Can I do without a track for a high wind jib?

[UNCIVILIZED]

Keep in mind that in truly heavy air, when you reef, the headboard of the mainsail is going to want to try to pull the middle of the mast aff & invert it. So it may by design need the staysail stay hooked up to oppose this loading. Unless you have a spar section on par with a giant sequoia. And has been stated by others, you need to keep the sail plan balanced fore & aft, otherwise the boat will handle like crap. And in truly heavy weather this will become a safety issue, with you not being able to make any progress upwind, or even close reaching. Or with poor sail selection you'll broach your way home if going downwind.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by UNCIVILIZED

Keep in mind that in truly heavy air, when you reef, the headboard of the mainsail is going to want to try to pull the middle of the mast aff & invert it. So it may by design need the staysail stay hooked up to oppose this loading. Unless you have a spar section on par with a giant sequoia.

A subtle but important point. In really heavy air, if I'm using the main at all, I try to line up the head with the inner forestay, for just this reason.

Originally Posted by UNCIVILIZED

And has been stated by others, you need to keep the sail plan balanced fore & aft, otherwise the boat will handle like crap. And in truly heavy weather this will become a safety issue, with you not being able to make any progress upwind, or even close reaching. Or with poor sail selection you'll broach your way home if going downwind.

The importance of fore-aft balance of the sail plan varies greatly with different boat design.

It was a big deal on my last boat, but my present boat is almost completely insensitive to fore-aft balance of the sail plan, at least in terms of helm balance. Unlike the last boat, which loved to have her rail in the water, the present boat doesn't like to heel more than 20 degrees and is unsailable with more than 30. Weather helm is always present, and is a linear function of heel angle (barring an overtrimmed mainsheet on a reach, of course). I have exactly the same amount of weather helm, sailing with the jib alone, as I do, sailing with mainsail alone, if the heel angle is the same.

And so I am able to sail with one sail or the other alone, if I like, which is nice. Only caveat is that the interaction of main and jib is important to pointing high, so I can't point quite as high if I'm using only one sail. But on any kind of a reach, from deep broad reach, to high close reach, it doesn't matter at all.

One more caveat is that fore-aft balance of the sail plan does become important, on any boat, when running downwind, as too much mainsail does increase the tendency to broach, on any boat. In stronger conditions, long before broaching could be any possibility, I get rid of the mainsail and sail on jib alone. It's more stable and pleasant, and also you don't risk getting the boom in the water.

[UNCIVILIZED]

Yes, downwind you want the boat to be being pulled along, & even sometimes surfing, in order to keep enough flow over the rudder in order to keep the helm answering. Where as if you're being "pushed" along, the boat's ass will continually be trying to pass her bow on the downhill sides of big waves. And too much main, coupled with too little jib is a big contributor to this. Broaching that is.

Going slowly downhill in heavy weather seems like the safe(st) idea, but it ain't, necessarily. Since when the wave speed is about the same as the boat's speed, then there's almost zero water flow over the rudder, so the helm won't answer, thus leaving you at the mercy of the waves. AKA broach city. You want as little time with the boat speed at or near that of the waves as is possible.

Think about how much harder it is to turn a corner on a bike with any stability at 2mph vs. 10mph. It's kind of the same deal.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by UNCIVILIZED

Yes, downwind you want the boat to be being pulled along, & even sometimes surfing, in order to keep enough flow over the rudder in order to keep the helm answering. Where as if you're being "pushed" along, the boat's ass will continually be trying to pass her bow on the downhill sides of big waves. And too much main, coupled with too little jib is a big contributor to this.


Going slowly downhill in heavy weather seems like the safe(st) idea, but it ain't, necessarily. Since when the wave speed is about the same as the boat's speed, then there's almost zero water flow over the rudder, so the helm won't answer, thus leaving you at the mercy of the waves. AKA broach city. You want as little time with the boat speed at or near that of the waves as is possible.
Think about how much harder it is to turn a corner on a bike with any stability at 2mph vs. 10mph. It's kind of the same deal.

Yes, I TOTALLY agree with this. Some people think the slower the better in heavy weather, but you need CONTROL, and control comes from a powerful rudder, and the power of the rudder comes from the speed of the flow around it.

So running off in heavy weather I try to keep boat speed up to at least 6 or 7 knots.

The other reason to keep the speed up is that more speed downwind, means less relative speed between you and the waves, so you don't get smacked as hard, and there is less risk of getting pooped.


If the weather is strong but not really heavy -- that is, if I'm not worried about a wave broaching us or getting stuffed into the back of a wave, I will let her have her head, and surf if she wants to. With all the drive exerted forward of the keel, the boat is being pulled instead of pushed, and is extremely stable like this -- she loves it. I can tell when she exceeds hull speed because she starts to throw up this weird fine spray from the bow. Fun!