Taper Point for Spinnaker Sheets

[aroostifer]

Hi,

I bought a couple of splicing wands a few months back. Now, strangely, there's hardly a line on my boat that doesn't seem to need a splice in it. Must be a corollary of the old adage "when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." Hehe.

One of my sailboats is a Santana 22, and I'm getting it rigged for a Symmetrical Spinnaker.

Since I have a splicing wand, and tapers are so darn easy with that thing, I'd like to make tapered sheets.

Couple questions:

- is there a rule of thumb for where to taper off the cover? I.e. rule of thumb I've heard for spinny sheets is 2.5 times boat length, so 55' for 22' boat. How much exposed core should one leave? Or is this strictly an empirical enterprise? Test sail the spinnaker and mark the most sheeted in position of the sheet?

- on my buddie's boat, he has tapered sheets that have just a foot or so of cover at the shackle end, to prevent chafe from the pole jaws. I assume I would just do a regular double-braid eye splice with shackle, then leave some cover, then bury some tapered cover?

Thanks!

- Ari

[CAM]

You want cover at the first point of deliberate friction, be that a ratchet block or a winch. Assuming a ratchet block on the stern, with the pole on the headstay and the kite nearly strapped, mark the sheet where it touches the ratchet and make sure you have cover to that point.

With an amsteel/dyneema/spectra core, there's no need for chafe protection at the jaws on a 22' boat (unless the jaws are in bad shape, which should be fixed anyway). Use a small stopper ball against the shackle to keep the shackle from trashing or getting stuck in the jaws.

-CAM