Pegasus Spinnaker

Post your requirements here
Mark Jones
Posts: 25
Joined: Wed Jun 10, 2009 7:37 am

Re: Pegasus Spinnaker

Post by Mark Jones »

Ed are you thinking of back to the good old days? Dinghy sailing with 2 kites rigged? I remember that from early days of sailing scorpions in the mid 70s, it did make it interesting if you put the wrong one up on a tight reach!

Cheers
Mark
User avatar
Ed
Site Admin
Posts: 3486
Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 10:11 pm
Location: Plymouth
Contact:

Re: Pegasus Spinnaker

Post by Ed »

Well I have certainly considered that yes....

but in the end thought it would most probably be easier to have just the balloon kite and use it for straight down-wind legs and then just 2-sail it for the reaches.

The thing is the Jollyboat is dead fast on a two sail reach, especially if it is windy or lots of waves. In fact waves is the big thing, they just pick up the slightest bit of swell and surf away, so it is easier to just steer from wave to wave with 2 sails. But if you try this with 3 sails (you have to be good, really good, which I am just not), you have to be continually adjusting guy/pole height as well as sheet, which, as I said before is really very hard work due to the narrowness of the boat leading to some pretty hefty sheet weights. It is just very hard work. So certainly possible with a good regular heavyweight crew, but otherwise.....2 sail reaches tend to be faster in waves/wind.

But straight downwind.....well a balloon kite wouldn't be impossible and could just get you enough speed to lift the hull a bit and get you going, rather than getting stuck, which can easily happen in lower winds straight downwind.

But as we are digressing....

If you are going to carry another sail.....I would be tempted by carrying a full size light-weight loose luffed genoa. The full-size allowed for the Jollyboat is 72sqft, but my father and I used to sail with a drifter-genoa made from spinnaker cloth, which was very effective on a broad reach in low winds. You couldn't go upwind with it....and you didn't try, but for crusiing it was so much easier and just as effective as a symetrical spinnaker.

I have often in my sillier moments (the minisail guys know about these) thought that it would be fun to take this to extremes and rig a full mast-head stem-to-stern overlapping Code Zero on a roller-reefer and sail angles, with just enough pressure to keep crew on the wire.

But sorry, really getting off the point now and since I don't seem to have any possible crew for the Jolly at moment....this all seems pretty irrelevant.

On the other hand, some will be happy to know that I went and got the Holt IC today, so will start getting that ready for events this year, which in tandem with the minisprint, should mean that I have a boat for all conditions.

God, I have really taken this thread way off topic....sorry.

Anybody know a moderator...

oh don't start

eib
Ed Bremner
CVRDA


Jollyboat J3
Firefly F2942
IC GBR314 ex S51 - 1970 Slurp
MR 638 - Please come and take it away
Phelps Scull
Bathurst Whiff - looking for someone to love it
User avatar
Ed
Site Admin
Posts: 3486
Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 10:11 pm
Location: Plymouth
Contact:

Re: Pegasus Spinnaker

Post by Ed »

@jpa_wfsc

Yeah true.....but I guess when I say downwind, I mean close to downwind....and at that angle where you just start to pick up some pressure and have to bear away. But with a big balloon....this will only be 10-5 degrees off downwind?? But certainly not straight downwind.

cheers

eib
Ed Bremner
CVRDA


Jollyboat J3
Firefly F2942
IC GBR314 ex S51 - 1970 Slurp
MR 638 - Please come and take it away
Phelps Scull
Bathurst Whiff - looking for someone to love it
Rupert
Posts: 6255
Joined: Thu Sep 16, 2004 8:40 pm
Location: Cotswold Water Park

Re: Pegasus Spinnaker

Post by Rupert »

If you are brave enough to put it up in 18 knots of breeze, say, then the big kite will blow you down wind good and quick! Probably rip the mast out of the boat, too, but I'm pretty sure the extra distance sailed by reaching with a smaller kite won't be worth it...

