Reefing Sail Trim

[Don Guillette]

A San Fran sailor of a Bene 38, who has been sailing those water for 60 years, contacted me yesterday. First he complimented me on my book, which he indicated he found useful. He then indicated he was surprised that my book made no mention of reefing trim since on most summer days he has to reef. I'm sure my good friend Stu J knows all about sailing in those conditions.

I've only had to THINK about reefing three time. The first time was on Lake Havasu, AZ where it it either blows zero or 90 knots. I saw the front coming and merely dropped the main & jib on the Mac 22 and motored back to the marina. The next time was in Long Beach, Ca harbor on a Catalina 25. High winds are not common there and again I saw it coming. Fortunately, I was about a half mile from a oil island. I hot footed to the lee of the island and dropped anchor. After the front past I went happily on my way. The 3rd time was at a Catalina 30 National event in Santa Cruz, Ca. It was really blowing. I mean blowing like stink. Two boats were dismasted that day. I had sailed with this crew a number of times and everyone knew their job plus we were fighting for first place and the boat we were fighting against wasn't reefed. Matter of fact, reefing never crossed our mind. It was a photo finish - we came in second.

My advise is that when you first think that maybe you should reef you're next step is reef BUT before reefing, there are a number of things you can do with your main and jib to maintain control and sailing in heavy wind is addressed in my book and on my sail trim chart. Both products are designed for beginner sailors and my advise to them is that if it's blowing like stink when you arrive at the marina - don't go out. Know your limitations and if you have limited experience and have not practiced reefing and you're caught in it don't fool around - drop the main and jib and motor through it.

Note: If my wife and I arrived at the marina and it was blowing hard and I wanted to go out anyway I'd be going alone. She'd tell me have fun and to call her at Parkers Lighthouse (local restaurant) when I got back!!

Getting back to the San Fran sailor's question. He didn't mention his reefing sail trim technique SO, from those of you who frequently sail in those conditions or those that might - what is the technique you'd use?

 

[jssailem]

Don,
I am not sure I understand the question.
If I define the purpose of of sail trim as the task to optimize boat performance in a given wind environment, then the limit of my boat performance would be going a maximum controlled boat speed.

Exceeding controllable boat speed would be bad.

Boat speed for displacement boats is limited to hull speed. Boat speed for planning boats would be controllability. Heading down a steep wave in either boat may require the skipper to slow the boat with a drogue or warps. It may require the decision to remove all sails and canvas above the deck, sail on bare poles.

When wind speed reaches the need to reef, then the boat is considered to be reaching the limits of controlable boat speed based on full sails. Sails are over powered. The rational for trimming is limited. The concern becomes one of survival and safety.

As far as the controls in a reefed condition, they are the same tools. They may not work technically as fine as they did with full sail. They become more gross then fine adjustments.

 

[Davidasailor26]

I think one of the key considerations both when approaching reefing conditions and after reefing is keeping the sails depowered as much as possible. Before reefing that means taking steps like tightening the outhaul, and dropping the traveler. A big part of that is also having the boat’s equipment set up to allow efficient sail trim even when reefed. The reefing line for example still needs to be able to keep outhaul tension. If reefing a roller furling jib it should have a foam luff so the middle of the sail doesn’t bag out. Once the reef is in the overall concepts are the same as sailing toward the top end of the wind range where extra power isn’t needed; you just need to make sure the boat is set up to allow that.

 

[shemandr]

The main sail trim goal I have for a reefed main is to make sure the leech reef line pulls the foot absolutely flat. Lots of sailors know to bring the reefing cringle tight to the boom. Fewer understand the importance of pulling the cringle aft to flatten the sail - plywood flat.
I also release the vang up wind, pull the traveler up and ease the main sheet. The goal is to open the upper leech thereby spilling wind from the part of the sail that would cause the most heel. Instead of playing the traveler in gusts I would do that with the main sheet.
Fractional rigs warrant a post of their own.

 

[DArcy]

The answer very much depends on the sail being reefed and on the point of sail. A slab reefed main will be very different than an in boom furled main which is different than a luff roller furled sail. I was close reaching in 30 knots on a First 40 with a single reef in the main and the genoa furled to about 85%. This was good for close reaching but the reef in the genoa does not provide good luff tension so close hauled it just isn't as efficient. The main held shape very well. I typically try to flatten the foot of the slab reefed main as much as possible, the reef line needs to pull back and down at the reef point. I've seen setups with the reef line running straight out the end of the boom but this does not give enough downward pull, and I've seen some that the reef line pulls down too sharply which doesn't tighten the foot.

