Rowing the DS II redux

[talbot]

Last night my wife and I decided not to approach our lee berth under sail and we pulled up to the end of the dock to unrig and row the boat around. Wind was probably blowing 12 knots. As soon as I cast off, the wind caught the bow of the boat. I have 8' oars and a stable seat, and have rowed the boat for years. I just couldn't keep it into the wind. I got swept into the marina's swim area. I had to toss the anchor, rerig for sailing, and go out of the marina to make a new approach. (I ended up dropping sail in a vacant slip across from mine, and letting the wind blow me into our berth. Not sure what I would have done if the owner of that slip had been there.) My crew is now lobbying for a motor. My new rule of thumb: If there are whitecaps, don't expect to control a DSII with oars.

[GreenLake]

Centerboard up or down? Rudder up or down?

[talbot]

Rudder down and fixed amidships. CB up. CB down might have helped put the bow into the wind, but I still don't know if I could have pulled the boat against the breeze. I've noticed during reefing in similar winds that even with the board down and a sea anchor deployed off the bow that the DS II tends to lie across the wind. I think the tall freeboard forward, plus the cabin superstructure, give the wind a lot to push against.

[GreenLake]

Yep, the windage is there, and it's uneven. But by having your rudder down and the CB up, the rudder becomes the pivot around which the wind will turn the boat. In a way, it's almost worse than without the rudder.

I suspect that with CB down and rudder used to steer (as opposed to fixing it amidships) you should be able to keep the DS into the wind while rowing - up to some limiting wind speed that's higher than w/o the CB.

I tried motoring upwind in about 10kn wind once with a small trolling motor and found that it was not only slow but difficult keeping the boat upwind and that trying to go for an angled course was hopeless. Don't recall whether the CB was down at that point.

I then raised the jib only (and CB must have come down) but you can't sail a DS upwind with just a jib in those conditions. So I added the thrust of the trolling motor, angled sideways, to mimic the turning force of the main. That did the trick and allowed me to tack.

(Reason I didn't raise the main was just like your case - moving the boat a few 100 ft. between docks, single handed and not wanting to bother.)