Haylard tension - no dedicated haylard winch

By luffing you are de-powering both the main and the headsail, as opposed to just the main...
I see many people over tightening the luff on Kevlar mains also, different than with relatively stretchy Dacron.

Anchor safety

360 solid blue LED light for one of the boats. Solid blue has no official meaning in our waters, and it's not flashing, so I'm not impersonating a police officer. I tested it a few evenings last fall and the observations confirmed by belief: Drunk people on the water avoid blue lights.

How to drop a new haylard without a messenger

Once you're up there, the best way to run the new halyard down is stack about 20 1/4" nuts on a light line. Rolls right over the sheave and, if you've heeled the boat properly, right down the correct side of the mast. Bob's your uncle.

Measure and mark the line so you know when you should be at the exit port.

downwind reef

drop 3 ft haylard, winch in reef line, drop another three feet

or

When unexpectedly caught in a 50 knot squall when running with too much sail up, don't even think about trying to reef downwind. Simply release the halyard and turn upwind.

or

with main at 45 degrees release haylard and gybe - watchout for boom and the whole mess droping

of course keep main sheet snug so it does not lasso someone

More Reasons to go down Fwd

Down the hatch. Down the hatch. Down the hatch.

Make sure you have a good look your hatch and take care of anything that could snag the kite on its way back out. Put a whiffle ball on top of the stanchion that is going to be on the kite's path on its way out. If your hatch is big enough, have a laundry bag made for the hole.

If you are doing mainly w/l courses with port roundings, practice doing windward drops so you can get the kite down on the left side of the boat, ready for the bear away set. In any case, the brains at the back of the boat should know what side they will want the kite for the next set. The brains at the front should be able to execute whatever is necessary to get it there --windward, leeward, mexican, whatever. But if you want to do a windward takedown and it is blowing 20kts be sure that you can get the boat deep enough to execute.

Now you've got all the gear on the correct side of the boat. You may need to unclip the spin halyard if you can't put enough slack in it. Spin halyards are too short on a lot of boats. Close the hatch on the head of the kite so you can hook it back up at the appropriate time. Otherwise, leave the halyard hooked up with a lot of slack. A clip to the rail (a snap shackle with a trip line that is lead back to the mast) can be nice but may not be necessary.

What came down untangled should go back up just fine, so you won't have to repack and you can keep bodies on the rail. It won't take so many people to get the kite down because it travels a shorter distance. The bow and mastman should be able to handle on their own. You can throw one more body at it if necessary (ie. bow still needs to deal with pole). Start doing windward drops and the kite will practically put itself away.

Benefit of Foredeck Hatch Drop

We do it down the hatch. Our pointy end guys re-launch with little or no work or re-organization, as long as no one fucks with the gear or screws the takedown. If it's a straight leeward takedown and a bear away set. If you have other combinations sometimes the gear has to be moved, but the tapes don't generally need to be run unless something bad happens. (said from the perspective of the guy sitting in the back of the bus of course...but I did bow on my boat once!)

On a big boat the companionway can be pretty damned far from where the spinnaker is flying. It is less practical to douse to the companionway. You'd have to drag it around 2/3 of the boat, and there's stuff going on there.

LetterBox

Keep in mind that the "Letterbox" is for when you're a bit nervous about doing your regular drop.

Either you can't bear away (leeshore, you're not making the mark already, etc) or your not interested in having people forward.

I use it on Sweet Jane (J-90) when it's smoking and nobody what's to leave the cockpit, or when sailing short-handed. The cool thing is that you can gather the entire foot, inluding the tack, into the cockpit/hatch before you start the halyard down. You've got a lot of control over the sail. The bummer is that you've got to clean it up fast (after the mark) or else everything gets tangled up.

Leeward Windward LetterBox Mexican?

Letterboxing is a heavy air tactic, not really a quality drop for typical W/L's since it has a tendency to be slow. Try being conservative in your drops by calling them a bit earlier than you may be inclined until your crew is up to speed. Weather drops need the boat to turn down at the mark to help rotate the chute to weather and relieve the pressure. Leeward strips are the simplest solution but may not orient the chute to the port side where you typically need it but it's far better to have a clean drop than a clusterfuck. Try getting an extra crew up forward for the drop and a person down below the hatch to squirrel it into the boat. Also have your guys use a swim technique to gather more chute, more quickly. Oh yeah, stay away from Mexican drops until your crew has mastered leeward and weather strips. Your pit person also needs to be up to speed, he can make or break a drop.

The disadvantage I see with theis type of drop is that you have to unclip all the gear and repack the kite (or at least re-run the tapes if setting from the bow hatch later) and then clip up again. Lotsa activity down below in the bow... I so much more prefer setting /dousing into the forward hatch, leaving everything hooked up, and almost always dousing on the port side of the boat when possible, so that you're ready for the next set (assuming std port roundings).

Remind the homeys in frontierland that the kite is easier to pull under the genoa if they do it before the sail is trimmed to go upwind. Beat on the tactician with the winch handle until they understand that then whack them a few more times so they don't forget. The goal is to sail fastest around the course, not the fastest in the last ten seconds of the leg when it costs you more than you gained by not being ready to sail upwind or having to screw around alot getting ready for the next set.

Ways of taking a symmetrical spinnaker down:

To leeward.

a) The guy snap shackle is tripped, either by standing on the pulpit, or, on a larger boat climbing to the end of the spinnaker pole (see start of "Wind"). The kite flags away behind main, and is recovered using the sheet/lazy guy.

Let the guy run until the kite is flagging behind main, as above. Generally a bad idea to let the pole hit the forestay too hard. Keeps all the corners attached to respective lines, so that someone doesn't have to go to the bow to retrieve the old guy.

Variations on the above: letterbox it, and retrieve the kite between main and boom.

c) Ease guy to forestay, tighten sheet, and dump halyard. Lots of halyard. Kite flags horizontally between pole and sheet, and is recovered (quickly!!) before it drops into the sea.

Never heard of anybody letterboxing this one - probably too slow, and you would end up trawling.

d) To windward. Pole comes off, kite is retreived using guy/lazy sheet. Generally used on symetirical dinghies with bags (rather than a chute). Not really used on larger boats - especially in any breeze, as the kite isn't in the shadow of anything. I would hazard a guess that above Etchells/J24-ish sizes, it isn't commonly used. Also, I would hazard that it only really works on deep runs - otherwise you have to haul the whole kite around the forestay.

Drops involving gybes.

e) Dropping on the old leeward side. Generally used when coming into the mark at a higher angle. Pole removed, boat gybes and kite is dropped into jib. Generally more useful when coming into the mark at a higher angle.

f) Dropping on the old windward side. Pole is removed, boat gybed and then halyard blown. Kite must be recovered quickly as it flags away from old sheet on forestay and guy. Generally more useful when running deep into a mark, and the kite is rolled well out to weather.

The problems that can arise from all the above are numerous - not least because people have different names for them. Some call ? a float drop, while to others a float drop is (f). Drop (e) is generally referred to as a Mexican - apparently coined by Buddy Melges in the 92 San Diego AC, the boats would be pointing at Mexico during the manoever.

Basically, for a Mexican you do the following:

on starboard tack, raise the headsail
prepare to gibe but keep the spin on the port side (i.e., get the pole out of the way)
gibe and keep the headsail inside the starboard lifelines
blow the spin halyard - feed it into the foredeck hatch
Let the back of the boat know you are ready to tack!

Don't know why it is called a Mexican, but when done correctly the spin practically drops itself into the hatch and you are ready to pull it out when you get back to the windward mark.