Dead Down Wind?

[Delancey]

Rolling is a concern. As mentioned I have an older IOR hull so it's been an interesting thread for me to learn about the twizzle rig which I had never heard about.

Don't suppose there is any chance you can explain why you would roll less when sailing wing-and-wing when compared to sailing with twins and no main? But then do I have it right that the twizzle rolls the least of all?

Seems like a spinnaker is probably the worst but is that just me? Where's my blooper at?

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

Some skippers know which is faster for their boat, others don't.

That is an interesting point. Unless an asymmetrical is considered, I wager few can show me speed polar data that demonstrates jibing gives greater VMG than wing-and-wing with a genoa and wisker pole, in winds above 15 knots. Too many racers go DDW successfully for me to beleive it as a rule. I'll even include cruising cats, just for fun. Once hull speed becomes a factor, the extra mileage cannot be recovered.

Yes, the boat is faster on a reach, but not VMG. The ride DDW on a cat is smooth as glass, where a quartering sea is aggravating to both autohelm and crew. Setting a boat up for DDW does take practice, and some boats don't like it. If my course is deep but not DDW, often the fastest way is to alternate between DDW and apparent wind just aft of the beam, the 2 best VMG courses. Typically I leave the preventer and simply jibe the genoa. Easy.

[barnakiel]

When the seas are flat, we may and often will sail ddw. Symmetric kite or simply poled out jib. But in open water seas are hardly ever flat enough for that.

Ddw may coincide (much as it most often does not) with dead down waves. In this set up, boats beamy aft sail nice and comfortable, but any older style hull will roll in most uncomfortable way (meaning - both ways).

So, our solution is when the wind is not aligned with the main wave train, sail ddw with the main (this is the bigger sail in our case) on the lee (wave's lee) side. Then our boat will roll deeper to the lee side and very little to the windward side.

We have a half-classic hull: long (not full) keel, but quite shallow canoe body. I am sure with other hulls and rigs tricks may differ.

When not going ddw, we will tack downwind sailing about 150 to 160 under our kite (assym). This may be comfortable or not, we sail faster but our VMG does not seem to gain too much. This cannot be done in a narrow water channel too (e.g. in the coral country).

So to say, we are the ddw folks but we play to the comfort tune.

b.

[DefinitelyMe]

Originally Posted by ryon

On a SQUARE-RIGGER, of course!

Funnily enough it's very rare to sail dead down wind in a square-rigger. It's not very efficient because the fore-sails are blanketed and it's very unpleasant because the ship rolls a lot. I spent about a year sailing a barque-rigged ship and we would usually head up a touch to put the wind on the quarter and make better VMG (though of course, it was never called VMG.......... that would be far-too-modern a term!). All the fancy modern racers (including me :-) ) recon they're doing something special by playing the angles but square-riggers have been doing it for centuries.

[Rubikoop]

My cat ketch loves to go DDW. Being able to put the booms out just past 90 degrees makes it very hard to have an accidental jibe. My 39' boat with a dirty bottom towing a rib regularly runs up against double digits and is a joy to handle.


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[zeehag]

jib n mizzen ddw is no big deal.
is uncomfy in a modern sloop. wasnt uncomfortable with gaff rigged sloop...
happens. we deal with it as it comes. not a problem in my ketch.
was more difficult to balance wing and wing with my ericson, with its fin/spade combo, ditto the boat i sailed a near year in gom--a seidelmann 37 sloop.

[El Pinguino]

I found sailing DDW in the 'trades' to be rather painful.

In higher latitudes if there is much wind in prospect I douse the main.... nothing worse than trying to sort that out in the dark when it freshens.


My norm is furling jib together with one of my 3 storm jibs on the inner forestay... sometimes the jib is poled out, sometimes not... often easier to manage without... just roll away the jib when you need to and keep going under storm jib alone.