I had to sail upwind in 50 knots on my old C&C27. It was a situation with wind building and then it swung to blow into the anchorage so there was a lee shore behind me. In this case I double reefed the main before raising anchor and did not raise the hanked on jib. Setting both the jib and main would have been too much sail for the conditions and the jib alone would have pushed the centre of effort forward creating too much weather helm. With the double reefed main the boat was very well balanced and easy to control and tacking was easy. The main alone was slow going into the waves but we made it safe and sound and no drama.

 

[BarryL]

Hi,

This is a good topic. A few points from me:

In use my boat for day sails, weekend or longer cruises, and some racing as well, both distance and beer-can.
My boat is setup with single line reefing for the main, and a roller furling head sail. For the main sail I have blocks at the luff and leech for the reeling lines. I also have a powered halyard winch.

To Reef the main:
1. Ease halyard (this year I will mark the proper location on the halyard. Last year we just eased it a LOT), then close main halyard clutch
2. Pull reefing line, then put on winch and grind until leech cringle is as close to boom as possible
3. Put main halyard on winch and raise sail until luff is tight
DONE

To shake reef out:
1. Open reefing line clutch
2. Put main halyard on winch and raise sail until luff is tight
DONE

Since the mainsail reefing process is easy to do (and undo) I will reef whenever conditions call for it. If I am not racing, I will roll up some of the headsail before reefing the main. If racing we will reef the main after going through ALL of the depowering steps (halyard on right, backstay on tight, outhaul on tight, crew hiking hard, etc. Depending on the sea state and point of sail, we may have the main sheet on tight and traveler down, OR we may have the traveler up high and the main sheet eased. The main sheet tight and traveler down usually provides better boat speed, but once the traveler is down so much that main starts to flog we have to switch (flogging is terrible for the sail). With the traveler up and the sheet off, the top of the sail twists off so the sail is depowered but doesn't flog and the helm isn't all loaded up. Once the main has been reefed and we're doing a distance race, if the wind continues to build we will switch from the #1 headsail to a #3 (I don't have a #2), but the sail change takes a long time and I have to sail bareheaded because I only have one headsail halyard. This year I will experiment with using the spin halyard to hoist the #3 (there is another groove in the furler foil).

Just a few other points:
In almost every case, once we get the main reefed we find the boat is sailing FASTER and FLATTER. Sailing at extreme heel and rudder angle may feel fast, but usually is slow.
If it's forecast to be windy and I'm just out for a daysail I will sail with just the headsail. If that will be too much sail I'll probably just stay in port.
When racing, with a full crew, we just do what is needed to be done. Sail changes, rig adjustments, whatever. In a beer can race there is no time to change sails but in distance racing it make a lot of sense.

Barry

 

[jssailem]

Sailing at extreme heel and rudder angle may feel fast, but usually is slow.

Not only is it slow because you loose the drive power of the sail to move the boat through the chop.
You loose the control of the rudder.
The boat slides to leeward taking you away from the Rhumb line.
You round up when the rudder looses lift and begins to drag.

It is all a drag.

 

[Don Guillette]

Don,
I am not sure I understand the question.

John: To be honest with you, when I was presented with the question I didn't understand it either and wasn't sure how to answer the question plus I was in the middle of watching a football game.

You boys (David, Barry L, D'Arcy) are spot on and all of you are pretty much saying the same thing. In the old days of the Sail Trim Forum all kinds of answers would surface but now it's getting tougher & tougher to fool you guys.

 

[Stu Jackson]

He then indicated he was surprised that my book made no mention of reefing trim since on most summer days he has to reef.

Are we sure he really read the book? The only mainsail control not available when (slab) reefed is the adjustable outhaul (obviously different for in mast and in boom furlers). Once the clew is fixed to the boom properly, it stays there. Otherwise, all of the other mainsail controls apply.
For those who don't know me, I sailed (cruised & raced) on SF Bay for 18 years on this boat, cruised for 15 years before that there on a C22 and a C25.

 

[David in Sandusky]

A reefed main should be flat. Our reefing system drops an eye in the luff over a hook on the boom end. The only way to flatten the luff is to tighten the halyard. With one reef in, we could rig a line through the second luff reef point as a reefed Cunningham to further tighten the luff on the nearby, mast mounted spinnaker halyard winch. (I’ve never tried this.)

Our reef lines control the leach only, and are rigged from the boom end, so they already flatten the foot of the main. The Vang and mainsheet can play their normal roles in controlling the leach of the main. On a main reefed to keep the boat on its feet without excessive heel, the tension on the Vang and mainsheet line is about the same as for the unreefed main in lower winds.

For a roller furled genny/jib, the foam pads already mentioned are the only way to control shape of the luff. The sheet blocks should be moved forward to maintain the right twist.

