Don - Trim Under A Reef ?

[Ken Prichard]

What do we look for when trimming a main that has a reef? Should we still tension to keep the top batten parallel to the boom? Do the telltales still provide the same, or any, information? Any cunningham? I assume we want lots of halyard tension.I have your book and charts but don't see any reference to this situation.

 

[Don Guillette]

Don - Trim under a reef?

Ken: Your right there is nothing in my material about trimming while reefed. I don't recall where it is in the book but I think I say all sail trim goes out the window when your reefed. I'm writting for beginners to intermediates and my feeling is that all I want them thinking about while reefed is controlling the boat. Telltales, perfect sail shape, other than keeping those sails as flat as possable (see heavy weather sailing section), is all that should be on their minds. I want them to be consentrating on the next step (second reef, roll up the jib ect, start the engine etc - see the piece I recently wrote on reefing).I'm sure not everyone sees it my way but that proceedure I recently outlined is how I do it. In 9 cases out of 10 it is just my wife and myself on board (in other words, just me) and baby all I'm trying to do is hang on and get this sucker back to the dock.Anyone who has sailed in Long Beach will know what I'm talking about but for others, there are about 3 or 4 oil islands scattered around the harbor. They are disguised to look like high rise apartment houses and are named for the astronauts who were killed (white , Lovell etc). I was sailing from Huntington Beach to Long Beach one time and the wind came up so fast and blew so hard I had everything I could do to just hold on. None of my controls were rigged correctly as they are now but I saw those island in the distance and felt if I could just make the lee of the oil island I'll be OK. That first sucker island was a little dot on the horizon and it was taking forever for it to get bigger. Long story short - I finally made the lee and got the boat under control for the motor back to the dock. Very few boats were out that afternoon (I never would have been out either but I got stuck in it) and when I got back to the dock the neighbors wanted to know about the condition. I poo pooed the conditions but the brown and yellow stains on the front and back of my tan shorts gave me away!! My wife was angry about the sitution we went through but I told her like what am I, Jesus calming the waters.

 

[OldCat]

Single Reef Breezes . . .

FWIW, as I am no expert except that my 9 year old son "Whitecap Jeff" and I like a single reef breeze - at least on a lake with sea to mess us up."Should we still tension to keep the top batten parallel to the boom?" I guess if you can - but with it blowing, especially if gusting - I think you will want to add twist, spill air off the top of the sail - also this gives the sail a wider groove - only part of it stalled or luffed at a time. Gusty shifty winds are hard to get a groove for, so I aim for some sort of average & keep as much average drive as I can while limiting heel."Any cunningham? I assume we want lots of halyard tension." As Don said - lots of luff tension, to flatten and aid twist."Do the telltales still provide the same, or any, information?" I think so - but most of the time I am too busy to look - and correcting for heel and control rather than the nuance of a streaming telltale. Most of my sailing in these conditions is by feel - still as a stalled sail is no good - I think some or most the telltales will continue to stream. If you are spilling air at the top then maybe those won't stream - but the lower ones will.Generally I will set the vang for some sort of maximum twist that looks OK to my eye, and sheet for a better shape when I can & ease the mainsheet when I need to. The vang keeps the sail from folding up into a bag, the traveler is set to the max I can sheet in to under the conditions and point of sail, usually I sheet out with the mainsheet at this point as it adds twist up to the vang limit, then is a travel out & I can only handle one line and the tiller at a time.Bear in mind I am sailing boats (J22, NACRA 5.8) where it is easy to hold mainsheet and tiller and control one with each hand.Perhaps an expert will have a better way to do it?Cheers, Kevin