Shadows

Kathy and I are vacationing on Maui.  It is toward the end of June.

Yesterday, we walked out of a store and Kathy asked me which way was West.  I have always had a great sense of direction and immediately pointed generally in the direction toward the water.  This was correct… but later in the day, I noticed that if I had used shadows to determine directions, I would have been 180 degrees wrong

What tipped me off was that our hotel room faces directly south.  I noticed around 5 pm that there was only a very small amount of sunlight (only a couple inches) on our balcony.  In Spokane, a south facing balcony without a roof would have been in full sunshine.   How could this possibly be what I was seeing?

The answer is that it is only a couple days past the summer solstice (June 20^th)… and, Hawaii lies south of the Tropic of Cancer (the meridian that indicates the sun’s most northern travel during a year.  After the summer solstice, the sun begins to head south toward the equator and then the Tropic of Capricorn.  Because the sun is north of Hawaii right now, all of the shadows are reversed from what I would have expected in Spokane (or any other part of the U.S. for that matter).

Lesson learned?  Pay attention to the shadows you see… but be aware of your latitude.  Is it possible that the sun appears in the north when you generally expect it to be in the south?

Special asymmetrical spinnaker rig

Special asymmetrical spinnaker rig

One sail that I do not use all that often is my asymmetrical (cruising) spinnaker.  It is a wonderful downwind sail though – especially in breezes up to 10 knots.  But, I single hand Snickerdoodle enough that I pretty much stay with main and jib/genoa.

The typical rigging for an asymmetrical spinnaker will have the following:  a spinnaker halyard with the block secured above and forward of the forestay; a set of sheets rove through blocks on the aft quarter of the boat (this photo does not show the starboard side sheet); and a downhaul tack adjustment line that is rove through a block near the forestay stem fitting.  I also have a “chute scoop” or sock that is pulled over the sail to make hoisting and dousing the sail easier for short-handed crew work.

To make the tack adjustment line truly adjustable, it is then led aft from the block at the stem fitting to a cleat on the coaming or on the cabin top.  For close reaching, pull the adjustment line to lower the tack corner and straighten the luff.  For beam reaching, ease the adjustment line a foot or two.  For broad reaching, ease the adjustment line more – up to five or even six feet.  Of course, the problem with this is that as the tack adjustment line is eased, the sideways push of the breeze tends to push the spinnaker’s tack to leeward.  This tendency to push the tack to leeward changes the sail’s angle of attack AND means that it will be difficult to sail all the way to a broad reach because the mainsail will blanket the spinnaker before a coarse that low can be achieved.

 

To correct – at least partially – the tendency of the tack being pushed to leeward, I have secured a carabiner to the tack adjustment line about eight inches below the tack corner of the sail.  When the sail is hoisted, I simply clip the tack adjustment line to the forestay.  The most that the tack can then be pushed to leeward is only eight inches.  I can now sail almost to a broad reach as if this was a symmetrical spinnaker with a pole.

So, if you are experiencing a tendency of your cruising spinnaker’s tack being pushed to leeward, this carabiner “trick” might be just what you need.

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