 

[Hayden Watson]

trimming the main is exactly the same whether it is reefed or not. As mentioned before on the foresail, a foam luff is a good thing to have but you can and should also flatten the sail by using the aft stay tension. This reduces the head stay sag which flattens the sail.

 

[Hayden Watson]

In the past I had slab reefed with the typical drop haulard, tighten fore and aft reef lines and retention the halyard. The problem I had with that method was that the main would start to flog wildly as soon as I dropped the halyard and did not stop until the halyard was retensions. One day I changed my method and had no flogging at all

• trim the genoa for the conditions. I want to be in a close reach to close hauled course. (45º - 80º) apparent. You will keep sailing under the power of the jib alone so it is important.
• easy traveler and release vang and main sheet. I want no tension on any line connecting the boom to the deck. At this point, the boom will weather-cock and move back and forth but the sail does not flog because the weight of the boom is supporting the leech between the battens.
• This is where it gets different. I haul the clew reef line in which pull the boom up to the cringle. This keeps the weight of the boom on the leech the whole time which prevents flogging.
• I use my 3:1 Cunningham for my reef cringle so I move the Cunningham hook up to there and pull down on the cringle as I ease the halyard, I lock off the halyard at a premarked point and then tension the luff with the Conningham tackle.
• trim mainsheet, traveler and vang as needed and enjoy.

 

[Hayden Watson]

With my C30 tall rig, in wind lf 18 knots, I sail at the same speed through water with or without the reef when close hauled but the reef will point 5 to 10 degrees higher. It is not faster but the VMG gains are huge. In those conditions, the reef hurts quite a bit on the run which is why so many racers will struggle to windward with full sails in the +18 knots conditions.
I have a single line reefing system that lets me reef in less than 30 seconds with very little loss in drive while the reefing is being done. Now I reef upwind and shake it out for the run. WIN, WIN.
@jssailem has raced with me in reefing conditions and just after dark in the channel between Whidbey and Hat Island, the guy who was steering complained about the helm getting heavy and hard to handle. About a minute later he said, "I think I've got a handle on it", to which I replied, "That is probably due to the reef." His response was "What reef!" I had reefed the main right in front of his eye while he was helming, and he didn't notice a thing except that the boat suddenly started sailing better.

 

[Don Guillette]

If I were explaining this topic to a group of beginner sailors (for which this forum was developed for) in one of my sail trim seminars this is what I would tell them. My seminars were for beginner sailors so I stayed away from scientific and technical explanation -- if I got to technical I myself got confused!! Also I used my Catalina 30 as my example.

As the wind starts to pipe up you need to start flattening the sail - a flat sail is a less powerful sail. When you get to flat induce as much twist as you can in order to spill power from the top 2/3 of the main and jib. Let's say twist didn't do enough and the clue is flat should have worked but try twist anyway. Assume there's no joy in twist and flat so ref is the next option but once you do you're stuck with the SET of the sails you have because one of the mainsail adjustment controls (outhaul) is trapped. The boom vang, mainsheet and traveler are operational as well as the fairleads and jib sheets.

This situation is why it's so important to know WHAT all the sail trim controls are adjusting and WHICH sail trim controls adjusts WHAT element and which way to push or pull it to get the results you desire. With each sail trim chart I include a FREE quick reference which explains all that stuff.

There are 4 things ALL the sail trim controls for the main & jib are adjusting and they are draft depth, draft position, twist and angle of attack. When you reef you've lost the ability to adjust 2 of the elements on the main - draft depth, draft position - because the outhaul is captured but if you had flattened that sail - no problem.

If the beginner has a masthead rig, unfortunately the first sail they deal with is the mainsail. That's a mistake because the engine of a masthead rig is the jib. When you've partially rolled up the jib the ONE sail trim controls that adjusts ALL 4 elements is still operational - fairleads. If you have a Garhauer adjustable system you're in good shape - pin type not so much.

At this point in the seminar Id tell them this topic is an seminar aside and I'm sorry I got into to it. Then I'd give them my personal opinion and advise that most of you beginners don't have the sail trim experience and have not practiced the procedure so don't fool around. If it were me I'd first START THE ENGINE and next roll up the jib first and drop the main (easy for me since I have lazy jacks).

 

[Hayden Watson]

but once you do you're stuck with the SET of the sails you have because one of the mainsail adjustment controls (outhaul) is trapped.

When you reef you've lost the ability to adjust 2 of the elements on the main - draft depth, draft position - because the outhaul is captured but if you had flattened that sail - no problem.

