I have sort of followed this thread from the begining of the month.
Apart from one entry about stopper knots jamming in natural fiberlines
that get wet. There has been no argument against them with which I agree.

If you are racing, under most conditions you are effectively short
handed (or at least there is something more important to do that manage
a now lazy sheet). The one good way to douse a spinnaker is to start by
letting the halyard run. The only attention it should need then is to
be sure it doesn't foul. This is one place where you want a stopper but
not at the end because it may actually slide on a dacron halyard, so set
it a foot or so up from the end. The sheets should be two boats long,
so even letting it run during a douse you should not get to the stopper.
No stopper means you are willing to let the halyard go up the mast or
the sheet run around (it now has to be handled by the chute retriever
and will end up wet over move of its length as it got pulled clear as
soon as it touched the water) and now will have to be rerigged for the
next leg. I see no advantage here.

If you are cruising, even if you get behind the situation, I can see no
good reason to let a sheet or a halyard run free to clear. If things
need to be dealt that fast, you maybe should be letting halyards run.
If anything runs clear of its leads, you have now lost any opportunity
you may have had to regain control of the situation any time soon.

This is just the result of fifty plus years a waterman and competitive
sailor aboard things betweent Dyer Midgets to a 90ton fishing schooner
(powered vessle time not included in this discussion).

Matt Colie
Lifelong Waterman, Licensed Mariner and Perpetual Sailor





DARat wrote:
I'm having a hard time with no stopper knots in spinnaker sheets/guys as you
may wish to let them fly "presumably" in emergency. I'll counter that with if the sheets
run out on a spinnaker then you've got a rather large flag flying from the top of your
mast....or at least 3/4 if your fractional rigged. I can't imagine that being any
better than stopped sheets run all the way out, and having someone with a bit of
foresight to release the halyard...at least that way you can recover the spin from the
bottom.

If things it too far beyond that, you can always cut away the lines...

Comments?