Bob: What you described is an interesting situation and I hope we get some feed back from others as to how they would handle it. It fits into a sail trim discussion I was having last night with a group of beginner sailors. The discussion last night involved having a plan to deal with sailing situations that come up sometimes (actually most times) when you least expect them. I was asking the group what they would do if this or that happened. For example, a shroud or stay broke, someone fell overboard or whatever (I did not think of a sudden squall but that would have worked also - I will include it the next time). What I wanted them to do is have a plan to cope with the situation that they could activate immediatelly and almost without thinking. When the crap hits the fan that is hardly the time to figure out what to do. There are probably a few way to deal with your situation and the skipper is always the final arbiter as to what to do. Unfortuanately, he has to live (or die) by his decision. Here's what I would have done. Remember I'm trying to get control of the boat as I really don't know what is coming next. I would have immediately come up to closehauled and here's why and it has to do with options. Going to down wind reduces my options. In other words, its blowing like stink and there is no way I can reduce sail going downwind. I'm held captive and being pushed along like a giant kite. While it might be a fun ride in other circumstances that is not the idea of the question. Assume I'm now closehauled. First I want to reduce the angle of attack so I would drop the traveler. Probably that is not going to help much in the situation you are describing but it will help some. Next,I want to make the bottom 2/3 of the sail as flat as possable so I would crank on the outhaul and bend the mast. For the moment, that takes care of the main. Now I have to deal with flattening the jib. If you have a Garhauer adjustable fairlead system, the next step is easy - flaten the jib by moving the fairlead car aft. If you have a pin car setup that's easier said than done. What you have done with that simple and quick fairlead adjustment is flatten the bottom 2/3 of the sail and induce twist in the top 1/3. Twist mean your spilling power out the top of the sail. Hopefully, we are now under control. I'd wait a minute to see how much control I have. Assume its getting worse. I'd release the boom vang, which will twist off the top of the main thus spilling power. At this point, regardless of how much control I have, I'm really thinking about rolling up that jib. Because, I'm closehauled instead of downwind, this is simple - just come head to wind and roll it up VERY QUICKLY (neat does not matter - just get it in) and then fall back to closehauled. Next is a 1st and 2nd reef in the main, which again is simple - just come head to wind and do it. I would not fool around with the 1st reef. I'd go right to the 2nd because it is tough enough to do so why do it twice. Finally, and if all else fails, you drop the main and go to bare poles. The above sound like a lot of work. Most of it, other than the reef, can be done in less than 2 minutes. Most sailors don't practice reefing. They wait until it is blowing like stink to try it and it takes them forever to get the job done. Hopefully, this discussion will take off on this important topic. I'm really not interested in a discussion on what is the right way or the wrong way. More important is what each sailor should do is think out what they are going to do and have some kind of reasoning in their mind as to why they are proceeding as they are because they are going to live with it. I was thinking about something else - I assume everyone know what a "chicken gybe" is. Gybing in heavy weather can be a real trip and you can tear up a lot of hardware plus taking someones head off if you don't do it right. The chicken gybe is real simple, easy and very safe. If anyone is interested, I'll explain it.