Just wash your wetsuit out well after!
Rupert
User avatar
Ed
Site Admin
Posts: 3486
Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 10:11 pm
Location: Plymouth
Contact:

Re: Pegasus Spinnaker

Post by Ed »

too true!

:)
Ed Bremner
CVRDA


Jollyboat J3
Firefly F2942
IC GBR314 ex S51 - 1970 Slurp
MR 638 - Please come and take it away
Phelps Scull
Bathurst Whiff - looking for someone to love it
JimC
Posts: 1721
Joined: Sun Oct 03, 2004 10:24 pm
Location: Surrey
Contact:

Re: Pegasus Spinnaker

Post by JimC »

Dead downwind is always going to be slow in any boat in any circumstances. Heck, even 12 metres gybe downwind. Look at the polar diagrams in Bethwaite and you'll see that even spinnaker less boats like the Tasar or keelboats like the Soling get their best vmg off a dead run.

But for most Northern hemisphere classes the problem is not the kite but the pole - so often ridiculously short which means that the kite and jiob can't help but interfere. Put a sensible length pole on (at least 1.5 * J ad as near 2 as you can manage, and a kite can be cut that will shy reach adequately and broad reach beautifully.
User avatar
Ed
Site Admin
Posts: 3486
Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 10:11 pm
Location: Plymouth
Contact:

Re: Pegasus Spinnaker

Post by Ed »

@jimC makes a lot of sense.

eib
Ed Bremner
CVRDA


Jollyboat J3
Firefly F2942
IC GBR314 ex S51 - 1970 Slurp
MR 638 - Please come and take it away
Phelps Scull
Bathurst Whiff - looking for someone to love it
alan williams
Posts: 1650
Joined: Thu Sep 16, 2004 10:44 pm
Location: Devon

Re: Pegasus Spinnaker

Post by alan williams »

Hi
And then Uffa Fox went really stupid and put a Mirror sized kite on the Swordfish.
Enough said.
Al
JimC
Posts: 1721
Joined: Sun Oct 03, 2004 10:24 pm
Location: Surrey
Contact:

Re: Pegasus Spinnaker

Post by JimC »

alan williams wrote:And then Uffa Fox went really stupid and put a Mirror sized kite on the Swordfish.
You have to deal with your customers as you find them, not how you'd like them to be. And kites could be pigs to handle back in those days before decent systems were worked out. I can easily imagine a pocket handkerchief being a better seller.
Don't forget the designer of a prospective one design class, instead of having the reasonably easy task of designing a faster boat, has the much more challenging job of working out what will sell best...
Last edited by JimC on Fri May 25, 2012 1:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Rupert
Posts: 6255
Joined: Thu Sep 16, 2004 8:40 pm
Location: Cotswold Water Park

Re: Pegasus Spinnaker

Post by Rupert »

Do you know whether it was Uffa put the kite on at that size, or whether it was Fairey? It could be that, as Jim says, Fairey Marine felt it would sell better like that. After all, when they produced the Alb, they scrapped the kite completely.
Rupert
User avatar
PeterV
Posts: 1233
Joined: Thu Sep 16, 2004 8:47 pm
Location: Locks Heath, Hampshire

Re: Pegasus Spinnaker

Post by PeterV »

Ed is right to say that it's not worth flying a spinnaker on a reach. The Uffa Fox boats were of their time, and didn't have enough stability to carry a spin on a reach, so large downwind kites made sense. The Mercury was the same but update a few years and a Lark has much firmer bilges aft and will carry it's spinnaker very effectively on a reach (although it's still very small). Looking at the shape of the hull gives a clue, soft bilges = don't bother reaching with a spin. Hard bilges are much better. The boat that best proves this is a Scorpion, they manage to carry a very large spinnaker on a hiking boat and go very fast on a 3 sail reach.
PeterV
Finn K197 & GBR564
Warsash
Post Reply