MOB/Heaving to a cutter

[Sanders LaMont]

Two simple question from a cutter 37 owner:- We normally practice/use a traditional figure eight man overboard manuever, but I need suggestions on how to deal with the extra sail on the cutter rig. Logic says just dump the staysail, but I would appreciate any suggestion for a better/safer approach.- Similar question on heaving to. I practiced this last weekend in 10 knots of apparent wind, treating the two forward sails as one, but the boat would not stabilize easily and continued to make way at about two knots, more than I wanted. How do you heave to with a cutter rig?Thanks,Sanders

 

[Ed Schenck]

I let the staysail go.

We have only practiced MOB a couple of times with our H37C. And that's the way we did it, just let the staysail go. Can you afford the time to furl the yankee? I wouldn't.We have also practiced heaving to, usually for lunch. I find she sits quietly with just the staysail. But I'm a novice at this. Never tried it in bad weather.

 

[Gene Gruender]

just turn around.

We've practised this a number of times to pick up things (never people yet!) and it seems do well to just turn 180 degrees and not touch a sail. You make very slow headway back and can slowly work your way to the object. As to heaving too, we've had the same experience that you do, still making some headway. However, the jib blankets the staysail some, so it doesn't have as much effect as it might otherwise. Pulling the main way to the windward side seems to help some.

 

[jcherubini]

Hove-to vis sailing through

The heaving-to notions Hank offers are interesting. I think a lot of people mistake 'heaving to' for 'sailing out a storm' which are not the same thing. A universal definition of 'heaving to' should include the idea of essentially stalling the boat either into or very close to the wind.On our Cherubini 44 cutter we used the staysail-only as the storm rig. This is not necessarily applicable to aa H-37 as our boat had an unusually long J-- including the bowsprit it was about 20 ft (the boat is 44 ft on deck!!). The staysail was just about over the centre of lateral resistance and therefore did not impose as much lee helm as it would on most cutters. The boat was very manageable under that sail alone with or without the engine. It was loose-footed and carried an overlap like a little 110.We also had a worm-gear steerer on that boat which would be very unforgiving if you had to use the helm-vs-sail technique. The boat would essentially steer a circle and never recover the helm (needing no wheel brake). In all the bad weather I can remember, I sailed it through (including through 60 kts).Now that I reinspect it I'm not sure this posting of mine helps at all.JC 2