Methods to decrease heel

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

.....


Say what? What does that mean?...

That means don't try and meet deadlines...ie don't push the boat too hard just because you have a dinner reservation......

[twohapence]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

If your optimum VMG to windward is on a reach --

then you need a motorboat

That might have been true sailing boats whose design was influenced by the IOR rule and they needed to be sailed on their ears to maximise waterline length. However, today's cruisers with their increased hull volume, fuller aft sections to accommodate twin cabins, and shallower hulls benefit more from being sailed upright. Dip the Lee rail in the water if that's your thing but you're not sailing the boat efficiently if you do in a modern boat. Your leeway will be considerable.

Imagine you are sailing as close as you can possibly get too the wind at, say, five knots. Would you sail faster easing your sheets and coming 20 degrees off a close hauled course? You certainly would. At 20 degrees offset you'd need to make an extra 6% boat speed and sail at 5.3 knots to make the same VMG to windward.

Have a look at the tables at the link below. It might surprise you.

Ocean Sail Articles: Velocity Made Good Trading off course against speed

[UNCIVILIZED]

First, given what you were doing. Trying to get to Point A the quickest. You can put most of the key nav functions which a helmsman needs into a handheld GPS, so that you know what anything & everything that you to in terms of trim or steering is doing, as relates to your VMG.
That way, even if you have zero sailing instruments, you can maximize your speed towards your goal in real time.

Much has been covered on mains, & pretty well. Though if yours is approaching middle age, it may benefit from some TLC/a facelift. Be it as simple as a nip & tuck recut. Or by adding longer, full, or stiffer battens to it, in order to move the draft forward, & take out some of it's sag.
Such can easily give you 1/2-3/4kt & remove 10deg. of heel.


There are a LOT of things which can be done to optimize jib trim as well. Which will both benefit speed, & also cut down on some of your heeling.
Most of the ideas for tuning it are akin to those used for the main, albeit using a few less, & different controls, but to the same effect.
Halyard (& Cunningham) Tension
Headstay Tension (Backstay)
Lead Position; both fore & aft, as well as how far outboard or inboard. Sometimes accomplished via twin sheets, each led to a different block. One inboard, one outboard or further aft, etc.
Leech Tension
Babystay
"Exotics" like; mast butt position, deck chocking, headstay & backstay length, shroud tension/length, etc. More of which than you might think can be adjusted underway. Almost all of them actually. And they do help.



How well the jib is trimmed hugely governs how much latitude you have to trim the main. As if the jib is overtrimmed, the main will have to be even more so, given that it's operating in that small window of the jib's lee. So the more choked off the jib is, the more you have to overtrim the main, which greatly exacerbates heeling (via both sails).

The two are not at all independent of one another upwind. And when trimmed right, act as one big, integral foil for the wind. So any trimming done to one usually means doing something to the other as well. Thus the trimmers need to talk to one another continually. As well as with the helmsman.


The jib too may benefit from a recut/tuneup. You can also have battens added to it; vertical or horizontal, even if it's a furling jib. As well as having a tuneup done on it's current batten system.
Not to mention adding more or differently located telltales. And anything onboard can have telltales on it... whether or not they're of use is another story And that tale's a looong post


It never hurts to pick up some good books on sails & trim, plus taking notes; before, during, & after a sail. Borrow a coach, usually informally. Video things, etc. So that you have resources to go back to, analyze, & learn from later on. As well as to show to others. Be they written or video. For critique, fun, or...

Oh, & 1 other method for knocking down heel. Convert your pilot berths/book shelves to fresh water tanks for water ballast
And yes, it really can & does work, if done right.

PS: Learning where to place crew weight, even without having them hike, helps a lot too. Including using them to help with fore & aft trim, to optimize other aero & hydrodynamic effects. As for instance, when properly done, you can cut your rudder use to almost zero. Upwind & down.

Originally Posted by Kenomac

We had one of our new vertical battens disappear while night sailing a month ago. It was tucked in it's pocket and velcroed in. Who knows how that happened, the thing was five feet long.

There are various ways to make sure that they stay in. One is sewing them in place, as in sewing the pockets shut. With or without velcro.
The other is to bolt them in place. With or without batten end adjusters on the non-bolted ends.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by twohapence

That might have been true sailing boats whose design was influenced by the IOR rule and they needed to be sailed on their ears to maximise waterline length. However, today's cruisers with their increased hull volume, fuller aft sections to accommodate twin cabins, and shallower hulls benefit more from being sailed upright. Dip the Lee rail in the water if that's your thing but you're not sailing the boat efficiently if you do in a modern boat. Your leeway will be considerable.

Imagine you are sailing as close as you can possibly get too the wind at, say, five knots. Would you sail faster easing your sheets and coming 20 degrees off a close hauled course? You certainly would. At 20 degrees offset you'd need to make an extra 6% boat speed and sail at 5.3 knots to make the same VMG to windward.

Have a look at the tables at the link below. It might surprise you.

Ocean Sail Articles: Velocity Made Good Trading off course against speed

That table would surprise no sailor, who ever did any racing or spent any time or even thought about going upwind. I suspect you are reading it wrong, however -- did you realize that it shows course over ground vs. true wind angle, not AWA?

