The snuffer (aka. the condom)
Modern sailboats have a sail called the spinnaker. It is made of very
light
material and it looks like a parachute with beautiful colors and designs.
Setting
a spinnaker is the process by which you setup, raise and sail this
particular
sail. Dousing it is the reverse process to bring the sail down and put it
away.
Normally both of this tasks can be very arduous requiring several
people
Our spinnaker has a dousing accessory called a snuffer. A snuffer is
basically
a very long sleeve that can be rolled up or down to encase the spinnaker.
This
fabric sleeve makes the task of setting and dousing a spinnaker much
easier
for a short handed crew. Basically you raise the spinnaker encased in this
sleeve
and when it is all ready you pull on special ropes to roll-up the sleeve
allowing
the large spinnaker to catch the wind. When you are done with the
spinnaker
you reverse the process by rolling down the sleeve.
When rolled down or encased the snuffer/spinnaker looks like, well, a
very
large condom. This has being an endless source of jokes. José
Manuel
refuses to call this thing by anything other than condom. So whenever it
is
time to use this sail, the jokes begin. You can see a few photos of the snuf
fer
in action with me rolling down the snuffer and later getting ready to
lower
the entire thing through the forward hatch.
6:27:15 AM 
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