Maintaining an hourglass-shaped balloon and ratcheting up the log numbers
When I got Karima, she was a hard-worked racing yacht with a full set of sails, including three coloured ones, which have had very little use since.
I did have a notion in the early days that having my husband, Philip, crewing meant he could helm while I messed about on the foredeck (this was before I realised he was a Non-Sailing Spouse). The spinnaker is a beautiful rainbow-striped one, and I didn’t think I could work with it single-handed, so taking him out was my chance to try it.
I didn’t have experience with yacht spinnakers. Some 20 years before, as a teenager, I’d crewed in a Hornet dinghy which involved handling a spinnaker from a trapeze. I put up the pole, my helm, Colin, hoisted it from aft, and then I simultaneously swung myself out and got it flying. It was a very satisfying feeling. I didn’t see why a yacht spinnaker should be any more difficult–easier, in fact, as you’d have both feet flat on the deck, instead of being suspended from a wire. Hook the pole on to the mast, shove it out continuing the line of the boom, rough-fix uphaul, downhaul and guy. At this point, Philip began to get restive. “I don’t think we should be doing this. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“I do,” I replied soothingly, and hoisted the spinnaker behind the jib. “It’s not working, it’s just hanging,” said the apprentice crew from the tiller. I came back into the cockpit and got him sitting down before hauling on the sheet. Behold, a beautifully curved half-balloon blossomed out in front of us. The helm lightened, and the log numbers shot up.
“We’re going far too fast,” said he-who-might-be-obeyed on land, if the cats and I feel like it.
In short, he got so worried about it, even though it was flying perfectly, that in consideration of his nerves, I dropped it at least a mile sooner than I needed to, and after that, our excursions together were white sails only.
That was before I started crewing on Contessa 32 Cynara, and discovered what a fully-trained crew of several strong people can do with a spinnaker. Over the years we’ve had wraps, a rip (luckily it was Joe’s old one), a broach which looked dreadful but saved Cynara from grounding on the Blade sandbank, and a whole leg, gybe and another leg with the spinnaker filling in an hour-glass shape. I’m only sorry I wasn’t aboard for the Force 5 duel between Joe and Peter o’ the Kn
