Trick Your Ride

  Bungee attached to the floating block

1. Spin bungee uptake: If you don’t have this on your boat, you’ve probably seen it before.  It’s a bungee that takes up slack in the spin halyard when the kite is down.  To rig this system, tie a bungee to the floating block for the jib sheet, then run it back underneath the thwart, through a block that you tie to the aft most support for the middle toe rail, and tie the end to a floating ring or block, which the halyard should run through.  The idea is  that when you ease the jib sheet around the top mark, the bungee goes slack allowing all of the halyard to pay out.  Alternatively, tie the first end to the pole launching block so that when the pole goes out,  slack is created in the bungee.


2. One pull adjustable bridle height: Instead of having to adjust both sides of your bridle to get the right height, try rigging the below system so that one sliding splice controls both sides.  In the picture, the oval in the bottom left corner is the sliding splice.

3. Magical shrink tubing: Lines don’t get caught on it!!!! It’s so much better than springs or rubber things.

   

4. Normal trap bungee: Don’t go in front of the mast or around the bow.  The bungee is the perfect length if it’s barely tensioned when it’s  not hooked on to anything.

5. Bic pen spin halyard roller: Put a bic pen around the bungee that prevents the spin halyard from re-cleating.  It protects against chaffing from the spin halyard on the bungee.

6. Spin pole retrieval knot: Tying a knot inside of the spin pole makes it so that when you douse the kite the pole retracts all the way.











7. Tape hooks: Tape the control line hooks so that they don’t fall off while you’re sailing.

8. Jib head safety shackle: Put a small shackle around the jib halyard and the forestay to prevent the white plastic piece at the top of the jib from coming off when you pull tension on the jib halyard.











9. Remove spin pole eye: The metal spin pole eye, always gets caught on the double block. To fix this, just drill out the rivets for the eye, and use the top hole to tie the line through. Most new boats come like this now I believe.








10. Longer bails: Make your bails long enough that you can drop all the way to horizontal when you’re back in the foot strap.  The stock lines aren’t long enough.

11. Beads on pole preventer: Put beads on the spin pole preventer to reduce friction in your sets.

12. Spin sheet block bungee: To prevent the spin blocks from falling over without running the risk of getting lines caught on the block, use bungee to bungee the block to  the chain plates.  Tennis balls or springs work, but lines often get caught on the balls or springs.