Thrashing Potter Cove

 A couple years ago, I was sorting through sails from my parents old Tanzer 22 and came across a spinnaker that was unfamiliar. Looking closer, I realized it was an old cruising asymmetrical, specifically a Thurston Thrasher (Thurston sails is now part of Quantum). I don't recall ever using it, nor seeing my dad use it. We always raced with the traditional symmetricals. I figured it would be perfect for Salty Beach, which lacks the hardware for a spinnaker pole, and would be easier to rig for short-handed sailing. I decided to try it on the next outing.

Today was that day. It was drifter conditions, which was perfect for experimenting with the chute. Thankfully, I have two masthead halyards. The further forward of which I used for this spinnaker. It had a spliced tack line and, curiously, a single bronze hank near the tack. I figured the bronze hank was simply to stabilize the tack by clipping to the forestay, so I attached it. I failed to think through this though, and I ran my sheets to gybe it inside, but forward of the forestay, like we usually did on Floating Point (which has a sprit pole). On the Tanzer, it probably would have been gybed through the foretriangle like a genoa, but the Tanzer has a masthead rig. Salty Beach is fractional, so with the spinnaker on a masthead halyard I couldn't do that. Gybing it inside caused the sail to twist around this hank. There are two obvious solutions to this: either rig the sheets to gybe outside (i.e. sheets forward of the tack/luff, or simply don't attach the hank. Given that outside gybes sometimes result in sheets dragging under the boat, I think I'll try just not attaching the hank next time and see if it's stable enough.

Enough about the spinnaker though, it ultimately worked great and got us a bit faster to our destination: Potter Cove in Jamestown for a swim. Upon arrival in the cove, we anchored after letting the keel touch bottom. It was about six feet deep. My daughter and I grabbed dive masks and jumped in to clean the boat and explore. We found some hermit crabs and fish. I love that she loves diving as much as I do. The breeze was so light we opted to motor-sail back. We got a nice close view of a 12-meter on the way back.

A little time-lapse video of the day is included at the bottom.







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