UK Sailmakers’ Encyclopedia of Sails
4.6 – Dousing Sock (The UK Stasher)
The spinnaker dousing sock allows short-handed crews handle cruising spinnakers with ease.
The simplicity of the UK Sailmakers cruising spinnaker is further enhanced by the addition of the UK Stasher. The UK Stasher is a sleeve that gives you complete control over the cruising spinnaker when setting or dousing the sail. The unique design of UK’s Stasher offers advantages over all other manufactured dousing socks (see drawing for construction details).
Pulling on the control line raises the sleeve to the top of the sail, allowing it to fill and set. A pull in the other direction encases the cruising spinnaker in the sleeve, which permits trouble-free lowering of the sail. Singlehanded ocean racers could not fly a spinnaker without a dousing sock like the Stasher.
The Stasher being raised to set the Cruising Spinnaker.
Once the Cruising Spinnaker is raised inside the sock, use the continuous loop halyard to raise the sock to the free the sail. When the cruising spinnaker is flying, the Stasher sits over the top of the sail as shown below.
Using a dousing sock allows one person to douse the spinnaker. Without the sock several crew members would have to wrestle the sail to the deck. This shot shows one person lowering the sock on a 57-footer.