Steering With The Sails

[Don Guillette]

Suppose you're sailing along closehauled in about 10 knots of wind just enjoying a great day on the water. You're at peace with the world and enjoying a "cold tinney" (Aussie for beer) and all of a sudden the wheel or tiller goes limp in your hand - you've just lost your steering!!!

This actually happened to me some years back on Lake Havasu, AZ. I had just purchased a beautiful MacGregor22 and couldn't wait to take her out for her first sail. Unfortuantely, at the time "I didn't know what I didn't know" about sailing. I installed the rudder but forgot, actually I didn't know, to pin it in place. We sailed away from the launch ramp and about 15 minutes later a large power baot went by creating a big wake and the next thing I know is the tiller has twisted in my hand and the rudder is floating on top of the water. All I knew was I've got to attach that sucker somehow but I couldn't do it and things are going from bad to worse. The sails are banging all over the place and my wife is yelling at me to do something - like what did she think I was trying to do!!!

Anyway, I finally sorted things out by securing the rudder to the boat, dropping the sails and starting the motor. Once back at the dock I saw where I made my mistake with the rudder and never made that mistake again.

Suppose you were in my situation and let's assume your engine won't start. Could you steer your boat with only your sails? How would you do it?

 

[Kermit]

Thanks for posting the question. I've read the theory behind steering with sails but have never tried it. Seems like something we should all learn to do just in case we pull a "Don Guillette."

Kermit

 

[Ed Schenck]

Some of you have read my post regarding circumnavigation and the book "The Voyage for Madmen". At least two of those boats, all equipped with wind vane steering, lost their "autohelms". They quickly learned to steer with the sails, across the Pacific and around Cape Horn! And from ten knots to gale force, not an easy feat. I don't know how many of you have sailed long distances. But it doesn't take long to get reaaalllyyy tired of hand steering. Wish I could say that I can do it.

 

[Roger Long]

Another very simple thing to have up your sleeve:

On a serious trip, you might even rig short lines ahead of time and tie them off to something at the transom. It would be a simple matter then to tie longer ones on and lead them to the winches. The gelcoat would suffer but you would be able to maintain some control.

 

[Don Crowther]

You could drag a pail to create drag on one side or the other to steer.

 

[Mike Turner]

I had a similar experience three years ago in our old Rob Roy 23 yawl. We sailed about 30 miles down Mobile Bay and Mississippi Sound to anchor overnight at one of the Gulf barrier islands. The next morning we found that in the night, the rudder post had broken, and the blade was lying on the bottom at the end of its hoisting tether.

We pulled the blade aboard and hoisted the jib (a 100% working jib on a roller furler) and the mizzen, leaving the main furled. Luckily the wind was out of the south to south-west, good for long broad reach 30 miles back home.

The outboard on the Rob Roy is in a small covered well at the aft end of the cockpit, and cannot be turned in the well; so the outboard was of no use to us in steering. Initially I tried setting the jib and using the mizzen to steer; but we found better control by sheeting the mizzen flat and steering with the jib, sheeting in to turn down wind and easing the sheets to head up.

It was a long day but we sailed right into our slip. Had the wind not favored us I might have raised the main, perhaps reefed, to allow us to sail closer to the wind.

I've recommended to all my friends that they practice tying the rudder amidships and experimenting with sail set to see how they can control the boat. I still have to do this on our current boat, a 32' Lazyjack schooner; it will be interesting to see what sail configuration winds up being best for sails-only control.

Mike Turner
Lazyjack 32 schooner "Mary'Lis"
Mobile Bay, Alabama

 

[Joe]

Windsurfers steer with sails and body weigt... no rudder.

Same principle for sailboats. The boat rotates around the mast and keel. More pressure ahead of the mast.. the bow falls off to "loo'ard". More pressure behind the mast the stern goes downwind.

To Head Up: ease jib and harden main
To Bear Off: ease main and harden jib
To Go Straight: balance pressure between jib and main.

Heeling the boat with your body weight can help turn it also. The boat will tend to round up towards the higher side. Without getting too scientific, heeling the boat unbalances the curve of the hull through water and turns the mast into a kind of lever. The leverage created by the leaning mast turns the boat away from the heel.

You can have a lot of fun, especially on a smaller boat, playing with these effects. Holding the jibsheet in one hand and the mainsail control in the other... then playing them between each other... is enlightening to the first timer. Combine that with shifting your weight around the cockpit or out on the rail and you will quickly discover why learning to sail on a dinghy will make you a better sailor in all size vessels.