Did you read this bit?

"It’s important to remember that the course offset angle is relative to the rhumb line from our start point to our destination. If the destination lies to windward then we’re already sailing with a course offset when we’re close hauled, so a 10 or 15 degree course change away from the wind isn’t the same as a 10 or 15 degree change away from the rhumb line. In some conditions it may be worth sailing a little freer to keep the boat speed on, but a big move away from the wind incurs a big loss in VMG. Here’s an example:



"Remember that the VMG table works with courses over the ground, so we need to think about our course over the ground not our angle to the apparent wind. Even if the wind instrument shows an angle of 30 or 35 degrees in reality our ground track is more like 40 or 45 degrees to the true wind."


That is certainly not an argument for trying to get upwind by reaching. "A big move away from the wind incurs a big loss in VMG."



Every boat has its own optimum AWA in a given set of conditions, to maximize VMG to windward. This is Sailing 101; practically the first lesson. Sail too high and the loss of speed, compounded by increased leeway, starts reducing VMG to windward. Sail too low and VMG goes down due to geometry. My instruments are set up to directly display VMG to windward and/or VMG to the waypoint.

Cruising boats often can’t point well, but it would be a rare dog which couldn’t point at all. That is, which gets to windward faster on a reach. Most modern cruising boats will have optimum AWA of about 36-38 degrees in very good conditions (smooth sea condition, wind speed in the middle of the wind range of the sails). This will correspond to tacking angle over ground of about 110 degrees or so, which means your course overground when you are sailing optimally to windward will be about 55 degrees from the true wind direction. That’s with reasonable Dacron sails in reasonable condition. Blown out sails will degrade this ability.

My boat is by no means a racing boat, but with good sails (carbon laminate), and rig set up well, she achieves optimum VMG to windward somewhat closer to the wind than this. With my larger headsail (120% yankee) optimum AWA is about 32 degrees. With my blade jib, which can be sheeted inside the shrouds, and which has a three dimensional sheet lead system, it’s about 28 degrees. In really optimum conditions, with the blade jib, I can make about 5.5 or 6 knots VMG to windward, by sailing at about 9 knots, 28 to 30 degrees AWA.

This was the end of a 67 miles passage from Dover to Brighton, which I did two days ago. Really perfect conditions, F4, glassy smooth sea.




By the time you are on a close reach, you are not getting upwind at all. There's no way to sail upwind, without sailing close hauled.

[hoppy]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

That table would surprise no sailor, who ever did any racing or spent any time or even thought about going upwind. I suspect you are reading it wrong, however -- did you realize that it shows course over ground vs. true wind angle, not AWA?

I did not look too much into it, but the numbers in the table compared with the VMG I see when sailing are very different. In some conditions I can make good progress and thus a decent VMG at even 33-35 AWA whilst at other times I can make a big speed increase and a reasonable VMG increase by baring away to 40AWA. After 40 the VMG falls away regardless of conditions.

[reed1v]

Sometimes you want to create heel to stabilize the boat. Old timers use to raise up 30+ pound weights to the masthead so the boat would have a smoother motion through rough seas. More weight aloft, slower the roll down below. Can get the same effect by raising a small fisherman on a ketch or a storm sail rigged to fly from the main top.

[reed1v]

Originally Posted by UNCIVILIZED

First, given what you were doing. Trying to get to Point A the quickest. You can put most of the key nav functions which a helmsman needs into a handheld GPS, so that you know what anything & everything that you to in terms of trim or steering is doing, as relates to your VMG.
That way, even if you have zero sailing instruments, you can maximize your speed towards your goal in real time.

Much has been covered on mains, & pretty well. Though if yours is approaching middle age, it may benefit from some TLC/a facelift. Be it as simple as a nip & tuck recut. Or by adding longer, full, or stiffer battens to it, in order to move the draft forward, & take out some of it's sag.
Such can easily give you 1/2-3/4kt & remove 10deg. of heel.


There are a LOT of things which can be done to optimize jib trim as well. Which will both benefit speed, & also cut down on some of your heeling.
Most of the ideas for tuning it are akin to those used for the main, albeit using a few less, & different controls, but to the same effect.
Halyard (& Cunningham) Tension
Headstay Tension (Backstay)
Lead Position; both fore & aft, as well as how far outboard or inboard. Sometimes accomplished via twin sheets, each led to a different block. One inboard, one outboard or further aft, etc.
Leech Tension
Babystay
"Exotics" like; mast butt position, deck chocking, headstay & backstay length, shroud tension/length, etc. More of which than you might think can be adjusted underway. Almost all of them actually. And they do help.



How well the jib is trimmed hugely governs how much latitude you have to trim the main. As if the jib is overtrimmed, the main will have to be even more so, given that it's operating in that small window of the jib's lee. So the more choked off the jib is, the more you have to overtrim the main, which greatly exacerbates heeling (via both sails).

