ATN Tacker

The patented Tacker has been developed to control the tack of the cruising spinnaker (asymmetric) by fastening it over the furled headsail and it allows you to use your conventional (symmetric) spinnaker like an asymmetric spinnaker from beam reaching to broad reaching without the need of the spinnaker pole. 

Here is the sequence: Attach the halyard to the spinnaker's head, the sheet to the spinnaker's clew, your downhaul to the bell of the snapshakle of the ATN TACKER, pass the TACKER around the furled headsail, close the tacker with its carabiner onto the snap shackle' bell, clip the snap shackle onto the spinnaker's tack and hoist away. Trim the sheet and the downhaul and you are sailing. Best is to do the hoist on a broad reach.

Of course you can fly a spinnaker without a pole and without the TACKER, but bear in mind that a conventional / symmetrical spinnaker is designed to fly a couple of feet above the lifelines. Its foot (between the clew and the tack) should always be horizontal. Securing the spinnaker tack to the deck is not the best way to set the sail. It is too low and the foot of the spinnaker will chafe on the bow pulpit and lifelines. If you add a pennant or a down haul, the spinnaker falls off to leeward and the pennant / down haul chafes on the pulpit and the sail looses its shape and is blanketed by the mainsail.

That's when the TACKER saves the day. It holds the tack, hence the luff of the spinnaker close to the center line of the boat and it can be adjusted up and down with your down haul / tack line for a perfect trim. TheTacker is fitted with a snap shakle, which allows the operator to blow the tack of the spinnaker, making it safer to douse the spinnaker behind the mainsail on a broad reach.

The NEW Tacker is now fitted with a snapshakle, which allows the operator to blow the tack of the spinnaker, making it even easier to control the sail.