Another question, spinnakers , alt/assym/sym

Admittedly I've not tried to master the handling of a kite on a single hander but on two person one wire boats both assy. & sym. the kite adds a whole heap of stability off wind.  

I know on the Contender there a very busy point of sail between power reaching and deep running that it can get very squirrelly. With a kite up that point becomes a lovely easy series of flowing S curves.

First post on this forum but this thread was brought to my attention through FB.

I was the builder and first owner of Farr 3.7 #385. The one with the green gennaker in the video on page 8. Although that is the second owner sailing the boat in that clip.

I built it early 2003 from the class association molds with the intention to run it both in class as a fully measured 3.7, mainsail only, but also with provision to run a fixed prod and gennaker. The inspiration was boat #376, a carbon/foam boat with prod and gennaker built by my then employer Alex at C-Tech.

#385 is fibreglass/epoxy/foam sandwich and came out well under weight. This was a bit of a problem as with the maximum allowable corrector weight on the bulkhead it still was 3kg under. At the 2003 3.7class NZ nationals and AGM it was discussed (#376 carbon boat had the same issue) and agreed we could make up the weight with lead equally distributed inside the prod socket and on the rudder gantry. Hence why #376 was named Lead Mine.

I sailed it in class spec for a season before finishing the gennaker system. I was offered a gennaker made from leftover material by Chris Skinner at Fyfe sails in Auckland. There was no choice, Green it was. It cost me a box of Steinlager. I think Chris should have asked for more.

The gennaker was stowed in a sock on the foredeck reaching back into the cockpit with a continuous halyard retrieval system. I created a new snout that allowed the gennaker to be set and retrieved on either tack under the forestay.

I only once sailed against #376 in gennaker mode and that boat was clearly quicker. I think a slightly more open leech. Mine was a bit choked, but I was also the lighter sailor. 

The boat was much more stable downwind, much less inclined to nosedive and significantly quicker than without the gennaker. I found that with the main backing from the kite I could sail controlling only the gennaker sheet without the main in hand a lot of the time. I could stand further forward on the trapeze. Gybing could at times be a bit messier but not that difficult. I found retrieving the kite was the hardest. Impossible to do from the wire as it required standing in the boat and these boats are not the most stable. So setting up for a mark rounding took a bit more planning and precision.

I did sail against other 3.7's in informal races and the gennaker clearly showed it's advantage downwind. I let a few other people sail the boat and they were generally impressed.

In terms of allowing it as part of the class the only solution I could see was a class split which is not what the class needed. It was fun for mucking about and learning (I was also sailing 12ft skiffs at the time) But it was impractical for existing boats to retrofit a system like this and add unnecessary complexity to a class that is already challenging to sail.

I sold #385 in 2006 before travelling to the UK and Spain to work on AC and Open60 projects as well as a small stint with Kevin Ellway on one of his skiff projects and shore crew for Pindar.

I have done little sailing since, I do miss that boat though. Lots of good memories.

 

Hope that info is applicable to this thread.

Cheers,

Neil.