I had the same thing happen to me over the summer, Mike. My Main was reefed and I was on a run. The wind was too strong to Jibe, so I tried to "Wear Ship", by coming up into the wind and tacking. I didn't have a lot of room in the river to do this, and my boat would not respond to my rudder. A couple of points to consider; Although we have different size boats, they will perform better with a full Main than a reef Main, but you run the risk of getting your sail caught in the spreaders and ripping on you, not to mention an over bearing wind on that much exposed sail. I don't know about your 25, but my 222 doesn't handle worth of darn with just a reefed Gennie. I wouldn't dare to sail up to the dock with a Gennie on a good day. Although, I may have gotten away with using the Gennie on that day and could have avoided the close call that I had. I almost hit the rocks on shore when this happened. Had I been running on the bay with a lot of room to experiment, I may have been able to pull off the wearing maneuver without a hitch. If not, then at least I could have continued on and gave it another shot. So I've learned one thing, out of this. If I'm going to run the river again on a day as windy as that one, I'm going to make sure that I have plenty of room to tack and have my engine down and ready, or just go without the sails under bare poles which I have done a few time with success. Toward the end of the season, I sailed of the club dock on a wind day on a reach with a full Main, and my sail got caught in the spreader and ripped. That may never have happened had I reefed the Main before I left. Live and learn.
Joe