Photo is in about 45/50S not quite DDW

[gjordan]

It is not at all odd to find different peoples experience with sailing to be completely different. DDW is my favorite point of sail, and the few times when I did it using just the jib, I found the rolling to be much worse than wing and wing. When the main is let out it can not go as far as a jib. It will always be a little fore and aft which gives you the resistance to rolling. Twin jibs, which can be old bags and still give you sail area, have no fore and aft component(or very little) to them, so will roll more. I have no clue what a twizzel rig will do for rolling, but I wonder how complicated it is to drop if you need to change course in a hurry? Much of my DDW sailing was done in a very traditional wine glass hull with a full keel. It didnt roll bad at all. I also did Antigua to Panama in my Peterson 44 in light winds up to double reefed main and poled out #2, and didnt find the roll bad. One of the reasons I prefer DDW is that on all three of my cruising boats, a broad reach would make the windvane work much harder, and tend to get much more water in to the cockpit. Trade wind sailing is great as long as you dont have to turn around and go back up wind. Just my 2 cents worth. _____Grant.

[Dennis.G]

I will sail DDW with polled jib and main with preventer. If I am rolling too much, which is fairly often, I end up giving up on that and run with sails on the same side and wind off the quarter, and jibe my way downwind. Usually about the same VMG so mostly a matter of comfort. I do hate rolling, but like pointing the direction I really want to end up going too.

On a few occasions I gave up on DDW because of the heat. Getting some relative wind over the boat is worth a lot when it's really hot out.

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by Dennis.G

I will sail DDW with polled jib and main with preventer. If I am rolling too much, which is fairly often, I end up giving up on that and run with sails on the same side and wind off the quarter, and jibe my way downwind. Usually about the same VMG so mostly a matter of comfort. I do hate rolling, but like pointing the direction I really want to end up going too.

On a few occasions I gave up on DDW because of the heat. Getting some relative wind over the boat is worth a lot when it's really hot out.

Dennis, try just sheeting in the main a couple of feet. This increases the roll damping and does not kill the boat speed very much at all... at least on our previous boat. On this one, with the swept back spreaders the main is always "sheeted in" a bit, and we don't roll much DDW with a poled-out genoa.

Jim

[FamilyVan]

I would say, if you have a blank slate, set it up for running. My boat is crap downwind, but round up a 15 degrees and she's fine.
If I had the choice, she'd run well.
If you can set her up for sailing straight into the wind- even better, because I find that's the most common wind direction. Relative 000.

[gjordan]

FamilyVan, it only seems to us cruisers that everywhere we want to go is dead up wind. It is really only 95% of the time that our destination is dead up wind. It must be Karma for our past lives. _____Grant.

[ryon]

Originally Posted by DefinitelyMe

Funnily enough it's very rare to sail dead down wind in a square-rigger. It's not very efficient because the fore-sails are blanketed and it's very unpleasant because the ship rolls a lot. I spent about a year sailing a barque-rigged ship and we would usually head up a touch to put the wind on the quarter and make better VMG (though of course, it was never called VMG.......... that would be far-too-modern a term!). All the fancy modern racers (including me :-) ) recon they're doing something special by playing the angles but square-riggers have been doing it for centuries.

A year sailing a barque! I am green with envy. They're usually bigger than your usual full-rigger. Was it a class A? Eagle perchance?

[Delancey]

Years ago when the HMS Rose was in town, I befriended the crew and took a bunch of them out sailing for a booze cruise. They returned the favor the next day by inviting me onboard when the ship went out for a VIP cruise.

I got to help set and furl the foretop, which was a total thrill of a lifetime! I remember being second out from the end of the yard as we made fast our gaskets and looking down to see we were out over the water, which seemed far far away.

I think one of the guys name was Mike and I remember he was from Maryland. If you're out there, thanks! That was a great experience I remember vividly even today.

[gjordan]

In old books before the days of windvanes being common, there was much talk about twin headsails for down-wind. One of the things that was mentioned often was to hoist the trysail as far up as possible, and sheet it flat. That really takes the roll out of a boat. It is not enough area to throw the stern around, yet the flat sheeting makes the perfect roll stopper. The only thing I can see that would make this less than perfect would be one more thing to deal with if you have to turn around. Hoisted trysail also makes a wonderful roll stopper in a rolley anchorage. Just another 2 cents worth. _______Grant.