Heaving to vs. fore reaching: defining characteristics

[thomm225]

Again it has a lot to do with keel shape and even boat shape/type.

Before the 1968 GGR, Bernard Moitessier and his wife were about to lose their boat near Cape Horn when he remembered something he had read and decided to pull in his 700' of Warp and his drogue and let his 39' boat Joshua surf down the face of the huge waves so as not to take such a beating from breaking waves.

https://images.search.yahoo.com/sear...g&action=click

In a similar situation, Robin Knox-Johnson on his 32' wooden boat Suhaili was about to lose his boat when he decided to drag a long Warp and also possibly a drogue behind his boat. He said the boat did fine after that.

https://images.search.yahoo.com/sear...g&action=click

[donradcliffe]

Boats are not all the same. My experience with the Beneteau 456 was that if you backwinded the jib the bow would just fall off. I tried furling more and more jib, and the best result was to furl it completely.

[BAD ORCA]

Originally Posted by JPK

Understood.



It's that "usually downwind" part that I'm inquiring about. If, when attempting to heave to, one does not end up drifting downwind, what changes to the sails would one attempt in order to go from making headway to making leeway? Reducing the size of the jib? or the main? or both? Why? I'd like to understand the principles behind what effect these changes would have on how a boat would heave to in heavy weather.

In reading a little bit more of the Pardeys, they used a small storm tri-sail so probably reducing jib. My boat has a giant Genoa as does my friends sailboat and both make headway to windward at 1-2 kts when hove to. we havn't practices a lot with sails and usually just ease off the main, but we are only having lunch not storm sailing.

[JoeRobertJr]

Originally Posted by BAD ORCA

In reading a little bit more of the Pardeys, they used a small storm tri-sail so probably reducing jib. My boat has a giant Genoa as does my friends sailboat and both make headway to windward at 1-2 kts when hove to. we havn't practices a lot with sails and usually just ease off the main, but we are only having lunch not storm sailing.

Yeah, my Catalina 25 with genoa required me to furl the jib so only about 1/3 was left exposed. With the full jib out, the boat would oscillate significantly, never really stabilizing, and continuing to make too much forward progress. With the much smaller amount of jib, she would settle down when hove to. It was reading another thread on this forum that encouraged me to try that in the first place.

[Mirage35]

We heave to regularly for short periods, having learned that doing so makes reefing the main considerably less stressful. The boat stays nice and stable through the exercise with the small jib up front (if we're reefing it's unlikely we'll have the genoa on) but continues to make maybe 1 kt headway.

We haven't spent any time playing with it to see how much this can be controlled because it's not an issue for our purposes.

[Kettlewell]

As others have noted, you have to try various things on your boat to find out what the best combination of sails, etc. will do, but in my experience things become very different when the wind is howling, the seas are big and breaking, and adjusting everything becomes harder to do. You often find that what works heaving-to at say 25 knots does not work at 40 knots. We owned a 32-foot cruising cat once, and I discovered mostly through trial and error that with a double or triple reefed main up and sheeted in pretty hard she would forereach herself along slowly in pretty rough conditions, sometimes coming up a bit in puffs and then falling off a bit in lulls. She would do that for long periods of time. I've had monos that sailed quite well under main alone, even heavily reefed, making that a nice sailplan to slowly jog along in heavy air even using the autopilot. In my experience it is hard to achieve with modern boats that magical heaving-to we read about in the classic cruising books.

[Stu Jackson]

Originally Posted by JPK

Heaving to: Passive technique (helm can be left untended). Jib backwinded, main eased, helm locked to windward, boat pointing ~40-60 deg. into the wind, boat slowly makes leeway with a slick trailing to windward off the bow.

Nope. If that was the case you'd be going backwards and you're not. You are still moving forward somewhat while slipping to leeward, but the slick is off your aft quarter. I've been heaving to since 1983 on our Catalina 22 SRSK, then a Catalina 25 SRFK, and our C34.

Some should also learn the differences between:


to
too
and
two


Like:
there
their
and
they're

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by Stu Jackson

Some should also learn the differences between:


to
too
and
two


Like:
there
their
and
they're

Some should chill out on people's quick internet posts also.

Most folks are usually in a hurry and may miss a letter or two when posting or they are new at sailing and don't quite know the lingo.

And Btw old full/cutaway keel boats are always the easiest to Heave Too on.

In the 1968 GGR, Nigel Tetley on his 42' trimaran Victress found that Laying a Hull worked best in the Southern Ocean.

https://www.google.com/search?sca_es...57m508EhSITWzM

[Mirage35]

Originally Posted by thomm225

Some should chill out on people's quick internet posts also.

Most folks are usually in a hurry and may miss a letter or two when posting or they are new at sailing and don't quite know the lingo.

And Btw old full/cutaway keel boats are always the easiest to Heave Too on.

In the 1968 GGR, Nigel Tetley on his 40'+ trimaran Victress found that Laying a Hull worked best in the Southern Ocean.

+1

Among other changes since retirement, I've noticed that both my typing and my spelling are a lot sloppier than they used to be. And I don't care.

[JPA Cate]

I wanted to add one other factor about fore-reaching. It is perhaps a personality thing, but if you heave to, you may awaken to find yourself a long ways (50 n. mi. or more) from where you wanted to be, whereas if you continue to head towards your destination, you actually make progress, although slowly. It suits me better. (And yes, I'm also a string puller.)

Ann

[JPK]

Originally Posted by Stu Jackson

Nope. If that was the case you'd be going backwards and you're not. You are still moving forward somewhat while slipping to leeward, but the slick is off your aft quarter. I've been heaving to since 1983 on our Catalina 22 SRSK, then a Catalina 25 SRFK, and our C34.

Some should also learn the differences between:


to
too
and
two


Like:
there
their
and
they're

I am unsure if all of this was directed at me, but I will disagree with you on several points. First off, this is straight from Tom Cunliffe's excellent book "Living Through The Gale." Per Tom's diagram, the boat is, in fact, slipping backward while it is also being blown to leeward. I'm happy for you that you've been heaving to in a way that works for you since 1983, but this is not the technique that I'm asking about.



Secondly, "heaving to" is the correct term. Not heaving too, or heaving two or any other such nonsense. Not sure what your point was with all of that, but I will agree with the others here that nobody appreciates the grammar police.

[boatman61]

Unless the winds blowing in the direction you want to go.. in which case you change tack every day or so to keep yourself reversing in the direction of where you want to arrive..

[thomm225]

Good Old Boat Article on Heaving to:

https://goodoldboat.com/heave-to/

Plus a nice photo of a solar panel mounted on the stern railing.

[Kettlewell]

Great article!

Good Old Boat Article on Heaving to:

https://goodoldboat.com/heave-to/
Older boats, especially those with full keels, easily lend themselves to heaving to. The underwater hull form is more forgiving with low aspect ratio foils that are difficult to stall. They provide consistent influence, or grip, on the water around them, enabling a position to be more easily held to the sea. A traditional hull shape also provides more drag when moving sideways through the water, controlling the rate of drift and developing a more influential slick to weather. Furthermore, older hulls feature more wetted surface area. This creates added resistance to moving forward, keeping the vessel hove to instead of forereaching.

[Don C L]

He got a Luders 33 to go 16 knots! See? Hull speed is entirely theoretical! Or maybe our old school boats have found the secret way to beat the physics!