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West Wight Potter Mailing List maintainer
dfarrell@ridgecrest.ca.us
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Ahoy Potter-ers,
Yesterday Dave and I crewed on Chris Beatty's almost new P19. We couldn't
take Redwing because I forgot to pick up the mainsail at the sailmakers
Friday before they closed -- duh, how could I forget something as important
as that?!? Anyway, the wind was blowing about 10-15 knots in the inner
Oakland Estuary, so Chris had already put in the first reef before
launching, because he figured it would be blowing about 15-20 once we got
out onto South SF Bay.
Chris went sailing on Monterey Bay last weekend, and had an "up close and
personal" encounter with needing to reef. He now has a great story to tell
about 15 foot rollers and 20 knots of wind when he went out past Pinos
point. :) Anyway, with last weekend still fresh in his memory, he decided
to put the 1st reef in before we even launched the boat. (BTW, I am very
impressed with Chris' seamanship -- he's only been sailing a few months.
They must do a great job at that sailing school he went to!)
At about 2 pm we launched and motored down the estuary with the lapper
furled on the CDI and the reefed main flaked on the boom. At the end of the
estuary, we raised the mainsail and lapper. We sailed out the mouth of the
estuary and headed SSE along the Alameda shore with the wind from the SW at
about 16-18 knots, with gusts so maybe 20(there were widespread whitecaps
with the wind going the same direction as the tide, so I figure it was about
at least 16-18 knots)
Okay, now here's the interesting part. Everytime a gust hit, it seemed to
me that the boat heeled and fell off 10 or 20 degrees downwind. I noticed
that Chris was holding the tiller towards the leeward side of the boat to
hold his course, rather than pulling it to windward. Everytime he tried to
head up, we'd end up back on the same broad reach as soon as the wind picked
up a knot or two. When I told him that the way the boat was responding to
the wind seemed really odd to me, Chris gave me the helm to see if I could
figure out what was wrong.
I felt like I had no control over the direction of the boat. There was an
odd "empty" feel to the tiller, and she barely turned when I moved the
tiller. It was like we had lost steerage way, even though we were moving
about 4.3 knots according to the GPS. It was a frightenly strange sensation
I'd never experienced before. Compared to my Redwing, it was extremely
disconcerting. Ever time the wind picked up just a little, the boat headed
more downwind. We were on a broad reach, and when I tried to head up into
the wind, I couldn't get her to do it. I had visions of us sailing
unwillingly downwind forever and not being able to get back to our launching
ramp.
It took me a minute to realize what was happening. That boat had a vicious
lee helm. There was no way on earth or sea you could sail any higher than a
broad reach.
Chris had mentioned previously to me that he had retuned the rig because the
brand new wirerope had stretched (and I had tuned it a little too loosely
the first time anyway), so at first I thought that he had perhaps raked the
mast much too far forward.
I had to figure out how to get that boat to head up before we sailed so far
downwind that we'd never make it back to the ramp before sundown without
motoring. Since I couldn't steer the boat with the rudder, my only choice
was to steer with the sails. So I depowered the jib til it was hardly
providing any lift, and fully powered up the main to get the boat to turn up
into the wind. I calmed down as soon as I figured out that I could point at
least somewhat that way (maybe 55-60 degrees off the wind). At that point,
the helm kicked back in and gave me some control over the boat, but it still
felt unsettlingly unresponsive and sluggishly.
Once I felt like I could control the direction of the boat and I had calmed
down a little, I started to think about what was going on.
I'd never tried to sail Redwing with full lapper and 1st reef in the main;
we always reduce the headsail area before reefing the main. If we're out
with the lapper and the wind gets to about 18 knots, we reef the lapper on
the CDI. When we're expecting over 198 knots, we usually fly the storm jib
and full main, and then if we need to reduce sail area more, we put a reef
in the main. Today, we had done exactly the opposite -- we had a full
lapper and reefed main. The lapper is about 70 sf, and the main with the
first reef is about 60 sf. With that much more sail in the front of the
boat, and with both of them powered up, there was no way we could point.
