Joe wrote:
Cool looking boats Doug.


Oh yes, they're classics... gorgeous!
A competitive one is very expensive though.

Question, I've never flown a spinnaker, looked at similar sized boats
last night that were flying spinnakers. Some had spinnaker poles, some
did not.

Now my bow is to small for anyone to stand and attach a pole, do the
small boats have a block and tackle that pull the pole up to the mast?.
or do they just keep the pole attached to the mast?


All kinds of ways to rig it. What I'd suggest, especially if
you're going to singlehand, is a one-ended pole on what we
used to call a flying tail-line (the same rig is used a lot
now, but I am not sure what they call it):

One end of the pole is the same, a clip for holding the
spinnaker guy. The other end is fastened to a shock cord
which leads down thru a retainer ring, and the "flying" line
which runs up to a block on the forward side of the mast
somewhere above the gooseneck... where the ring would
normally be for a double ended pole. To set it, you clip the
guy into the outer end of the pole, and pull the flying line
so that the inner end of the pole is snugged up to the
block. To gybe, ease the flying line out enough that you can
reach & unclip the guy.... gybe... then clip the new guy on
and pull the flying line again.

The shock cord can either pull the pole back along the boom
to stow there, which works pretty well on most boats except
that you don't want the weight there in really light air. Or
you can lead it down to the mast butt and let the pole stow
vertically along the mast, which works well if the pole is
short (like a 470). Wish I had a few pictures since that
would explain it much more clearly.


What I can not understand is why there are ZERO skiffs here. I've never
seen a skiff here in Texas...ever .....and we have a huge concentration
of boats here.

A nice skiff would leave everything on the lake way behind.


Skiffs have not caught on in the U.S. American sailors would
rather putter around in boats designed in the 1930s and are
not interested in progress. In fact when we were trying to
promote the Johnson 18 class, we heard a lot of sailors in
other classes telling outrageous lies about what an awful
boat it was, so they didn't have to feel bad about sticking
religiously to their outdated clunkers.

A few people (very few, but the numbers are growing) are
ignoring this head-in-the-sand attitude and someday we will
have a few modern classes in the U.S. Personally I would
like to see it sooner rather than later.

Fresh Breezes- Doug King