The two are not at all independent of one another upwind. And when trimmed right, act as one big, integral foil for the wind. So any trimming done to one usually means doing something to the other as well. Thus the trimmers need to talk to one another continually. As well as with the helmsman.


The jib too may benefit from a recut/tuneup. You can also have battens added to it; vertical or horizontal, even if it's a furling jib. As well as having a tuneup done on it's current batten system.
Not to mention adding more or differently located telltales. And anything onboard can have telltales on it... whether or not they're of use is another story And that tale's a looong post


It never hurts to pick up some good books on sails & trim, plus taking notes; before, during, & after a sail. Borrow a coach, usually informally. Video things, etc. So that you have resources to go back to, analyze, & learn from later on. As well as to show to others. Be they written or video. For critique, fun, or...

Oh, & 1 other method for knocking down heel. Convert your pilot berths/book shelves to fresh water tanks for water ballast
And yes, it really can & does work, if done right.

PS: Learning where to place crew weight, even without having them hike, helps a lot too. Including using them to help with fore & aft trim, to optimize other aero & hydrodynamic effects. As for instance, when properly done, you can cut your rudder use to almost zero. Upwind & down.



There are various ways to make sure that they stay in. One is sewing them in place, as in sewing the pockets shut. With or without velcro.
The other is to bolt them in place. With or without batten end adjusters on the non-bolted ends.

We learned from long distance cruising to go with batten-less sails. Way easier to handle and less problems. Did not slow the boat down that we noticed. But then again, with a big cruising tub, speed is less essential than ease of sailing.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by hoppy

I did not look too much into it, but the numbers in the table compared with the VMG I see when sailing are very different. In some conditions I can make good progress and thus a decent VMG at even 33-35 AWA whilst at other times I can make a big speed increase and a reasonable VMG increase by baring away to 40AWA. After 40 the VMG falls away regardless of conditions.

The table is NOT AWA vs VMG to windward. It is the angle of COG to True Wind, vs VMG to windward. Big difference. As the text states, if you're sailing 30 or 35 AWA, that may be COG/TW of 50 or 60. That's because of leeway and apparent wind effect.


I completely agree with you about VMG to windward disappearing after 40 AWA. It's just too far off the wind, and no amount of gained speed will make up for the fact that you are heading far away from your destination. There is no way to get upwind under sail, except by sailing to windward, close hauled. To get a decent VMG to windward you have to get the boat in a groove at just the right angle for the conditions. Pinching of course is destructive of VMG to windward, and more destructive than it seems at first because of the increase in leeway. I've found that you really need instruments to give you this information as your VMG to windward is hard to perceive, probably because leeway can't be directly perceived. Crucially important is being able to make the boat go fast while sailing close to the wind, as speed makes the keel and rudder produce lift and reduces leeway.

I have been getting remarkable improvements in headsail trim by sheeting inside the shrouds and tweaking the sheet leads inboard, a control I've never had before. Just this one control has given me at least 2 or 3 degrees better wind angle at the same speed. Oddly this seems to make the mainsail work better as well -- no idea why.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by reed1v

We learned from long distance cruising to go with batten-less sails. Way easier to handle and less problems. Did not slow the boat down that we noticed. But then again, with a big cruising tub, speed is less essential than ease of sailing.

I have battens in my in-mast furling mainsail. They allow a straight leech which makes a huge difference in performance. They are no trouble at all except that they fall out sometimes. I've lost two so far.

[thomm225]

Ease the sheets a bit. Reef. Deck meat. Smaller jib, etc

If you aren't racing, why worry about decreasing speed a bit?

We like 20 degrees of heel plus on our old plastic classics. It lengthens the water line and speeds us up a bit

[reed1v]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I have battens in my in-mast furling mainsail. They allow a straight leech which makes a huge difference in performance. They are no trouble at all except that they fall out sometimes. I've lost two so far.

We liked to go with the trades, which blow usually a steady 20-30 knots. At that speed any boat will do hull speed with just the normal compliment of sails up. In light air, mains are useless anyways. Those two conditions fairly cover the range of sailing conditions one finds around the world when traversing the old sailing routes.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by reed1v

We liked to go with the trades, which blow usually a steady 20-30 knots. At that speed any boat will do hull speed with just the normal compliment of sails up. In light air, mains are useless anyways. Those two conditions fairly cover the range of sailing conditions one finds around the world when traversing the old sailing routes.

Yes, if all your sailing is downwind in the trades, then none of my comments apply. To sail downwind, you only need to make drag, not lift, so a much simpler job for the sails.

[reed1v]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Yes, if all your sailing is downwind in the trades, then none of my comments apply. To sail downwind, you only need to make drag, not lift, so a much simpler job for the sails.

Gentlemen do not go to windward.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by reed1v

Gentlemen do not go to windward.

But scoundrels do

I never claimed to be a gentleman

[barnakiel]

Sail shape, gentle people. Sail shape.

You can vmg and wtf no matter what and waste your eyesight comparing the polars, the gauges and the chicks ashore.

A clean hull, a good trim, and quality, new sails.

She will go fast and flat. Or at least faster and flatter than when dirty, over-trimmed and with baggy sails.

Cheers,
b.