proper amount of sail

[amayotte]

Hey all,

I have been reading some of your posts about sailing in high winds and I have some questions about the amount of sail to use.

I went out today in 10 gusting 15 knots of wind and with full sails I was right over quick. She would heal to 30 and stiffen up and start her way to 40 until I eased on the sheets.
I then brought in some of the genoa until it was about 75% of a jib and still had a full main.
She stayed at 30 but healing that much there was definitly some weather helm.

Now after reading what some of you sail in, this wind is peanuts. I know you use storm sails and such but to me it seems like it doesn't take much wind before a guy has to start reefing. Am I wrong?

On top of that, once I reefed I really lost speed and had a hard time tacking. Any ideas?

Thanks for the help,
Adam

[amayotte]

OK.

So I did some more reading and I should have done that before posting the question...sorry.

I read a couple articles that explained that for winds up to 15 and 16 knots boats between 25 and 30 feet should probably start to reef and if heeled too much will begin to slow considerably.

So I guess that is my answer.

Adam

[kokezaru]

Hey Adam,

While you should always have about 5 degrees of weather helm when sailing upwind, too much means that you have too much main sail up. If your boat has a traveler, moving it to leward will help that a lot. It is very important that you NOT have lee helm however, as that can be really bad.

Another important factor in heavy weather sailing is to get your sales flat. Try to get the belly out of the main sail by applying more outhaul to tighten the foot, more halyard to tighten the luff (and cunningham if you have one), and even some vang will help. If you have a topping lift, make sure it is loose so the vang and sheet can tighten the sail by bringing the boom down.

Keep that jib in tight also so that it back winds the main a bit to de-power it, even if you have the jib reefed.

[Windward]

Adam,

The C26 does like a reef. Play with it when the wind's up. I've seen sites that claim a boat should not heel more than X degrees. Every boat's different. Windward goes to 25 degrees pretty quickly, but it's what she's designed to do. Little primary stability, gobs of secondary.

I spent some time experimenting several years ago. At 25 degrees of heel I reefed. She sailed flatter, but slower. I agree on keeping main flat. If you don't have a traveler, vang sheet so that it stays flat but can carry a luff bubble. If I have the big jib on I run the lead well aft so the top twists off. That said, I reef earlier than many boats where I sail. The C26 is tender, and will often go faster with less sail. I use my 2nd reef often.

Windward actually has three reef points in the main. If the wind's 25+ steady, the third reef is great. Any less than that and I just don't have enough power. Some of the best sailing I had was on Pamlico Sound in 2008. Three days of small craft advisories had me with a triple reefed main and about half of the 70 sq ft spitfire jib rolled out, making 5.8 knots upwind in 4-5+ foot seas. Rockin'! Except for an over-canvassed 35-40 footer booking downwind and a power boat spewing sheets of spray, there was no one out to tell me that I should be able to carry more canvas.

These boats are fantastic in rough conditions. You need to keep everything nailed down and sealed up, and be conservative with sail area, but you can comfortably be out having fun when everyone else is staying at the dock.

[amayotte]

Thanks for the advice, both of you. That is exactly what I needed to hear.
The biggest problem with sailing my lake is that I am really the only one so you guys here are my only help when the books fail.

The wind is supposed to be higher tomorrow so I will go and try your pointers.

Winward,

Today I had the jib blocks aft to help spill some air but the genoa kept fluttering horribly. The only way to alieve the flogging of the sail was to move the block ahead so that the sheet pretty much bisected the sail.

Any ideas?

My main floggs a lot too but I think it is because I forgot to put the battens in.
On top of that one of my batten pockets is ripped. I think I need a new main since mine is 30+ years and starting to rip...how do you like yours and where did you get them?


kokezaru and Windward,

when you talk about flattening the sail, are you talking about flattening to the point that the upper batten (batten pocket in my case) is parrallel to the boom. And if I don't have a traveller, that wouldn't really work would it, I would heal a lot more?


Thanks again,
Adam

[kokezaru]

Adam,

Having the top batten in line with the boom would be a properly adjusted main. However, without the batten you will probably not achieve that anyway.
Flattening the sail for strong winds is a method of depowering the sail, and should, by itself, reduce heal. You want to to allow the wind to sheet off, instead of fill the sail, by moving the draft of tha sail forward.

