Spinnaker Bits

Hi

I've been given some bits from another Mirror and am half way to having a spinnaker kit it seems.
What I got was:
A mast with a couple of clips on the front (presumably to store the pole) and the attachment for the pole end; also the pulley system on the mast head for the spinnaker halyard.
A pole, with spring-loaded clips on the ends and another pole attached via a swivel at the mid point (no idea what this bit is for).
There are various pulleys and cleats available although I didn't take them yet as I wanted to work out what other bits were needed.

Can anyone point me to a list of bits that make up the spinnaker kit and instructions on how to put it all together?

We're just club racing our boat occasionally for fun but we need the extra grunt of the spinnaker now.

Cheers
Paul

It's hard to tell what you've got without seeing pictures. The first pole you describe sounds like the old type of spinnaker pole (which is still absolutely fine for racing today, and I prefer it). There needs to be a fitting on the mast to clip one end of it to. You should also have a piece of rope with a series of knots in it (and with a bungee section at one end) which has its two ends screwed to the mast - this is used to set the angle of the pole, the cleat in the middle of the pole (there should be one on either side) having the knotted part of the rope clipped into it. If you don't have the knotted rope, the newer spinnaker control system (which stores the pole by the boom) replaces it with something that's easier to adjust (without having to reach the pole), so it would be worth trying to find a way to use a system like that instead, even if you're using the old kind of pole (while continuing to store it on the foredeck).

At the top of the mast there should be a spinnaker crane (and you appear to have one of those). The halyard goes down from there to a pulley below the mast base so that it can be led horizontally from there to one side of the case to a cleat under the thwart. For pulling the spinnaker down, the other end of the halyard goes round a large pulley screwed flat to the deck near the end of the spinnaker chute, then into the chute where it's tied to the loop in the middle of the spinnaker. (Some people have the loop in the middle of the spinnaker on the inside where disrupting the air flow over the sail does less harm, but others find it better to have it on the outside as it helps stop the sail falling in the water and getting trapped under the hull when lowering it.) The newer openings for the spinnaker chute (which I haven't used) are likely better than the old plastic toilet-style ones which jam easily, but the old type came in different widths, and the wider ones jam a lot less than the awful narrow ones.

For the guys (spinnaker sheets), each should travel from the sail to a pulley near the back of the boat before coming forwards again to a cleat on the side deck. There should also be some kind of clip near the shroud to pass it under on the way from the sail to the rear pulley on the windward side. I can't give you the exact locations to attach these pulleys as my hull rotted to bits long ago and I'm still trying to get a replacement. I can't give you a list of fittings needed for the newer spinnaker system either as I've never used it, but it may be better to ask for help with all of this stuff at the Facebook group "People who love Mirror sailing dinghies" ( https://www.facebook.com/groups/16537332977/ ), not least because people will be much more ready to put photos up there as they know how to do it.

Thanks David. I think I'll get some photos onto the Facebook page then and see if people can offer up some advice on positioning of the hardware on the hull.
Cheers
Paul

PuffinInTegel's picture

@ Paul: If you put photos somewhere on the WWW, you can post them here by linking the URL. If you have nowhere to put them, you can send them to me to put on our website. I prefer that they are elsewhere and only linked to here because we have limited webspace for this site.
I'm interested in the topic too, as I still haven't rigged my spinnaker.
Cheers;
Gernot