Kite wraps...

don't know if you were joking about passing sheet to helm or not but what my crew does is come in to the boat and then stand on the sheet before pulling the kite down.

saw it on higher and faster - which is well worth a view if you haven't seen it.

BOABS

I recently changed the kite on my Cherub for a much better one but I am regulalrly (40% of hoists) having a problem with the top 18" to 2 ' being in a wrap.  It starts at the halyard block and goes downwards...it does not look like an "hourglass" at all with any filling of the wrapped bit, it's just a thin twisted mess.  This never happened with my tatty old kite.

The boat-'05 rules Cherub, carbon mast, internal halyard (apart from the last 2' or so), that is a one-string system and this is the only bit of string in the mast (no jib or main halyards).  Kite is a Hyde RS800 running at masthead height.  It has a bobble at the top of the halyard to try and allow it to spin if required.  Halyard is untapered 4mm or 5mm (not sure which but "standard" size control line) excel pro (don't think it's dyneema).

No amount of yanking on sheets or dropping a bit and re-hoisting will sort this, sometimes a well executed gybe might do.  I have tried EVERYTHING, the only thing I was going to do was alter the tension in the luff line, theory being that it seems quite happy with the twist, where if there were big differences between luff and leech tension it might be more willing to unwrap.

Other idea was to taper the halyard in some way, I'm sure I've seen 800s with the tapered (thin) bit being at the top of the halyard, with (somewhat surprisingly) the untaperd (fat) bit going up to the patches on the downhaul end of the halyard.  I guess the tapered bit might be happier to rotate, and I'm also guessing the taper wants to stop about 2' from where it exits the bottom of the mast.

Any sensible ideas or thoughts anyone?