A traveler is a powerful tool on a sailboat, and i will ba adding one to my c26. Buti withhout it, you will have to have the main sheeted out a little more than normal.

If you have an adjustable back stay, you will definately want to apply it. That will help flatten both the genoa and the main sail.

Let us know how it goes!

[Mario G]

It seems like the winds are always between 15 to 25 mph at the pamlico sound, and with the main reefed, ew can be heeding 25 degress easy.

I'm lucky to have the cabin top traveller and getting our sails trimed out has been easy enough, even the 1st mate can get Shaken Knot Stir'd ridding a 15 degree rail with just the reefed main and still have us near 5kts.

Jeffs right each boat handles different your going to need to experiment , I know with our C-22 on the lake the winds could change quick so we started with a reefed main just to get use to the way the boat handled and also how to moving on the boat under way.

I would have thought being around the sailing capital of NC that we would see more sailboats out but so far its been mostly us and transiant sailers.

LOL the one local in a 37' Bene (drool) said it was nuts us being out in 25mph winds and dropping hook for the nights. Its great to have a Chrysler.

[clair hofmann]

Mario
You're right about other boats. We just got back from 2 weeks down there. If we saw 5 boats a day on the Bay River, that was alot. A couple of them were commercial crabbers checking pots. There's usually a little more traffic in the fall when its cooler.
Clair

[amayotte]

UPDATE

I took everyones advice and went back out there this afternoon. The weather channel said that there should be about 10 knots of wind, so I thought this would be a perfect chance to test reefing and such.

I got out there and there was definitly more than 10 knots of wind so I double reefed the main and used about 30% of the genoa.
(historical data shows 15kn gusting 25kn)
After no time at all I was over at 30 to 40 degrees and doing between 4 and 5 knots.
The boat handled awesome and I am really pleased with the new rudder performance. It is seeming that as long as I have proper sail ratio the rudder eases up and shee purrs. Kinda what everyone here was telling me to do. I got it so I could steer with two fingers at one point.

There was one major problem I was having and I can't figure exactly what the solution would be. No matter what I was trying I could not get her to tack. Every time I would have to gybe in order to change my heading.
When wanting to tack I would try to gain speed, head up into the wind and when the genoa luffed I would release the sheets, I was able to make it till I was in irons but not past....every time.
The only thing I can think of is that most of the times I was trying to tack I was only making 3 to 3.5 knots. I think that this probably isn't enough speed to bring the nose through the gusting wind.

So then that brings up the question...how to gain more speed with less sail during heavy wind?

Any ideas on that?



All in all though I would have to say that it is very reassuring to know that those winds are no problem.
I ended up at the point where I didn't even notice the excessive heal and stopped worrying about my shrouds snapping and just relaxed. Very nice.

I just have to figure out the tacking.

Thanks,
Adam

[kokezaru]

Adam, Sounds like you had some fun.

The only thing that I can think of right now would be that you were turning too hard. When the rudder is hard over, it can act like a break.

Try a more graceful turn, starting with a dip downwind to increase speed then turn up through the wind, but using less rudder.

[Mario G]

Hey Adam Tacking is something your also gpoing to teach yourself. I wish I had video of the 1st mate tacking in the channel while I was tubeing behind ...I mean working on the outboard prop. it was much different then the Pamlico Sound when the current direction has you going more side to side then gaining any distance.

LOL we didn't have tha gas to motor the 30+ miles back the last time and it was tacking from one side of the sound to the other, it took twice as long to get back as it did to get to Ocracoke. We had to tack 2 times to get past a ship wreck before getting to our marina. Its the last trip our genoa will ever make...lol

[amayotte]

Ya, I was definitly turning hard. As hard as I could. I will try a little easier next time.
I gotta say though, it's frustrating that even though there is more wind it isn't really easier to get more speed.
I forgot my wind vane on the hard when I raised my mast and am wondering if that would make a big difference having it. I've never had one so don't really know. I am too chicken to climb the mast though.

Thanks again for all your help,
Adam

[kokezaru]

You can tie a small piece of yarn (some people us mylar from an old audio tape) to your port and starboard shrouds for a wind indicator. Beats that climb up the mast. Some people do that even if they have a wind vane so they do not have to keep straining thier neck looking up at the mast head (which can, at times, be directly into the noon sun).