 

[FourPoints]

I was single handing from Stamford, CT to Port Jeff, NY last summer and getting rather hungry for something to eat. Without an autohelm walking away from the cockpit is not something you can easily do. I was on a reach, and already had the sails trimmed for optimal speed (was making about 6.0 kts with 9-10kts of apparent wind), so I lashed the tiller in place with some extra line (still working on a more permanent solution). I then took in the Jib sheet about 3-4 inches, and eased out the main an equal, but opposite amount.

With the helm locked down, and the headsail slightly over trimmed, and the main slightly under trimmed, the result is the boat makes an endless series of gentle S curves over a range of about +/- 5 degrees from your original heading. If you need to head upwind, you just pull both sails in an equal distance (at the clew, not the sheet), or let out equal distance to head downwind.

This works because when the boat is downwind from the desired heading, the jib is slight under trimmed and not fully powered up, but the main is trimmed correct and fully powers up, causing the boat to slowly round up. Now the boat is upwind of the desired heading, and the main is over trimmed, and maybe even slightly luffing, but the headsail is trimmed for the higher pointing and fully powered up. This induces some lee helm, and swings the bow back down wind for the cycle to repeat over again.

With the sails trimmed like this I lost between .1 and .2kts, well worth the ability to go down below, make a sandwich, get something to drink, and clean up some things that had gotten knocked around. I maintained my course and speed without touching the helm for nearly 2 hours and covered over 10nm with the boat steering herself.

 

[Bill1565]

Blaise, frequent poster on the Cherubini hunter forum, owns Midnight Sun a Hunter 37. lost his rudder coming back from isla Muhheres. Sailed the boat easing and trimming some 400 miles in long arcs according to a crew member I know.

 

[Don Guillette]

Mates: Like always Joe from San Diego comes up with the solution. Print off his message and the next time you're out on the water take a few minutes to practice what he taught. If you can steer with your sails it is another "trick in your bag" that you'll never have to think about should the situation arise.

There is nothing worse then when something goes wrong on your boat and your guests or crew turn around and look to you for direction and you haven't the foggiest notion as to what to do. Sadly, you have no one to look to and you have to come up with something very fast - been there and done that and I really hated it. It is so much better to instintively know what to do, because you practiced for the situation, without thinking about it.

 

[Joe]

Don....... here's a cool link on a self-steering system using your mainsheet or jibsheet.... it was posted here quite a few years ago and I thank the original contributor... can't remember who it was... but everyone should find it interesting.
http://www.jsward.com/steering/index.shtml

Now... regarding steering with sails.... this is an important technique in performance sailing. Using sail trim to help the boat turn means less rudder is needed to change direction... which means less friction... and that translates into more speed (or less speed loss, but that's a double negative, right?).... i.e. rounding the windward mark, the trimmer eases the main to move the center of effort to the headsail....which pushes the bow downwind more effeciently than just using the rudder only. The same applies at the leeward mark, only here the trimmers will hold off on sheeting in the jib after the spinnaker drop, letting the center of effort move back to the main... which gets the stern pushing downwind (the boat wants to round up when the main is overpowered, right?).. same result, the boat turns more effeciently with less rudder.

 

[FourPoints]

Don....... here's cool link on a self-steering system using your main or jib.... it was posted here quite a few years ago and I thank the original contributor... can't remember who it was... but everyone should find it interesting.
http://www.jsward.com/steering/index.shtml

I had an old 14' Starcraft Skylark tunnel-hull scow. Great heavy weather sailing dinghy, self supporting deck stepped mast that was nearly 30 feet tall that came stock with a very rudementary, but inverted version of this system designed to do the opposite. It was end boom sheeted, and the fiddle block was mounted on the tiller just forward of the gudgeon. If you fell overboard, the force of the main sheet would always pull the tiller to lee, and cause the boat to round up so you could swim back to the boat and climb on. Made it a little harder to hold a course when sailing in 20kts of wind and simultaniously flying the windward hull, and plaining on the lee hull, but SO FUN!!!

found these pics online... http://sports.webshots.com/album/445342502ZZAffc

 

[inarathree]

It is something I have always wanted to practice, maybe this summer. I thought I read once that Dennis Conner, lost his steerage with his rudder, and steered by sails during an America's Cup race.

