The best way to pass boats when rounding a leeward mark to port is to do a Mexican takedown. The Mexican allows you to carry the spinnaker right into the rounding while also preventing the sail from falling into the water. You’ll be the inside right-of-way boat, entitled to mark room over boats doing leeward takedowns. Here’s how to do it:
The Mexican (more on the name later) is a gybe drop.
Photos Copyright: www.DallasJohnson.net
Going into the turn, the spinnaker is over trimmed pulling the foot right up to the deck. As the driver does the smooth left turn, this well-choreographed sailing ballet results in the spinnaker inverting and now laying on the new windward side of the jib. Here are the “steps:”
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The bow team grabs the foot of the spinnaker as it collapses onto the windward side of the jib,
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The pit person smokes the halyard,
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As the sail slides down the jib onto the deck, the bow team gathers it in,
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The pit person then blows the tack line, and
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The sail gets stuffed down the forward hatch with at least three quarters of the sail on the deck before going upwind.
The beauty of the Mexican is that the helm and upwind trimmers can go about the business of building speed and establishing their lane without distraction. Frankly, all they want to hear is, “Clear to tack.”
If executed properly, you’ll have gone into the mark with max speed having the spinnaker drawing right until the end; and, as an inside right of way boat, you can do a smooth wide and tight tactical rounding within the zone forcing other boats away from the mark. Another advantage of the Mexican is that the spinnaker will be on the correct side of the boat for the next port set.
And, unless something in the Mexican goes left on you, your spinnaker will be dry and not twisted into a knot as it’s stuffed down the hatch.
Now, what’s with the name…the Mexican? The derivation of this name is purely geographical.
Buddy Melges concocted this maneuver on AMERICA3 during the ‘92 America’s Cup trials in San Diego. With the prevailing winds of that area, virtually every time he came into a then-used port rounding, his bow was pointing toward Mexico.
In a future post we’ll talk about how the maneuver came about in the Southern Hemisphere and how it became know as the Kiwi Drop.
Hellow Adam.
You call it a spinnaker drop, but as I se the illustrations, it is a genaker drop. And good the same, at a spinnacer pole would be jammed by the foresail during the gype.
But maybe the genaker now is so prevalent, that it has overtaken the spinnakers name?
Kind Regards, Helge Dreyer.
Hellow Adam.
You call it a spinnaker drop, but as I se the illustrations, it is a genaker drop. And good the same, at a spinnacer pole would be jammed by the foresail during the gype.
But maybe the genaker now is so prevalent, that it has overtaken the spinnakers name?
Kind Regards, Helge Dreyer.
Helge, that is an asymmetrical spinnaker, as opposed to a symmetrical spinnaker that you are talking about with a spinnaker pole attached to the mast. The asym is similar to a genaker, but flown from a bow sprit, and roughly the same size as a regular spinnaker. You can do the same maneuver with a symmetric spinnaker, you just lose the pole just before you gybe. Otherwise it is basically the same.
Call it the Mexican or what ever you like. I’m an Aussie and we were doing Gybe drops nearly 40 years ago with symmetrical kites on conventional poles. With due respect to Buddy Melges he certainly didn’t come up with the idea and I certainly cant claim to have invented it.
cheers
PeteB
Call it the Mexican or what ever you like. I’m an Aussie and we were doing Gybe drops nearly 40 years ago with symmetrical kites on conventional poles. With due respect to Buddy Melges he certainly didn’t come up with the idea and I certainly cant claim to have invented it.
cheers
PeteB
Our boat is a Bavaria 42 with asymmetric pole and gennaker with a sock I guess the problem our boat has is our Ball is quite BIG (100 square meters) and if we don’t lower the sock to depower the ball, this can easily be messed up by simply gathering / collecting the ball barely by the foredesk. Any thoughts?