the mouth of St. Mary's River until the winds died and the waves disappeared, which was right at the entrance! I didn't want to go too far in as this would make it harder to leave in the morning. We dropped anchor into a soft sandy bottom with excellent holding about 0.5 miles from shore.

Morty was the most excited of all, as this meant a trip to shore. He normally goes on the deck, but he will hold it all day hoping that we will take him to shore. When night falls and he accepts his fate, he will usually go up on the port bow and do his business. 

We were greeted by many birds upon our arrival, a pelican was the first to pass by. As we rowed to shore, we found so many more birds roosting along the way.

When we arrived at the white beach, we realized that it was not sand we were standing on, but in fact shells! Each grain of sand was a tiny complete shell, at most 3mm across. The entire beach was a giant gathering of shells! It made me feel so small and insignificant to think about each clam that once lived to make that shell, and how now they are all cast up onto each other to create a shoreline where we can beach our dinghy and walk along millions of memories of clams that once were, easily overlooking their existence as we passed by, just like every wave that rolls onto this shore. 

 

Zoom in and out to see the beach fades away into the bay, and think about how many other beaches are visible in the bay. Keep zooming out and see how everything fades away. What stands out to you? Let me know in the comments.

It made me wonder about our own existence. We live our lives, think we are important, admire our talents, work on our faults, all while trying to make something of our lives, and then we die. When you pick up one single shell, it seems so great and special; but then you pick up a few, and they kind of look similar to the next. When you pick up a handful, they just blend together; and when you drop it back onto the beach, each shell fades away into the landscape. Are we the same? If you zoom out on us, do we just blend into the city? Into the landscape? As you zoom out even further, we seem to disappear all together. What if this beach was the same as our planet? There is another beach that looks similar enough on the other shore. Would this make the river a solar system, the bay a galaxy, and the ocean the universe? If each grain of sand on this beach was a life, how significant and small is our own life in this world?

It's a shame none of the shells had awesome colors to stand out like Wisdom does with her tanbark sails in a sea of white sails! 

We cast off from this beach and made our way back to Wisdom for the night. The beach lay silent and alone, as the waves continued to meet it, as they did before we arrived, and as they will continue to do long after we are gone.

We did choose the perfect place to hide from the storm, as this is what the seas were as the storm raged up the bay that evening.

We settled in for a very calm night, grilled a wonderful dinner and relaxed! For the first time in the whole trip, I was able to sit back and read my book! I had always been working the sails to keep us on track that I couldn't divert my attention away to read and sail. When I would raise my head from my book, we would usually be about 5 to 10 degrees off course. This meant a good amount of distance lost when sailing to windward!

What are your thoughts on the beach? Do you think it relates to the world we live in when viewed from an outsiders perspective? In the end, are we all but grains of sand on some beach? Leave a comment down below to let me know what you think!

Summer Cruise Day 6

Last night it rained a significant amount, and Tooth got filled with a lot of water! 

It was a cloudy day, the sun never came out and the air was cool; chilling you to the bone as you stood watch trying to stay warm. I began my day by pumping out Tooth, raising 180' of chain, and raising all three sails. It was a slow start at first, but then the winds came!

We covered even more ground than yesterday and with even better speed! This certainly helped boost morale on board, which was needed after the sleepless night Maddie had (I slept like a rock, as always).

We dropped anchor in the middle of the bay again, and I mean the middle! It was completely dark out there and the stars were amazing! We set up berths in the cockpit to sleep under the canopy of stars, which seemed romantic, but we couldn't fall asleep and then moved inside to our bed.

Once again, the tides and winds were opposite and we slept the night with the waves smacking the stern.

Summer Cruise Day 5

Today we had wonderful winds! It seemed like if mother nature was saying "Sorry for the lack of wind yesterday, here have some more!"

We met up with Tim (Marialo) on the North side of Sharps Island (which is underwater). We met up for a while and then set off again while the winds were still excellent. We sailed until sunset and then dropped the anchor out in the middle of the bay in very unprotected waters. 

It was calm when we dropped the hook, but then the weather picked up. The current and winds were opposite each other, causing our full keel sailboat to point to the current while the winds caused the boat to ride over the anchor rode and take all the seas on the stern. This led to a very annoying slapping sound as the 1 foot waves smacked the stern overhang all night long.