 

[cwkemp]

Oops, did that

I lost the rudder on my Lightning in similar fashion. Learned quickly how to steer with sails well enough to run a crude search pattern to retrieve it. We could sail surprisingly close to the wind but tacking through the wind required bearing off to build momentum. The rudder makes maneuvers more instant and gives you the option of forcing the timing on turns. We got back to the launch and my guest for the day just said "Huh, didn't know you coud do that with a sailboat." I have yet to try it on the Catalina 22, but I have played around trimming for neutral helm or trimming to lash the tiller on a close reach. Oh, and my rudder is always tethered and/or pinned ever since.
Clint

 

[Joe]

...... It was end boom sheeted, and the fiddle block was mounted on the tiller just forward of the gudgeon. If you fell overboard, the force of the main sheet would always pull the tiller to lee, and cause the boat to round up so you could swim back to the boat and climb on....

Years ago, whenever I felt energetic and brave enough to sail my Nacra 5.2 in the ocean I always looped the mainsheet through my harness before tying it to the traveller.... if I fell off, a tug on the line would center the boom causing the boat to either round up or capsize... and I could pull myself, not swim, back to the boat.... the rule is.. never become detached from the boat. I never had that type of emergency... but I practiced it a few times... and it worked quite well.

Capsizing and righting a small boat or catamaran is part of learning to sail. That skill was required as part of the instruction for the various small boat classes I took years ago at the Mission Bay Acquatic Center.

BTW, for those of you in the San Diego or So Cal area who want to learn sailing the right way I recommend the MBAC http://www.mbaquaticcenter.com/

It is affiliated with the SDSU, UCSD and local JC's... and, besides sailing, they offer instruction in many other watersports.

 

[FourPoints]

the rule is.. never become detached from the boat. I never had that type of emergency...

in my case I grew up in Indiana sailing on a small lake that I could (and a more than few times did) swim across the lake (it was about a mile at it's widest), so if I ever had gotten detached from the boat and unable to catch it, heading to shore wouldn't have been a concern.

now sailing on Long Island Sound, I take a more precautions as unless the water is glass calm, I don't know that I could make the swim to shore if I was detached from the boat in the middle of the sound...

 

[Court Crosby]

Good practice

My first boat was a Lido 14. I frequently sailed it without the rudder. The centerboard had to be swung aft a bit for balance, but it was the best way to learn proper sail control. It also helped (a lot) to be able to heel the boat by moving around. Everything I could do with a rudder, I could do without it, just not quite as fast. Down wind was tough, had to heel quite a ways to windward, even with the jib winged out. I couldn't do this with my Tartan 37, it doesn't care where my weight is, but the sail balance part is still good practice and you can do it with the wheel locked.

 

[CaseysDream]

"so I lashed the tiller in place with some extra line (still working on a more permanent solution)."

The permenant solution is on the market already, for if I remember correctly about $20. It is called a tiller tamer. It consists of one piece with a pulley type wheel that you bolt to the end of the tiller and some line that you run back to your stearn cleats. The part that is attached to the tiller has a tension adjustment. When you need to sail hands free, tighten it, when you want to take back control you ease it off.

Using this my wife and I used to routinely head out on to Chesapeake Bay on Friday evenings. Will the tiller tamed we were able to relax and eat dinner while we watched the cruise ships sail under Key Bridge and head past us as they made their way down the bay to points unknown (proabably somewhere in the Caribbean).

 

[tombeau]

no rudder

Our rudder gudgeons broke on a catalina 22 in 12 knots of air and a 2'chop. we dropped the genoa and put up the working jib, which gave us much better and quicker control. we needed to drag the motor in the water to keep the boat from rapidly spinning around her keel. If we had lost the motor, a lashed oar or wisker pole was our next option. We sailed back into the wind using the method described above [trim the main in, loose the jib a little to come up, reverse to falll off] to the head of the creek (about 3 miles), and then motored in. Tacking was difficult, but we did a couple, plus a couple of gybes all the way around. We now feel more comfortable when we have rudder issues.

 

[gboase]

Steering by trim is one of those skills we should all have. If you read Capt Slocum's book, "Sailing Around the World Alone" he often speaks of his hallucinated pilot who steered The Spray for days on end. Of course that was his sail trim manning the helm while he was sick or taking care of the boat in other ways. No such thing as auto pilot in 1895.

Thanks for bringing up the subject!