A fellow sailor was showing me their spinnaker the other day and I was suprised how slippery it felt. I beleave it came from the sailmaker that way. Does anyone know how to make a spinnaker slippery to improve its snuffability? Is it made from a special sail cloth or is this some type of product that was applied to the spinnaker? If it is a product, what is it, where do you get it and how do you apply it?

Our spinnaker is a silicon coated material, sail makers hate it, no good to handle by hand but great for a retrieval system. Their are other simular material about as well, check with your sail maker.

Most spinnakers free up once you use them a few times.

don

I have two spins [both made of Dynalite] and its about the most slippery material around.

thom

McLube (available at West Marine) is commonly used to make a chute go in/out of a snuffer easily. Buy it by the gallon and buy a commercial spray bottle for application. Buying it in the aerosol can is expensive.

Just a regular, old hand-squeezed spray bottle, or one o' them thar commercial thingy's you pump up with a plunger like the exterminator uses?

It's Dynalite...I thought Smyth was exaggerating, but it's WORLD's better than regular ripstop for snuffing.
However, you can just buy lot's of spray-PTFE or McLube or whatever you like... you just have to recoat trouble-spots frequently. Spray it while snuffing on land to get it where it needs it most.
Are you ready for this weekend??
Michael Coffman
T4.9#32

Hi Jennifer, If you use a Dynalite spinnaker with a Dynalite snuffer, you have the slippery cloth sliding across slippery cloth and the best possible snuffing action. It works very well on our Mystere 4.3 - I recommend getting the 1.5 ounce cloth for the snuffer. That also works well for our small 4.3 spinnakers - flying well in as little as 3 mph "wind". I am not sure how well it would fly in light air with a larger size spinnaker but it sure is much more durable for snuffing than the .75 oz cloth. Snuffing is great but it is relatively abusive to the sail so durability is a good thing. Hope this helps.

Mike

Had the same problem.

The McLube aerosol cans would cost a fortune & the liquid McLube will melt any plastic pump you squirt it though.

It takes about 6 plastic spray bottles to coat an I-20 chute with 2 quarts of liquid Mclube. The solvent in the stuff will turn the pumps into goo long before you get the sail completed.

Lately I have been using an old auto paint spray gun to lay down 2 light coats on each side. It lasts the life of the sail and keeps my wife much happier about the whole puffy sail/snuffer system.


Chip Short I-20 #312