Spinnaker questions

[Lanikai]

Still figuring out how to do this thing.
Thought I had it wired this weekend as I easily raised the spin sock in <5 kts over the potato patch, clawed past Pt. Bonita, then blazed past Kirby Cove and under the Golden Gate in 10-15 kts to the slack-jawed awe of the starboard crowd on a packed Hornblower cruise crowd -- while their port-side brethren would soon point and laugh on the return trip as they watched me scrambling around the deck trying futilely to unwrap the beast, and its sock and all its attendant cordage, from the furled jib loaf in what was now 15-20 kts just east of the gate.
20 minutes later in the calm water off Sausalito I managed to get it all unwrapped. Nothing broke.

So moral of the story: to fix spinnaker wraps, always have sheltered water nearby.

Failing that, the internet says to just gybe the main in the event of a wrap and it will magically unwrap itself. Sounds easy enough. Is that real? What do you all say?

While I was on the foredeck, I recalled all the stories I've read of cutting and slashing sails and lines to free a problem spinnaker, but frankly didn't see how it would have helped in my case. The bubble at the top was pretty well set and I'm just lucky the wind wasn't high enough to make it overpowering. I can now see how easily Fast Forward's fate could be mine.

On a related note: still trying to set up deck hardware. The spin sheets run fairly when the pole is 40 degrees or more off the forestay, but when reaching with the pole further forward, the sheet (or is it a guy?) puts some ugly pressure on the lifelines and stanchions. I don't understand how to avoid this. I thought twings would help, but it just moves the contact point on the lifeline forward. Or are my twings set too far back? I dunno. Just rebedded my stanchions and really don't want to see them busted.