Hi David, Yeah we do it all the time, it's also called a reaching strut. On our boats, the whisker pole is overkill and kind of too big / heavy anyway. Since we only do it in very light winds I just get Nicholas to grab the boat hook, push the clew out with it, hold it by hand / prop it on the coach roof.
It does make a significant difference in 0-4 knot wind as your genny has some kind of shape as opposed to just hanging half folded up. Last race (Nicholas my teenage son was the skipper) and the wind was so slight I was actually holding the clue by hand (We were on a close reach), this way I had finer control.. And we walked away from everybody by a good margin at the slightest puff. It may not be the ideal angle / shape but it beats the heck out of hanging like a limp flag.. Our competition said: Man! at the slightest wheeze of wind you guys left us for dead... Even better: Get a drifter headsail.. It's basically a genoa made out of .5 - 1.0 oz spinnaker material.. They start pulling at the slightest puff and are relatively cheap. As long as it fits on your foil or is hanked on your forestay it counts as a genoa, not a spin. It's on my shopping list for sails hopefully sooner than later Also, the boat does really well broad reaching at 148-160 degrees true angle wing on wing with the whisker pole forward towards the forestay kind of like reaching with a conventional spinnaker. This way you're wing on wing but have a speed advantage compared to DD by being at very advantageous angle from a Polars standpoint. As long as it does not take you too far of course to get to your mark that's a good way to go as well. Good for very slight winds too. Good luck, -Francois Rivard 1990 34+ "Take Five" Lake Lanier, GA Message: 3 Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2016 16:43:55 -0400 From: David Knecht <davidakne...@gmail.com> To: CnC CnC discussion list <cnc-list@cnc-list.com> Subject: Re: Stus-List Finally Won a Race Message-ID: <ae5ea07a-fe1d-4e6d-99d9-0cfb8eb94...@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" We had a very light wind race on Wednesday and the downwind leg was a reach to broad reach I could not get the genoa to sit well and then I noticed one of the other boats had the whisker pole to leeward holding the clew out. I tried it and it seemed to help. Is this something others do? Dave
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