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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