And, to add insult to injury, with a leehelm, the keel and rudder were
providing lift to LEEWARD, not to windward, so the boat was not only heading
downwind on its own, it was slipping sideways to leeward with a vengenance.
With that in mind, I suggested we roll the lapper up to about the same size
as a storm sail. I figured that would rebalance the sailplan. In a few
seconds, we had the lapper reefed on the CDI about 50%, which was still a
little bigger than the storm jib would have been. What a difference! Now
the tiller felt okay to me. There was a very slight weatherhelm; I
personally would have preferred a little more weather helm to give more
"feedback", but it was just fine the way it was.
With the sailplan balanced, when a light to moderate gust hit, she would
turn her nose into the wind a few degrees and keep on a steady 10-12 degree
heel. Each light-to-moderate gust "lifted us" higher on our course, as the
apparent wind shifted. When a pretty strong gust hit, she'd heel an extra
5-10 degrees and if I smoothly, slightly and slowly eased the tiller in the
the direction it wanted to go, she rounded up smoothly and gracfully until
she got back to 10-12 degrees, without loosing too much speed.
With the lapper furled that much, the boat wasn't as fast and didn't point
quite as high as it would have compared to having the storm jib, but it was
still very comfortable sailing. We could sit back, relax and enjoy the
sailing. The GPS said we were doing about 4.7-5.0 knots. The shape on the
lapper wasn't the best, the draft was a little too deep right at the luff,
which typically makes the boat slower, but is very forgiving of steering
errors. Once you roll a sail up past about 30% (and we were reefed to about
50%), it's hard to flattend it and to keep wrinkles out of it, because
you're rolling it up right to the deepest part of the draft.
I had the impression that the boat heeled a little more in the gusts than it
would if we had the storm jib up, but it was still easy to hold a course and
keep the heel to under 20 degrees in the gusts. At least we didn't heel so
much in the gusts that we were forced to resort to "popping the mainsheet
free" in the gusts, which makes the boat straighen up violently, loose speed
and then you have start from scratch trimming the sails. Popping the
mainsheet does save your butt in a really strong gust, but it's no fun to
sail that way continuously. It's much nicer when you can get the sailplan
balanced and trimmed so the boat is stable.
On my boat, in 18 knots or higher, we usually fly the storm jib with main.
At 18 knots, we can usually point darned close to 45 degrees and and our
speed is about 5.5 knots or better, with under 15 degrees of heel. If it's
really gusty, or if Dave is at the helm, we'll sometimes put the 1st reef in
the main, so we don't want to have to concentrate too hard on sailing. If
we're in "racing mode", we wait a little longer to put the first reef in,
and just flatten the main with the outhaul and backstay. By about 22 knots
of steady wind and gusts to 25, we always put the first reef in.
It was nice to know that even if you pick the wrong headsail, you can still
balance the sailplan and get acceptable performance. It wasn't as good as
switching to the storm jib, but since I hate to leave the cockpit in rollers
and chop, I was more than willing to settle for 4.5-5.0 knots and about
50-55 degrees of pointing ability.
I also think, in retrospect, that perhaps we had too much weight in the back
of Chris' boat. Putting weight aft gives you lee helm or reduces
weatherhelm. It also lifts the bow and lets the wind blow it downwind or the
chop slap it around. Between the three of us, we had 500-600 pounds back
there, and Chris doesn't have any real heavy stuff anywhere up in the bow.
On Redwing, we have a about 150 pounds under the v-berth (a 70 pound battery
in the center under that little seat, an extra anchor, my 40-pound tool bag,
40 pounds of spare parts and my entire inventory of SS fasterners) and about
30 pounds of anchor and 20-feet of chain. Plus we put all our gear up front
and practically nothing heavy in the aft quarter berths.
Anyway, it was a good lesson on balancing the helm that I thought I'd share
with the list.
Fair winds,
Judy B
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Mar 31 2000 - 03:27:12 PST