hi guys and girls, was just having a think about spinnaker take down rigging and which side? we sail in a river so we cant do standard triangle courses. were at the mercy of river direction vs wind direction.. whats the general consensus with windward hoist vs leeward hoist and windward drop vs leeward drop?
second question.. should i be rigging my retrival line such that it goes under the foot, then thru bottom retrival button, or straight to the retrieval button ..... i hope im being clear?? sorry, its sunday and im at work..... thinking about sailing :)
The nice thing about a Viper is that you can do a windward hoist without much special prep required - just some slightly different technique. Honestly it should be the topic of a Snake Bytes article at some point if Buttons sees this and reminds me to write it up eventually. So unless you are always setting the kite on port gybe, you shouldn't need to re-rig the kite for a leeward hoist (though you could do that if you knew you'd always be setting on port gybe on a given day since a leeward hoist is generally a bit easier).
As far as retrieval line rigging goes, rig the retrieval line so that it goes under the foot first (and underneath the weather spin sheet). The advantage to rigging the retrieval line under the foot is that on a leeward douse (the "hardest" douse on a Viper in that it is the douse where things are most likely to go pear shaped since it's easier to put the kite in the water if it is done incorrectly) the retrieval line when pulled tight will keep the foot of the kite under control a bit more and slightly reduce the odds of shrimping.
thanks pete!