... The floater works well because you can pull the sail aft
without much risk of it going in the water.


Nav wrote:
I've never done a drop like this single handed.

I have.


... I'm not sure how well it
would work.

It works great if 1- you can keep the sail floating (ie filled instead
of drooping into the water) and 2- can keep control of the halyard so
that it comes down only slightly faster than you can gather

... I always thought that for a floater drop you over trim with
a tight foot gathing the leech and don't release the pole until it
is well on board.

You can do it that way if you can grab the sheet singlehanded and bring
it aft to the point where you're going to gather and stuff.

This can result in the spinnaker getting all snarled up in the bag and
making your next set a nightmare. I like to set it up (if possible) so
that the first thing you stuff into the bag is going to be the last
thing you drag out on the next set.

... The pole stops it dropping in the water... Doug,
is this really a good method for a single handed crew? How big is this
spinnaker?

Well, I've done it on a couple of times on a ~40 footer... didn't work
perfectly every time but worked better than some other methods I tried.

Fresh Breezes- Doug King