Adrio,
You have several options. The later one you described is called a sock and is not very popular on beach cats. The best way to go is with either a midpole or end pole snuffer. This is the design you described where the holding sock is mounted under the spin pole and there is a ring attached either in the middle or at the end of the pole that colapses the chute and guides it into the sock. I personally prefer the mid pole snuffer on my 18 because I think it is easier to launch/retrieve. Other people prefer the end pole set up because they think it is easier to launch/retieve. The equipment you will need is a snuffer hoop, snuffer sock, and a retievel set up. You will need to have snuffer patches added to your spin. There will be a total of three patches on the chute. If you had just one in the cent of the chute you will find that the center of the chute will get to the back of the bag while there is still sail hanging out. Any sailmaker can ad the snuffer patches and it should cost about 100 dollars or less. The way we run our set up is with a seperate guy line that runs from the tack of the sail, through a block on the end of the pole, and back to a cleat on the front cross bar. The spin halyard would need to be lengthened and we run it from the head to the halyard block on the mast, down the mast to a cleat, through a turning block on the front cross bar, back a foot or two on tramp to another turning block, toward the center of the boat a foot or so, through another turning block back toward the front, under the tramp, through the back of the snuffer sock, and then through the snuffer patches tieing off at the top snuffer patch. For launch the crew pulls the guy until the chute reaches the end of the pole and then he pulls the halyard until the sail is up and away we go. For the douse he uncleats the layard and pulls the halyard from the sock side once the sail is as far as it will go into the bag he releases the guy and pulls in the last couple of feet. Some of the end pole snuffer designs leave the tack of the sail attached to the end of the pole so there is no guy to be pulled, just the halyard. I prefer to be able to adjust my guy in case I want to get a little more rotation out of the spin. Hope this helps.
|