RS400 Spinnaker rigging

· Through the forward block on the floor to starboard of the mast step.

· Through the cleat and block on the forward starboard side of the

· Through a block tied on to the aft, starboard toe strap bar.

· Through a block tied to the aft, port toe strap bar.

Its all good upto the last two points where I don't have the blocks in the aft of the boat to thread through. Now, i can simply get some more and re-fit, but why are these not there? Is this a standard modification to RS400's? if so, why?

Thanks in advance

You've basically got two choices here Wes.

1. get two small blocks, attach one to each aft toe strap bar, then thread your halyard (under the thwart!) back through both these blocks, then forward again and onto the kite retreival patch.

2. cut 5 foot (ish) off your halyard, and once it's gone through the block on the fwd stbd side of the centreboard case attach it straight to the kite.

The advantage of number 1 is that it does produce a slightly smoother system (difficult to explain why but it makes hoists a bit easier).

The big disadvantage to number 1 is that the helm will stand on it (they say they wont but they do!). When you start sailing the 4 you will frequently see boats planing into the leeward mark with the helm yelling at the crew to get the kite down while he has his size 12 boot firmly on the halyard :-)

I would go for option 2.

BTW the helm never hoists the kite, even if the halyard is lead aft.

Yep, they do (and I used to, from the back of a fireball) but I agree with you, at the windward mark the helm needs to have his head OUT of the boat.

in my experience, approaching w/w mark, helm & crew agree gybe set vs bear away. Once you've gone round the mark the helm really needs to be looking for boats / gusts / shifts etc and the crews job is to get the kite up and pulling quick sharp.. the last place you want the helm looking is down at a halyard when there are lots of places to be made / lost!

In the 400 it's set up for the crew to hoist but the helm still usually does the pole twinner.

yep, can see that working well, especially as you can get the pole launched safely before the bear away, unless it's really howling or you're on another boats transom.

But generally on approach helm is easing kicker / playing with rig tension / trying not to hit anyone (maybe even looking upwind at the breeze if you're lucky)... so I would tend to leave this responsibility with the crew unless they are particularly feeble!