What boatspeed should I expect, as a percentage of True wind?

[GRIT]

Thanks 44C. I appreciate hearing your methods.

We have a code zero, but are still wanting more light wind speed, and the Admiral want's a spinnaker before the schreecher. We find the code zero to be most effective between 100 and 140 TWA, so we want to fill some holes in the light air department.

I too sail with the mainsail up all the time. I've only sailed without the mainsail once, and I found I didn't like it.

Thanks again.
Paul

[jmh2002]

Just thought I throw this up here, since there are probably people in this thread that may appreciate it (and because I think it's pretty cool ):

Antal Soft Loop Hook - Light, Simple Line Control
https://www.sail-world.com/news/238172/?source=rss

"The Antal Soft Loop Hook is essentially a modern, lightweight snatch block..."

It might be nice if it was a bit rubberised externally though, like the more traditional Harken snatch blocks (which were revolutionary when they came out of course).

I see Harken also has a soft variant too:
https://www.harken.com/en/shop/snatch/

[GRIT]

Thanks for that. It looks good!

Cheers.
Paul.

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by GRIT

Thanks 44C. I appreciate hearing your methods.

We have a code zero, but are still wanting more light wind speed, and the Admiral want's a spinnaker before the schreecher. We find the code zero to be most effective between 100 and 140 TWA, so we want to fill some holes in the light air department.

I too sail with the mainsail up all the time. I've only sailed without the mainsail once, and I found I didn't like it.

Thanks again.
Paul

You may find sailing really deep to DDW, the main can upset the airflow to the spinnaker. That's why a lot of people prefer not having the main up.

Sailing really deep like that, we'll centre the traveller, and sheet on hard. Usually double reef too. The main isn't really there to provide drive, but to help make getting the spinnaker down.

Often the angle does change during the day, and then the main starts to work too.

[GRIT]

Thanks for that advice. I've been playing with mainsail angles, and sheet tensions; I will try reefing it, for Deep Downwind sailing angles. I'm still short on sail area for downwind work, and have an Asymetrical spinnaker on the wishlist.

I find, coastal sailing, the wind never stays in the same direction for more than half a day, or so. As you said, there's often a time when the wind shifts enough to use the mainsail. Which is why I prefer to keep it up.

Our boat is primarily mainsail driven, and we get about 50% of windspeed with just the mainsail up, going Dead Down Wind. So far, our Code 0 hasn't been an improvement, in that direction.

I'll be happy to get a big honkin' Asym, for Deep Downwind work. In the mean-time, I'll reef the mainsail and see how that goes.

Thanks again.
Paul.

[GRIT]

We're sailing along the coast of Nova Scotia, and the wind's at 170 TWA, on the full mainsail alone for the last 60 miles. We can make about 50% of windspeed on the mainsail alone. At these angles, we don't bother with the foresails, as the main shades them too much; and I hate to sail without the mainsail up.

We crossed the bay of fundy with a triple reefed mainsail, and the code zero (Thanks 44C) and it worked fairly well; maintaining 10-12 knots in 21 knots of wind at 145 TWA. We had 30 knots forecast, at roughly 090 TWA, which is why we started with the third reef, and played with the foresails.

The Code zero does work better with a reefed main, at 145 TWA. Now to find out at which angle to raise the full main for best performance.

Anyway, here's a short video of our performance with just the mainsail, nearly dead downwind. I look forward to getting a spinnaker, to see what she'll do.

https://youtu.be/m-oYH7ToNU4

I don't know how to "embed" the vid into the post.

Cheers.
Paul.

[tp12]

Originally Posted by GRIT

We're sailing along the coast of Nova Scotia, and the wind's at 170 TWA, on the full mainsail alone for the last 60 miles. We can make about 50% of windspeed on the mainsail alone. At these angles, we don't bother with the foresails, as the main shades them too much; and I hate to sail without the mainsail up.

