Hobie 18 Spinnaker Group Buy Feeler, Any Interest?

Love the toilet seat.

My spinnakers came it and we got them out sailing this past weekend. We have 2 boats, One is my wife's and the other mine. I rigged them both, simply for now. Bag launch from a duffle bag on the tramp. Found 2 aluminum poles, put some Hobie 14 mast tangs on them and off we went.

My wife and I sailed my boat first to see how it all worked. Wow, what a difference. We were smoking down wind. This is in about 10 knots of wind. We were very close to flying a hull down wind. Probably could have with a little more practice on my part. However, I wanted to make sure nothing broke so I played it safe.

So we get back in and my wife wants her boat launched. We had invited a neighbor to go sailing who had never sailed before. They go out and first thing they do is hoist the spinnaker. When I ordered the spinnakers, I did not tell my wife, I figured she wouldn't really care if she had one or not. I guess I was wrong. They make the boat so much more exciting that they are just fun to play with. So far the problem with them seems to be you go so far down wind so fast, that it takes a long time to sail that distance back up wind.

If you have been sitting on the fence regarding getting a spinnaker for your 18, wait no more. I should have done this 30 some odd years ago.

So what you're saying is that the ladies dig a guy with a spinnakerd out 18...?

They should add a chapter in these counseling books titled "The value of a spinnaker in your relationship"

So we are finally racing the boats this weekend, weather dependent.... I got to test mine recently but it was in super light air and was hard to learn much about trimming the sail. We should be taking a lot of photos so stay tuned.

It's not quite the total mess I expected when trying to take the sail down and swapping the sail over was pretty uneventful when jibing as well so all's well with the setup at the moment.

How long is your spin sheet?
I swapped out my spinsheet and replaced it with an old mainsheet....which may be too long.
I'm trying to get some extra length so we can run the spin from the wings.

thanks

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2015 H16, with spin,
SOLD 1989 Hobie SX18 Sail # 1947 "In Theory..."
'Only two things are infinite, the universe, and human stupidity. But I'm not sure about the former.'

I'll measure it when I get home. I had no reference when cutting it to length. I just guessed the most I should be able to ease the sheet and added a little for if I was trapped. I had intended on saving the extra I cut off and left on my trailer in case I wanted to splice on some extra but someone must have been desperate for 15 feet of spin sheet and ran off with it. Dang spinnaker sheet knomes.

I have mine rigged with the 2 main blocks on the shroud anchor and turning blocks on the front beam going back to a block on shock cord central on the rear lacing of the tramp.

Old mainsheet? Isn't that a little heavy/thick for a spinnaker sheet?

I was thinking the same thing. My spin sheet is some lightweight non water absorbing stuff that's quite a bit thinner than my jib sheet.

Just measured my spin sheet and its 50' 6". I'm pretty happy with that because the Tiger uses 51'.

Well I didn't end up getting any pictures. I planned on taking some after the race but I broke my spin pole 30 seconds after putting the spin up in medium air. As I learned since, Dyneema is a low friction material and knots are known to pull loose. Well that's exactly what happened to my port bridle line for the pole. I had drilled a hole in the lip of the hull and put the line through and tied one figure 8 stopper knot. It held in light air put the knot just came undone once the load increased. I know now I should have tied 2 or 3 knots to prevent this. Live and learn I guess. Gotta hunt down another wind surfer mast now.

I would suggest moving your bridle line for the spin to hook up to the metal fuller bridle mount.



Pulling on the lip does not sound like a good idea to me.

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Corkguy H18, Tiger, Wildcat

Yea I kinda agree. It's down off the point of the boat and you get a better angle to the pole tip. The other 2 boats with the spins at the club did the same thing. I think you can go either way and be fine. The hole on mine is drilled pretty close to the crook of the lip so it's not exactly trying to pry on it ya know.

How about using the pin of the shackle in place of the clevis pin?
How about making up spin bridle sets in wire?
I'll try and get pictures this weekend of my set up.

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2015 H16, with spin,
SOLD 1989 Hobie SX18 Sail # 1947 "In Theory..."
'Only two things are infinite, the universe, and human stupidity. But I'm not sure about the former.'

So I finally got to run the spinnaker with my home made snuffer bag in decent air at the Rudder Club labor day regatta this weekend. I forgot to take a picture of my boat before putting it on the trailer but here are the other 2 boats that have them letting them dry after a rain storm soaked everything.

Once you have the spin up there is sweet spot of trim you have to find to get it to all take a set and curl the luff but once you do it's like hitting the afterburner. We almost went over a few times but I managed to turn down just in time, which is a really effective way of depowering. Once I felt how much control of the power I had with the tiller it didn't feel so dangerous to hand the spin sheet to the crew.

One thing I learned was to always have one of my feet standing on the hiking strap because if it starts to go over and you pull the tiller it will just pull your body towards the tramp and make you fly a hull even more. Once I was prepared for the large pulses of power that happen it was game on.

There are some specific fine tuning details on getting the snuffer to work smoothly. For one, when using the single line system for the halyard and tack you must make sure the halyard line does not have too much slack when fully hoisted. If you have some wind set the sail on the beach and make sure the halyard/recovery line allows the sail to fill without distortion from the recovery line then give yourself like an extra few feet or so. If you have extra line, when you blow the halyard out of the cleat to douse the whole sail will just fall off to leward and more or less land in the water while you slowly bunch it up with the recovery line and then try to jam the whole mess in at once.

If the line is the proper length it gradually lets the head of the sail down as you are feeding slack up to it from the recovery line and it will go into the snuffer waaaaaay better. We had to all but abandon one of the races because the whole spin was just a mess around the pole because it just fell all over everything when we did a late douse when rounding the mark. Doing it while still going downwind gives much more control but you lose a little time...but not as much as spending a minute standing on the bow of the boat messing with a tangled spin sail.

I'll be running it at the Joanas and 50/50 race up near Navarre beach the next two weekends with new crew so this should be interesting..

This is what emailed to the race comity last weekend. From the NOR
2.2 Regarding boats sailing in the Portsmouth divisions, Any boat having modification(s) which require change(s) to the boat’s Portsmouth Number must provide a list of all such modification(s) and the required Portsmouth correction(s) to the Race Committee in writing prior to the start of the competitor’s briefing.

Hello ____,
I’m not sure who to email on the race committee so I hope you can except this or forward.

I have entered in the Richmond Multihull Regatta in Portsmouth Division 2 greater than 69 class. My H18 SX has a couple of modifications that I should disclose. First I use a SLO jib (same size, cut and similar material as OEM) the main sail is a Hobie Tiger which is 28sq ft larger than the stock H18 SX and is made of similar material. I have also upgraded my spinnaker from a tramp launch to a Hobie Tiger snuffer system. The spinnaker is a Hobie 21m and it’s about the same size (within 1 meter) as the H18 SX stock spinnaker.

This is the same setup that I used for the Delta Ditch Run this year.

Cheers,

I gave them a 70.1 for my rating.

I may have taken a few liberties with my entry. But hey when your the only H18 at an event why not!!! We had the Spin up in 4 of the 7 races. In the afternoon races the wind had increased into the upper teens and we didn't want to go swimming. All in all it was a fun learning experience.
We might try it again this coming weekend at the Sharkfeed Regatta if were again the lone 18. But I might have to revert it back to the stock H18 SX main and jib to get it past the PRO. Or if a number of 18's show up we will change the rig to a standard H18. http://www.regattanetwork.com/event/13341

It may not be fast but I like the look. Black is slimming.

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Corkguy H18, Tiger, Wildcat