Sorry to be contrary but neither of these statements are true. You still have control of the foot tension when reefed by controling the angle of the leads to the clew reef lines and the tension that you crank into that line. When reefed with a properly set up system, all four trim controls are still in play. Now if your reefing system doesn't allow for moving the anchor point because the cheek block and pad eye are fixed like Catalina put on the mk1 instead of with a track mount reefing cars like they put on the mk2 than you lose some trim control. In a race in 25-knots, me on my C30 TR/BS and you on yours with identical sails, I would love to race my reefed main and roller furling genoa against your full main and genoa.

If it were me I'd first START THE ENGINE and next roll up the jib first and drop the main (easy for me since I have lazy jacks).

Personally, I would consider this to be naive advice at best and dangerous at worst. In my region, we are blessed with very light air conditions except for when it blows like stink. I have often been out on days that the average wind was 5-10 and then suddenly had it go to 35-40 with little notice. A C30 in +35-kts is severely underpowered to motor to windward even with the M-25XP. With properly sized sails it will safely and comfortably sail in those conditions, but motoring gets scary fast. Reefing should be taught to beginners because it will build the confidence to enable them to enjoy sailing without the worry of being overwhelmed by an unforecast wind.

When I bought my first sailboat with no sailing experience, the broker insisted in my going out with him or his staff three times before he would release the boat to me. One of those days needed to be with wind exceeding 20 knots so that I could learn to reef in actual reefing conditions. It took me a month to finally find a day suitable for my "final exam".

After that, I took the boat home and launched it needing to sail around a peninsula to my marina on a day that was forecast to have 15 nts of wind. Just after I turned the corner and started the run down the peninsula, the wind increased from 15 to over 40 according to the anemometer at the harbormaster's office. I did what I has been taught and rolled out to a broad reach and dropped the main and lashed it. Then sailed with the 100% jib the rest of the way to the marina. If I had tried to get out of that with the 10hp outboard I would have been in very big trouble.

When my daughter was 5-6, we were watching The Little Mermaid and in the Hurricane scene when the ship was careening out of control, she jumped up and yelled "They've got too much sail up. Why don't they reef?!?!?" So proud.

 

[David in Sandusky]

What Hayden said.

 

[Hayden Watson]

Here is a link to a video demonstrating how my SLR works. Apologies for my huffing and puffing and how slow I did it. This was the third time I had done this in the past 5-minutes. The guy who was filming, forgot to push the record button the other two times. Making the reefing system simple and fast means that you use it on days when you otherwise might just muscle through but reefing just makes it so much easier.
https://www.screencast.com/t/BcfAEJKU0iaR

 

[SkipR]

I'm the SF sailor who started this thread. For those not familiar with SF Bay conditions, from April through September it blows 20-30 knots almost every afternoon. My current boat, a Beneteau O-38, has in mast reefing, no traveler (sadly), and no adjustable backstay. When sailing close-hauled to close reach in winds of 18+ knots, even with the main trimmed flat with vang and outhaul tension, the rudder loses control and the boat rounds up in most gusts, not to mention being healed far enough to make less experienced crew uncomfortable. In the absence of a traveler, the ability to depower the sail by increasing twist via the mainsheet is limited by the uncomfortable and destructive flogging which results from the slackened mainsheet. That's why I start reefing when the wind gets to about 18 knots and reef further as the wind continues to build. When the wind hits the high 20's I usually put a small reef in the furling and non-overlapping jib. While I'm not a big fan of furling mains, the ability to reef quickly and easily and to any desired sail area is a big plus.

 

[Hayden Watson]

I'm the SF sailor who started this thread. For those not familiar with SF Bay conditions, from April through September it blows 20-30 knots almost every afternoon. My current boat, a Beneteau O-38, has in mast reefing, no traveler (sadly), and no adjustable backstay. When sailing close-hauled to close reach in winds of 18+ knots, even with the main trimmed flat with vang and outhaul tension, the rudder loses control and the boat rounds up in most gusts, not to mention being healed far enough to make less experienced crew uncomfortable. In the absence of a traveler, the ability to depower the sail by increasing twist via the mainsheet is limited by the uncomfortable and destructive flogging which results from the slackened mainsheet. That's why I start reefing when the wind gets to about 18 knots and reef further as the wind continues to build. When the wind hits the high 20's I usually put a small reef in the furling and non-overlapping jib. While I'm not a big fan of furling mains, the ability to reef quickly and easily and to any desired sail area is a big plus.

And I am sure that for you as for me, reefing is a normal part of sailing which make days that would otherwise be un-sailable into great days on the water.

 

[Morgan donor]

Hayden, you have to loosen the main sheet (& vang) to allow the reef line to pull the boom up to the reef cringle. Your halyard was too tight which is why there was space between boom and sail. You'll pull that reef cringle out on a typical production sail.