We crossed the bay of fundy with a triple reefed mainsail, and the code zero (Thanks 44C) and it worked fairly well; maintaining 10-12 knots in 21 knots of wind at 145 TWA. We had 30 knots forecast, at roughly 090 TWA, which is why we started with the third reef, and played with the foresails.

The Code zero does work better with a reefed main, at 145 TWA. Now to find out at which angle to raise the full main for best performance.

Anyway, here's a short video of our performance with just the mainsail, nearly dead downwind. I look forward to getting a spinnaker, to see what she'll do.

https://youtu.be/m-oYH7ToNU4

I don't know how to "embed" the vid into the post.

Cheers.
Paul.

Nice work!

[jmh2002]

Originally Posted by GRIT

We crossed the bay of fundy with a triple reefed mainsail, and the code zero (Thanks 44C) and it worked fairly well; maintaining 10-12 knots in 21 knots of wind at 145 TWA. We had 30 knots forecast, at roughly 090 TWA, which is why we started with the third reef, and played with the foresails.

The Code zero does work better with a reefed main, at 145 TWA. Now to find out at which angle to raise the full main for best performance.

Great stuff

Originally Posted by GRIT

I don't know how to "embed" the vid into the post.

https://youtu.be/m-oYH7ToNU4

Cheers.
Paul.

Normally this forum embeds YouTube videos automatically but you need to use the actual 'youtube' URL not the 'youtu.be' variant.

Here it is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-oYH7ToNU4

[GRIT]

Thanks for your comments TP12, it was a nice trip.

Thanks Jmh2002. It was nice to see the code zero behave better at those deeper angles.

Video: I knew there must be a trick to it. I'll try that next time.

I've just as much to learn about posting, as I do about sailing Cats!

Cheers.
Paul.

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by GRIT

We're sailing along the coast of Nova Scotia, and the wind's at 170 TWA, on the full mainsail alone for the last 60 miles. We can make about 50% of windspeed on the mainsail alone. At these angles, we don't bother with the foresails, as the main shades them too much; and I hate to sail without the mainsail up.

We crossed the bay of fundy with a triple reefed mainsail, and the code zero (Thanks 44C) and it worked fairly well; maintaining 10-12 knots in 21 knots of wind at 145 TWA. We had 30 knots forecast, at roughly 090 TWA, which is why we started with the third reef, and played with the foresails.

The Code zero does work better with a reefed main, at 145 TWA. Now to find out at which angle to raise the full main for best performance.

Anyway, here's a short video of our performance with just the mainsail, nearly dead downwind. I look forward to getting a spinnaker, to see what she'll do.

https://youtu.be/m-oYH7ToNU4

I don't know how to "embed" the vid into the post.

Cheers.
Paul.

We often go down to 150 TWA with a full main and our screecher off the bow pole as long as we have enough speed to maintain not more than 120 AWA. Any deeper than that and we move the tack to the windward bow. We haven’t tried the screecher with a reefed main as we either keep the angles forward enough, or move the screecher out of the wind shadow.

If we have heaps of wind (30+) and are feeling too lazy to gybe then when going downwind (deeper than 150 TWA) we use just our headsail. Even though our shrouds are relatively far forward due to our running backstays, there’s still sail on the rig at wider angles and it’s nice to avoid that. Why bother with the main for deep angles?

Great sailing, thanks for sharing.

[GRIT]

Thanks for your comments Fxykty.

It's interesting how we can see things differently.

You mentioned that you sometimes don't "bother" with the mainsail; yet I find it a bother to put it down, as it always seems the winds shift later and I've got to put it right back up again.

Coming up the coast yesterday, we had around 15 knots for about 8 hours overnight, at 170 awa, then two rain squalls came through, giving us 30 knots each, for about 30 minutes, and the wind clocked about 50 degrees. We changed course a bit, to keep the apparent wind behind the beam, and the Code zero slightly behind the main to lower the pressure, and rode the first one out.

In between squalls, the winds were down to 20 knots; so we shadowed the Code 0 with the mainsail, furled it, and put out the jib. We then rode out the second squall, for another 30 minutes.

