How do use these connectors on my spinnaker?

[zeroready]

Just pulled it out of the bag for the first time, there is one of these at each corner and the head of the sail, also at the ends of the sheets and the halyard, no other hardware found. Am I supposed to use a snaplink to connect them all together or something else? Thanks!

[tomodda]

Those are sisterclips. You slide them together at 90° to each other, slot to slot.

Tom

[zeroready]

Well kiss my uncle Roy it worked. Never would have thought of that thanks!

[GreenLake]

The neat thing about sisterclips is that you can tie the two sheets together. For example, if you need to set the spinnaker from the opposite side of where you had planned, you take them off, attach them to each other and pull the sheet around to the other side, then move the sail bag there and reconnect.

[zeroready]

Nice. I really appreciate their simplicity and lack of moving parts to rust/jam/break.

Quick question about the spinnaker on the daysailer. Is it possible to douse it and then hoist it again? I mean the first time it's hoisted, it's coming out of the bag that it's been carefully packed into. Then I douse it, it's all pilled up on the deck. At best I can gather it all up and throw it in the cuddy just stuffed back in the bag quickly. What if I want to raise it again? Greenlake I read your post about flying it, yours is flown from a plastic tub in the cockpit. Is it just loosely piled in there, sort of arranged so it hoists properly? Using that instead of a bag can it be doused and hoisted again later? Can the sheets stay connected the whole time or do they come off the sail when it's in the tub?

[tomodda]

Is your Uncle Roy a looker? Single? How's his cooking?

Glad I could help though!

Tom

[tomodda]

Also, all kidding aside, the answer to your dousing/rehoisting question is "Yes." As long as you keep the 3 corners organized (lines running cleanly to the next block), then you can and do just "stuff" the middle of the spinnaker into the basket. It'll shake itself out at next hoist. Main thing to be careful is not to swap port and starboard sheets in the basket, keep the star sheet running out to the right, port to the left. Otherwise, you'll have a gawd awful twist when you hoist again, you'll curse yourself for ever having taken to sailing, and maybe even leave your Uncle Roy. Not good!

Tom

[GreenLake]

Quick question about the spinnaker on the DaySailer. Is it possible to douse it and then hoist it again?

The simple answer is "yes".

When dousing, I stuff the spinnaker in its tub, starting with a point near the center. They key thing is to leave the three attachment points out, and preferably not too tangled. Obviously, the tub (square bucket) being stiff has an advantage: you can stuff the spinnaker with one hand, you don't need the other hand to hold up the edge of a soft bag. (Or you can use the second hand to grab more spinnaker). The tub I use is a square bucket; that's what our cat litter came in before we switched to the brand with the cardboard packaging. I'd assume a 5-gal paint drum would work just as well.

I have it sitting in the area where the forward end of the cockpit disappears into the cuddy (on a DS1). While sailing upwind, it's pushed forward a bit, out of the way, but for the hoist, I pull it back a bit. But it sits on the cockpit floor, not the deck. Seems to work fine for me, so I've never given it another thought.

[GreenLake]

Looks like Tom and I were writing our replies at the same time As usual, we agree on the main points.

One other thing to note is that if you know which gybe you'll be on when you hoist it the next time, you might try to go on that gybe for the douse, so everything is ready. Otherwise, you'll need to get good use out of your sister clips. . .