Editor's note: Bernie Kerr and Bill Roberts (ex-Snipe National Champ) purchased an old Alpa in Florida and rebuilt the boat to try outseveral innovations and to see if they would like to sail in the FD Class. They made the national news when their tube launcher invention was featured in One-Design Yachting magazine. They liked the Class, are in it to stay and have recently bought a new single-bottom FD and converted it to a single-double-bottom. Bernie is an aeronautical engineer which undoubtedly helps!

The bow tube launcher has become a common item to the FD Class, but many people have not mastered or do not understand the techniques involved. In many cases, the adaptation of the "bow launcher" has failed to carry out its purpose, which is to allow a longer use of the spi before taking it down prior to the mark with much less confusion.

The original FD bow launcher with the retraction line to the center of the sail was employed on FD  US360 at the 1965 Mid-winters by the co-owners Bill Roberts and Bernie Kerr of W. Palm Beach, Fla. Many persons after seeing FD US360 in action, thought that "push button" spinnakering had arrived. It almost has, as tube launching is not difficult if done correctly. However, there are some important considerations for quick and efficient operation in the launcher and retractor kit.

The two pieces of hardware that determine the performance of the kit are the funnel and the sail sack. These two parts are equally important. The funnel should have a large mouth at the deck opening. The side and end panels should flow convergingly together and downward parallel to the stem for an instant and then sweep rearwardly in a smooth bend and empty into the sail sack with a flanged mouth. The rear side of the funnel should make a smooth 180° bend. When the sail is being launched it is being pulled around a 120° bend rather than a 90° bend as some funnel adaptations indicate. The funnel's rear radius should be as large as is practical since the force to extract the sail is inversely proportional to the length of this radius.

The cross sectional area of the throat of the funnel should be adequate to allow easy passage of the sail (three to four inches in diameter for an FD spi). Oversizing the cross sectional area of the funnel only increases the amount of water that could be taken on board and the weight of the funnel. Since the sail bears only on the back side of the funnel while being launched or retracted, it is easy to see that the design of this side of the funnel is most important and that the size of the cross sectional area has no effect on the ease with which the scheme operates unless, of course, it is carried to an extreme and made too small. The sides and front of the funnel serve only as fairings to insure that the sail does not become snagged while passing in or out of the boat. The aft end of the funnel should end in a flanged mouth, making a smooth transition into the sail storage sack.

The sail storage sack should be long and lean. It should be long enough to allow the spinnaker sail to be pulled in and stretched in its entirety while in the retracted position. Pulling the spinnaker sail into a forward turtle and rolling up the central area of the sail in order to pull the corners of the sail into the funnel results in a wad of cloth on the end of the spin-naker. This wad of cloth does not always unwind in an orderly fashion during launching and causes a sail cloth jam, similar to a log jam or stopped up johnny pot. The sail sack must be lean in order to keep the sail from filling up with air while it is in the stored position. If the spinnaker is allowed to expand, be filled with air, this will increase the drag on the sail while being launched because as the spinnaker passes from the sack to the funnel during launching and makes the 120° turn any excess air is going to be squeezed out. A lean sail sack eliminates the possibility of a puffed up spinnaker and results in minimum drag during launching. The sail sack must be ventilated to allow air to rush in as the sail rushes out so that the sack will not restrain the sail while being launched. The sail sack is tapered from the funnel end to the aft end. The aft end has approximately 1/2 the cross sectional area of the funnel end. The funnel end area should be equal to the minimum cross sectional area of the funnel throat.

The spinnaker sail is most easily loaded into the funnel and storage sack by two persons. One person in the rear of the boat pulls the sail in with the down haul halyard which has been attached to the center of the spinnaker on the side that will be down wind when the sail is flying. The other, at the bow of the boat, holds the sail and assures that it is flowing into the funnel orderly and keeps the three corners of the sail properly arranged. The port and starboard corners should be kept to their respective sides a.nd the top of the sail should be in the front center of the funnel. The sail should be pulled in until the three corners are at deck level in the funnel. Cleat the down-haul halyard in this position. The sail will also have run into the end of the sail storage sack at this time. The last step is to attach each line to its respective corner of the spinnaker sail and then take the slack out of each line.

Be sure that the excess spinnaker halyard line is clear and release the down-haul halyard cleat. The skipper pulls the up-haul halyard a.nd the crew pulls theleeward spinnaker sheet at the same time for approximately the first three to four feet of sail movement out of the funnel. This technique will make the whole spinnaker move as one body and flow easily out of the funnel. Pulling only the up-haul halyard causes the sail to try to slide over itself while it is deep in the tube, and this results in a very hard initial pull to move the sail. The skipper pulls the spinnaker to desired height while the crew trims the sheets.

The spinnaker pole may be put up either before or after the sail has been hoisted, depending on the point of sailing. It is usually put up before the sail is hoisted, while the skipper is clearing the excess spinnaker halyard and releasing the down-haul halyard cleat. This method requires pole fittings which allow the spin-naker sheet to slide through them. After the sail has been hoisted, the pole must be slid up the windward spinnaker sheet to the corner of the sail. The jib should be rolled up on the roller reefing only after the spinnaker has been launched.

Again the skipper must be sure that the excess spinnaker halyard is clear. The crew pulls in both spinnaker sheets, breaking the spinnaker sail across the jib luff or forestay approximately symetrically. This technique causes the bottom portion of the spinnaker sail to ride up the forestay or jib luff. At this same instant, the skipper releases the up-haul halyard cleat, releases the up-haul halyard, and pulls the down-haul halyard. The top area of the spinnaker sail will fall an amount equal to the excess halyard line, approximately five to ten feet, which is not enough to allow the upper spinnaker sail to fall into the water. The center of the spinnaker sail will be the first part of the sail to enter the funnel. The upper spinnaker sail area will flow into the funnel in an orderly fashion since it is being lowered as fast as the rest of the spinnaker is being pulled into the funnel and down the tube. The crew releases the sheet and guy as necessary to allow the sail to flow into the funnel. The skipper pulls the down-haul halyard until the sail hits the end of the sail sack, and at that point he cleats the down-haul halyard and then pulls the slack out of the up-haul halyard and then cleats it. The crew now takes the pole down and pulls the slack out of the spinnaker sheets. The jib should always be unrolled from the roller reefing before the spinnaker is taken down.

Retrieving or retracting may be achieved with the crew on the trapeze. When the skipper is ready to retrieve the chute, the crew after unfurling the jib and pre-setting it for the next leg, trims the spi sheet in hard to pull the bottom of the chute taut against the forestay and jib. The skipper now lets the top spi halyard down as he retrieves the down halyard and the crew frees the guy and the sheet as the chute disappears uniformly into the diffuser. The pole can be dismounted after the critical mark rounding. The boat can be tacked with the pole still attached to the guy and mast if the topping lift is released and the outboard end of the pole lies along the shear at the side stay.

Jibing the boat in high winds and heavy traffic can be accomplished with much more control simply by dousing the chute with the jib unrolled and reaching up momentarily after rounding to determine the tactical situation after the jumble at the mark.



One observation at the 1966 Nationals at Chicago was that there was definitely a great variation in boat speed downwind and two outstanding boats were Bentsen-Melges, who never seemed to be headed for the mark but usually passed several boats on their meandering course, and Bob Seidleman, who had a very, very lightweight chute that he flew ultra-high and went ultra-fast.