After the second squall, the wind shifted a bit more to 50 AWA, on the original course, and we sailed on with the main and jib.

If I'd have had the main down, I'd have had some wrestling to do with the code 0, and then had to raise the main for the close hauled sailing which soon followed.

I know it's not the "norm", and your method would have been fine in the same situation, but I prefer to keep the main up. We don't allow the main to sit on the rigging, and still make reasonable speeds at 50% of windspeed. The issue we sometimes have, is putting it up and down off the wind, when the battens sometimes drag a bit on the rigging, otherwise it doesn't touch.

The solution would be to turn into the wind, and put the boat in irons, then reef or unreef the mainsail, but I dislike doing that, especially in sharp seas, so I put up with the odd time we drag the main over the shrouds a bit. We tend to keep the boat on course when reefing, it's a bit more work to keep the main off the shrouds, but it's our preferred method.

Our jib is pretty small, and I've only used it once on it's own, as a test. It was only blowing 10 or 12 knots, but I wasn't impressed with the result. In heavy winds, it would be fine, but then I'd have to put the main down...

Our code zero is too long to pin to the bows, so that's not an option for down wind. We'll be getting a spinnaker in the near future, which I think will help tremendously, for our Deep downwind sailing.

You did ask "Why?".

Keep those comments coming. It helps me to read other's perspectives, and methods.

Cheers.
Paul.

[GRIT]

Fxykty:

I forgot to ask, how far downwind can you use your screecher, when pinned to a bow?

We are planning for a screecher as well, and I'll be sure to have it cut short enough to pin to a bow. I wish we'd have done that for the code zero, then maybe I'd not be shopping for a spinnaker.

Cheers.
Paul.

[Tupaia]

At 170AWA you could goose wing with any headsail. If flown on the windward side and sheeted enough any wind spilling from the luff of the mainsail will keep the headsail filled. This is useful on cats without runners when the shrouds are quite far aft.

Great for relaxed downwind where conditions don't warrant gybing and the wind is not strong enough to run under headsail(s) only, no main.

[GRIT]

Tupaia: That's true. We've done it, and it's my wife's favourite way to go deep downwind. We'll likely do that tomorrow, as we're going to have nearly the same conditions as yesterday. We'll try the main and jib, then the main and Code zero, and post our results.

Thanks for your comments.

Cheers.
Paul.

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by GRIT

Fxykty:



I forgot to ask, how far downwind can you use your screecher, when pinned to a bow?



We are planning for a screecher as well, and I'll be sure to have it cut short enough to pin to a bow. I wish we'd have done that for the code zero, then maybe I'd not be shopping for a spinnaker.



Cheers.

Paul.

We can go to about 170 TWA with a mainsail and the screecher on the windward bow as it gets the entire luff well out of the wind shadow of the main. Of course, it’s a very flat sail, like a genoa, so it doesn’t provide nearly as much power as a deeper code zero or an asymmetric spinnaker. For true DDW wing on wing works well, but it does limit the range of angles. Do you gybe inside the luff or do you let the sail fly forward and pull it around the front?

I’m not sure I understand why you would need to cut a sail shorter to take the tack to a windward bow? The sail is set exactly the same as when it is tacked to the bow pole, except we move the sheet lead forward. It stays forward of the forestay - did you think we moved it inside the forestay?

Our boat came with a symmetric spinnaker and we use that in lighter winds. In really light winds it’s too heavy and collapses, while our screecher still retains a reasonable shape.

Regarding no main, we only do that for day trips. The jib alone provides plenty of power in stronger winds. We haven’t used our screecher on its own, but have sailed with just the spinnaker in light winds.

For anything longer we do always have our mainsail up, as not having the main to hide the larger front sail in a squall would be scary.

We used to always come up to a close reach to reef our main, but we’ve developed a technique to reef at any wider angle. It’s slower and the main does drag on the rig, but it works. The trick is to keep the boom at the centreline and work a few feet at a time, keeping enough leech tension throughout to avoid having the sail twist off excessively.

Does anyone have a better method?