From the February, 1957 Trapeze, here is a clever arrangement to stow a spinnaker. It’s difficult to imagine not having a continuous arrangement for such a key piece of FD gear. But then there are still many high performance dinghies that still use bags rather than socks. In any event, wrap your heads around this one:
GADGETS
Spinnaker drawer–Quick and efficient spinnaker handling on the FD is essential if the spinnaker is to “pay its way”. Most of the conventional spinnaker handling techniques are too slow. The best we’ve been able to come up with is this feather-weight drawer under the foredeck. It is very large and shallow–18″ x 18″, thus you can drop the sail right into the “basket”, keeping it out of the bilge. It takes only a couple of seconds to stow the clews in the notches provided and to lay the head in its notch, then shove the drawer closed, keeping the sail dry, come what may. Hoisting is practically instantaneous: yank the drawer open, hook on the halliard and yell “hoist”, grabbing the sheets at the same time. We leave our sheets permantly attached to save heavy fittings, and simply hook the pole onto whichever sheet is used for the guy. The pole, in turn, has an elastic lift dangling permanently from the mast and fitted with a plain open hook. We don’t fool with a pole downhaul anymore, tending the guy appropriately instead.
