Next year buy - JIB OR Spinnaker

Well our year is almost done. Had a great time on the wave.

Need some pros and cons

1. Spinnaker
2. Jib

I sail in light winds with family and in heavy winds 15 kts by my self but any bigger ask someone to be my ballast.

We are on a lake with small to big waves.

So looking for something to help out and have some more fun.. thanks

Or any other ideas would be great.

Thanks

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I've got both the spinnaker and jib. I use the jib every time I sail regardless of the winds. It is useful on all points of sail, its easy to set up, easy to use solo, and gives some extra power.
The spinnaker is only good down wind, deck launching is a hassle (dousing is worse), in higher winds it's a handful (I added ratcheting blocks and a larger diameter sheet), its a pain to setup and hard to use solo. I'm glad I have it (craigslist special I only paid $350), but I use it infrequently and I really need to fabricate a pole launch system.
In my opinion the answer is clear: Jib

I am also thinking about a jib and I heard that one problem is that you can't apply much pressure on the luff because the bar bends. Can you just add a pair of bridle wires and adapt the jib to anchor off them instead of the spreader bar? Would that improve the jib setup or not make any difference?

I did this, and I'm happy with the result. I've heard of people breaking their spreader bars, so I did this.

I also added a vertical wire from these jib bridles up to the bottom of my forestay so that I can attach the jib to it with hanks. This gives me better sail shape on my jib. If you do this, make sure that you don't make this vertical wire tight, because you don't want to transfer the mast load to this wire. The angle that these jib bridles attach on the bridle eyestraps is wrong. Leaving this vertical wire just a little loose will assure that the mast load stays on the mast bridle wires where it belongs.
Also, do this at your own risk, as I doubt this is approved by Hobie.

Here's a pic of what I did:




Jim

nice Hammbone,
I too added a bridal and extra hanks to the jib, however my hanks stop at the bottom of the forestay. In addition I made my jib sheet into a 2:1 system. To make the 2:1 I added a eye-strap to the bottom of the jib blocks and tied (actually I made an eye splice in the rope) the sheet to that. The sheet runs from the eye-strap to a pulley at the jib and back through the jib cleat at which point it runs across the tramp and through the other cleat up to the second jib pulley and back to the jib cleat where it terminates with an eye splice at the second eye-strap on the jib block. I stole the idea from the Aussie wave sailor (his name escapes me at this time). I can easily pull the jib tight with the 2:1.