Mates: Most beginners to intermediates (and maybe some experts) think that "heaving to" is a heavy weather tactic but it is much more than that. In addition to being a way to deal with heavy weather it also is a way to let you enjoy a lunch break. More importantly, it is also a tactic that buys you time. It could help you rest a tired crew, allow you to wait for a fog bank to clear, make repairs or allow you to wait for daylight to get into a unfamiliar harbor. The uses are endless. What you are trying to do is stop your boats headway and drift backwards. Essentially, your boat will look like something we have all seen - a sea gull resting on the water. Like everything in sailing, you have to know how it works and how to do it. Once you know those 2 things your sail trim knowledge is ahead of 75% of the sailors worldwide. WHY and HOW are everything. What you are trying to accomplish is to sheet the main and jib so they oppose each other. As a point of info, a jenny due to its large sail area, will work against you so you have to shorten it and to some extent a full main is also a problem. It may be necessary to throw in a reef. What you are trying to do is use the forces of the sails and rudder to cancel each other. In other words, the main and rudder provide headway and tend to turn the boat into the wind. The jib, on the other hand, turns the bow away from the wind. You have to find the combination that will cancel both those actions and essentially stop the forward progress of the boat. Most sailors think that when they heave to they maintain their position but actually they don't. They are actually drifting backwards. Here's how you do it - from a closehauled point of sail just come about without touching the jib sheet. Keep the helm to leeward. When the mainsail fills on the opposite tack the jib is automatically aback and you are in the proper position and have heaved to - maybe, that is, if your lucky but your boat may require some additionally adjustments. When you have correctly heaved to the boat is no longer sailing forward but is actually drifting backwards. The drift pattern your looking for is a "square drift". I'll explain that in a minute. In heavy seas, the orientation you want is about 50 degrees off the wind and you want to be slowly drifting backwards. Why do you want that? The reason is that you don't want to take waves on the beam. How do you know when you are in the proper orientation? It is easy - what you are looking for is a "drift slick". When you are moving backwards there is a turbulent wake that is caused by water passing around and under the stalled keel. The effect of that is to reduce the power of breaking seascoming at you. It creates a drift slick, sort of as if you had thrown oil on the water. How can you tell if your drifting backwards in your wave and creating a drift slick? It is easy - tie a line to a small fender and drop it overboard. If that fender ends up farther aft it means your sailing forward and your getting out of your protective slick. Sailing forward is not the action we are looking for. If you are sailing forward this is not the action we are seeking and to correct this situation you must adjust your sails or deploy a sea anchor. The easiest action is obviously to correct your sails. The time to try this maneuver is in calm seas and in open water. It is a maneuver that should be part of every sailors gadget bag of knowledge. Why do you have to practice this maneuver and why can't you just do it the first time you need it? The reason is all boats are different. You have to experiment to obtain the proper sail combination and helm position for your boat to get the desired results because every boat has a different center of lateral resistance and a different fore and aft balance. Give "heaving to" a try the next time you take your boat out. The knowledge you gain may come in handy some day. The other alternative would be to wait till you actually need it and then think , now what did that sail trim forum guy say to do!!!
