Dakartimm said:
I find about 20 degrees is about right. I usually let the traveller down and ease the main out in gusting winds .I can certainly understand the frustration of trying to read the winds without any type of telltales.
You may try the folowing. Let both the jib adn the main sheets out until the sails are luffing(flapping). Then one at a time trim just one in. Just a little at a time. When the sail starts drawing go on to the remaining sail.
This seemed helpful, compliments of squ sailmakers (sp?):
RECESS said:
I adjust the main first when I am handling both the main and the jib by myself, only because I keep my hand on the main sheet all the time when it can be gusty. Often my wife and I sail together and we move them together.
I would suggest using the orange caution tape, synthetic yarn, or christmas tensil tied and streaming on your side stays up at the level you look at your sails. I have a Windex on the top of my mast, but I look at the orange caution tape 90% of the time to see where the wind is coming from. I like the orange as it is easy to read at night. Your windward stay will show the wind direction. The lee stay will get pushed back from the wind coming off the jib. I did not have a clear picture of this with our Oday 25, but you can see what I am talking about with our Catalina 22. The orange caution tape is on both side stays.
This seemed helpful : I found it under a sailmaker's web site as given by Ed k under the recent thread "new mainsail"
Dealing with Excessive
Weather Helm and Heeling
A little weather helm (a tendency for the boat to turn into the wind) is good. It gives the helm a nice positive "feel" and angles the rudder a bit off center which adds a little lift to the hull. However, weather helm can become so pronounced that it takes two strong arms to hold the helm and the rudder is at such an acute angle that it is acting like a brake slowing the boat down. At this point the boat is not only sailing inefficiently, it is no fun either. To reduce weather helm:
1. Use your shape controls to flatten both sails.
2. Keep the headsail in tight.
3. Ease the traveler off to leeward, or tighten the vang to keep the sail flat and ease the sheet.
Heeling also increases weather helm due to the shape of the parts of the hull that are underwater when heeling. To reduce heel, keep the sails flat with the draft forward and the head of the main twisted off. Also, get your crew members to sit on the windward side of the boat.
Even with proper sail trim, at some point heeling will become enough of a problem that it is time to shorten sail. Ideally, whether you reduce the headsail area or the main area first should be determined by how the boat is balanced. In general, reduce headsail area first. Then when the weather helm starts to get bad, reef the main.
However, not all boats should reduce headsail area first. If your boat tends to have quite a bit of weather helm under average conditions, you will most likely need to reef the main first. Some boats even balance well sailing under a big headsail alone. Just make sure you haven't given the boat a lee helm-a tendency to head off when you let go of the tiller.
Experience is the best teacher. Keep track of how your helm behaves under different sail combinations and conditions. You should be able to get the boat to sail nicely with reduced sail area no matter how it was designed to balance with full canvas. It is just a matter of finding the right combination of main and headsail areas.
