Symmetrical Spinnakers

Originally posted by mike ellis goose winging works well in feva's. it got banned after someone at the worlds went goosewing straight down the run and got to the front of the fleet. i wasnt at the worlds but that was the rumor that was going around. it has defineatly been banned though.

Wierd *! ?  How can you ban it?  (Not a criticism of you Mike), just a bizarre thing to do.  It's not as though you're adding any go faster bits, just using the equipment to best advantage. 

Originally posted by CT249 Assys are definitely faster square running in boats that are fast enough to get the apparent forward, in part because you avoid the problem of the excess leach curve in a symmetrical kite on a reach. The handling benefits are obvious to anyone who used a conventional pole on an old-style 18.

I think CT249's statement sums up what I was going to say, it all depends on the speed of the 2 boats including the Laser 2 and 3000. In situations where it pays to run deep, the 2 will simply walk away from the 3000 but when the 3000 has enough speed to sail angles, theoretically, it should be slightly quicker than the 2 but 5 points on PY isn't too much quicker. I had a Laser 2 when I was a young teenager and my little brother then had a 3000 when he reached his mid teens. The 2 takes more effort and skill on kite hoists and gybes and drops, has barberhaulers for the jib and the rig is tweakier by having diamond shrouds to apply bend in the mast, aswell as regular sheouds. Having sailed both the boats, the 3000 is pretty simplistic compared to the 2 hence easier to get round the cans, which also may be the reason for the 5 point PY difference. We didn't sail the 2 against 3000s but regularly raced against RS400s and when they were trying to go low angles, we'd finish ahead of them across the water.

Originally posted by Rupert Originally posted by jerry_c_384 There is no doubt an assymmetric is faster on a reach, but why not try goose-swinging on the runs for max VMG? I've found this works very well in a comet trio, ( http://fotoboat.thirdlight.com/viewpicture.tlx?pictureid=323 4690&offset=33 ) and was pretty impressive in a laser sb3 - although we only managed to set it correctly once and were towing the helm at the time so didn't quite reach the usual mach 3 - but it showed potential. Goosewinging I've found works in the slower end of the asymmetric market, in boats which would have gone faster with an old fashioned kite, such as the Trio and Laser 2000. Does the RS200 work well dead downwind with its retractable pole, or was that given up on? Faster boats, actually designed for asymmetric spinnakers, don't fare so well goosewinging. It generally is something to be tried on a small lake in dispair when the race officer has set YET ANOTHER dead run in almost no wind!

We had an RS200 for 3 years and the boat was much faster goosewinged in the light stuff but at the time this was banned for the big circuit events as the assy mode gave more tactical downwind racing.

We won the Grafam Assy Shoot-out in the 200 in light winds because of this - beat a few Cherubs over the water as well ...

Rick

 

The 16 Foot Skiffs, by the way, used the detachable-forestay jibe like the maxis in the SA link above, when they had old-style single-luff flat-cut assys hanging off a conventional pole.

Assys are definitely faster square running in boats that are fast enough to get the apparent forward, in part because you avoid the problem of the excess leach curve in a symmetrical kite on a reach. The handling benefits are obvious to anyone who used a conventional pole on an old-style 18.

Originally posted by redback Let's face it the symetrical kite does not increase the speed much unless you sail high enough that the pole has to be against the forestay.  So you might as well use an asymetric and sail a boat which is optimised for one.

There is no doubt an assymmetric is faster on a reach, but why not try goose-swinging on the runs for max VMG? I've found this works very well in a comet trio, ( http://fotoboat.thirdlight.com/viewpicture.tlx?pictureid=323 4690&offset=33 ) and was pretty impressive in a laser sb3 - although we only managed to set it correctly once and were towing the helm at the time so didn't quite reach the usual mach 3 - but it showed potential.