Sailing on reefed main only

[TIM WEBB]

Hey y'all,

Had a chance to take the Red Witch (DS2) out on Monday. Just a gorgeous afternoon here in central FL, sunny and 78, and my day off!

Winds were strong, at least 20 kts, with some gusts to 25-30. Not sure exactly, because dopey me forgot to bring the trusty anemometer. However, being a skydiver as well as a sailor, I've got a pretty keen eye for weather in general, and when the tops of the 100 ft pines are a-swayin', it's a-honkin'!

Anyway, while rigging the boat on the trailer in the ramp parking lot, I knew I was definitely going to go reefed, so I rolled the main to the first batten and slid my claw on. Once on the water, I prepared to hoist sails. What I usually do (I mostly sail singlehanded these days) is lash the tiller to the leeward side, haul the windward jib sheet in, hoist the jib first, then hoist the main, so as to be in a hove to position until I get situated. Then I just have to loose the tiller, sheet in the jib to leeward, trim the main, and off I go. Well, Monday, even that wasn't working! It was windy enough that the boat just went around in circles. Hmmm, I thought, what a predicament! I finally just put her into irons, threw out the anchor, and figured I better just drop all sails and see if my little troller had the umph to get me back to the dock!

But, not being one to give up so easily (especially on my day off - I was not to be denied my water time!), I remembered a few posts on this forum where the merits of sailing on the main only had been debated. So, I hopped up to the mast, lowered the jib, and quickly wrapped a couple of bungees around it to keep it from blowing over the side.

So, there I was with no jib and a reefed main. OK, let's see what happens! Hauled up the anchor, brought her about into a nice close reach, and off we went! I remembered some of the posts saying that the DS didn't point well with the main only, but I had no trouble like that at all. Seemed like I could pretty much go where I would have been able to go *with* the jib, only with less power/acceleration/heel. Has anyone else out there had similar results sailing with a reefed main only?

Hmmm - maybe next time it's howlin', I'll try jib only, no main ...

- Tim

[gary l. britton]

Hi Tim:

Lucky you being able to sail in the winter months. I am in Central Oklahoma and it is still to cold for me to go sailing. The pleasant days we have had we experienced winds in the 40-50 mph range, which of course helped fuel the wild fires. I was very interested in your post, since we commonly get 20mph winds, gusting to the 25-30 area. I get a little wimpy when the winds get to those speeds. Very discouraging when, like you say, it is my day off and I am being denighed my water time. But this year I have been planning to try the reefed main only and the jib only sailing and see how it goes. You will for sure be able to sail before I will, so I will be very interested in your experiences with reefed main only, or jib only. With jib only, I am a little concerned with the stresses on the rigging since there would be no main to help balance the stresses. Really do not know if that would be a problem, since I have a pretty small jib.

Keep in touch with your experiences.

Fair Winds,

Gary
1966 DS I, #3235
"Dancing Girls II"

[TIM WEBB]

Hey Gary,

I'm from, and learned to sail in, Ohio, so I feel your pain!

But just remember - we have to sail in the Winter as much as we can down here, because there's two good reasons why we can't sail much in the Summer: not enough wind, except the hurricane force variety, and can you say lightning? :-O

I consider myself a wind weenie, too, and my prior experience with this boat in high winds was not fun. Even with a reefed main, having both main and jib up in 20+ wind was work, and who wants to work on their day off? That's why Monday was sort of an epiphany for me ...

I think maybe the first issue is being singlehanded. I'm only 165 lbs, and a bit more "rail meat" would certainly be a plus.

As to sailing with the jib only, and stress on the rig, it seems to me that it wouldn't be a problem? If you look at the forces generated by the jib, I think half, or at least some, are transmitted through the jib sheets to the gunwales. The rest are down through the forestay to the deck, and through the hounds and down the sidestays. No more force than with jib and main or main alone? Anyone else care to chime in?

Either way, we're coming up on our windiest months of the year, so I'll let y'all know how it goes!

Oh, BTW, we're supposed to have temps in the low 20's for the next few nights, with a hard freeze warning (very bad for the citrus growers and ferneries around here!), so don't think that January is all bikinis and surfboards for us Central Floridians!

And, we get our share of wildfires! Just ask anyone around here about the Summer of '98 ... :-O

- Tim

[Roger]

I have read somewhere that the force of wind on a sail is a pound for every square foot of sail area, so for our daysailers that's 100 pounds on the main, and 45 on the jib. When you think about it, the mainsheet is 3 part which, theoretically (eliminating the friction factor and distributed stresses through the mast shroud and forestay) should maximize at 33.3 pounds for the whole mainsail rig. Divide that between the mast and the mainsheet (rough figure, and you get about 17 pounds. That's about what it feels like when I am hauling in on the main in a big blow.

I would therefore surmise that under jib alone, the stresses would be 45 pounds distributed over the 3 corners of the sail, so 15 pounds is the load at the stem, hounds of the mast, and what you should feel on the jib sheet. If someone had a fish scale, they could check this theory out.

I'm planning on flying a 130 square foot drifter in light airs this summer. It is 14 feet on the foot and runs to the masthead, so that should be exciting.