Submitted on March 22, 2002 by Rex Good

Question: I'm about to order a gennaker for my Sabre 402 and have been trying to decide between your snuffer and ATN's. For dousing, ATN recommends blowing the tack before pulling the snuffer down. If I am reading your response to Doug Peters's question about this, you seem to be recommending easing the sheet. Having had some difficulty doing this with the non-ATN, non-North snuffer on my last boat, ATN's idea seems sensible to me. Is there a reason I couldn't take this approach with your snuffer?

Answer: Hi Rex, The North snuffer and the ATN snuffer are functionally the same type of products. You can blow the tack or ease the sheet to douse the sail with either snuffer and get good results.

When you blow the tack for a take down you will also want to pull in the gennaker sheet to hold the clew close to the boat. To make this work you need a quick release snap shackle at the tack that can be "spiked" open with a marlinspike while under load. When you spike the tack shackle the pressure is completely released from the sail and the sail is blanketed behind the mainsail. It is an effective technique for getting the sail down in moderate or windy conditions. If you don't have this type of shackle rigged on your tack line, you would need to ease several feet of tack line to achieve the same results.

Regards, Dan Neri

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