Still rounding up...

[OldFrog75]

Originally Posted by Southern Star

Yes, old stretched sails will not help. However, have you considered whether you may be suffering increased weather helm due to the rig? If the top of your mast is too far aft, you will get increased weather helm which will significantly reduce your speed to windward. Remember, each time you have to use your rudder to offset weather helm, it acts partially as a brake. Try tightening your forestay and letting off on your backstay. This will move the Ce of the sailplan forward; really, the physics are much like a windsurfer - if you want to bear off, you move the mast forward.

Have definitely considered this. Being it's a charter fleet boat, tuning the rig is the owner's responsibility/prerogative and I have no more control over that than replacing the sails. We have to make do with what we've got.

Brad

Thanks for the comments

[OldFrog75]

Originally Posted by ctl411

Move the jib cars back to twist off the headsail at the top. Luff will break at top first but you at over powered anyway.
Or switch to a smaller flatter cut headsail if you have one. With the cars back you will also flatten the sail shape. More headsail halyard tension will move the draft forward and help depower.

We usually have the cars further back to tighten the foot and twist off the genoa. We tried something different this week hoping the extra draft in the headsail would help us power through the chop but I suspect the rigging is loose (relaxed headstay) and therefore moving the cars forward only exacerbated the problem. If we have the same conditions next week we will either move the cars back or go to the smaller 110 jib.

Thanks for the comments

[OldFrog75]

Originally Posted by ctl411

You are most likely getting weather helm from being overpowered, not a balance problem. You can round up with just the headsail up. If you are allowed to change sails during the race that would be the best option.

We are allowed to change headsails during the race but with a furling jib and foil the time lost attempting it with our crew would probably not be worth the effort. We have discussed it but given how long it takes to switch out the headsails while sitting comfortably in the slip we've decided against it.

Thanks for commenting.

[OldFrog75]

Originally Posted by robert sailor

Try this...sheet in the mainsail until the top batten is parallel with the boom. (get your eye under the boom and line it up with the top batten and sheet it so the 2 line up) Now use your traveler to adjust for helm.

We always start out this way.

In the gusts the helmsman should pinch up.

Admitedly I need to get better at this.

To set the head sail up the helmsman steers the boat on a beat and then starts to turn upwind as if he is going to tack but only goes as far as it takes to have the telltails lift. Either the top or the bottom will lift first, if its the top move the fairlead forward and if its the bottom move it back. Its AOK if the top telltail breaks just a split second before the others but you will see it all happening as the boat turns upwind.

Normally we do this but trying to solve this problem (excessive healing and weather helm in only 14 kts of wind while sailing close hauled) has resulted in disregarding/tweaking some of the basic rules.

I don't trim the headsail as close to the shrouds/spreaders as you do, I'm usually 8-10" off in perfect conditions and 12" in sloppy conditions but that can very with each boat. Over sheeting sails is still the most common mistake made by rookies.

Understood.

When you put more tension on the luff by tightening the halyards you effectively move the draft forward in the bottom 2/3rds of the sail but you need backstay tension to get to the top part of the sail.

Halyards are tight. Not our boat without a backstay tensioner we can't adjust the standing rigging even if we want to.

If you were 20-25 degrees heeled you probably should have had a reef in the main when going upwind.

Understood but as I've said before with 80 boats on the water and none of them reefed in 14 kts of wind I would like to try to find a trim solution other than reefing the main.

There are all sorts of other things you can do but those are the real basics. How your skipper drives the boat will play a large roll in your speed. Remember once you get basic sail trim down then boat speed gains you about 5% in a race but tactics will always be over 20%.

Agreed. First to admit I can improve at the helm.

Thanks for commenting.

[OldFrog75]

Originally Posted by cal40john

Even though the advice given before appears contradictory, it is all correct, but for different wind and weather conditions, and different boats.

Car forward, jib telltales break at same time - good for power
Car aft - depowering

Main leach tight (top batten parallel) - better for pointing. A racing saying is that the boat goes upwind on the leach of the main. Bethwaithe claims a non-twisted travelled down sail has less drag than a twisted sail. But as you have power all the way up to the top of the mast where you have the greatest lever arm you'll need to play the traveller more to keep power on in the lulls, and ease off power in the gusts. A twisted sail requires less work.

Agreed. Putting substantially more twist in the main was something new this week since "conventional" trimming resulted in excessive healing and weather helm in similar conditions. As stated in the OP, it did not solve the problem.

Reefing - A reefed sail is more efficient than a sail that has to be luffed all the time (big bubble). But if you are buoy racing, the amount of time shaking out the reef for the downwind legs will kill your race results. So you deal with being overpowered upwind, and do all you can to blade out (flatten) the sail to reduce drag. Longer races where time spent reefing/unreefing is inconsequential compared to time lost due to poor boat speed is when you reef.

Agreed. We are buoy racing and one week we tried reefing and subsequently shaking it out and it really cost us. Typically we have our highest winds on the beat to the windward mark and by the time we round the mark the winds have begun to drop and continue to drop as we head toward the finish line.

Heeling - you'll have to research the boat you're sailing or experiment for yourself. Newer flat bottomed generally like less heel. One J boat captain I've heard trims for no more than 17 degrees of heel. My boat in certain conditions doesn't like more than 20 degrees, sometimes it likes as much as 25. Some round bottom IOR boats seem to like 25 degrees or more.

It's a 2004 Beneteau 323 and there's not a lot of research out there but if it's a standing rigging or blown out sail problem it doesn't really matter what research might say. Unfortunately experimentation seems to be our only option.

Another aspect to look at other than heeling is weather helm (they are related). Generally 3-5 degrees of helm helps provide lift to weather without undue drag. Fortunately for me, I calculated that the end of my tiller moves 1 inch for 1 degree of rudder.

I like Bethwaithe's book High Performance Sailing.

Thanks for commenting.

[OldFrog75]

Originally Posted by Snowpetrel

Is the helmsman pinching, sounds like he might be sailing a touch free, powering up the boat to much and losing height.

Based upon conversations with other racers, the helmsman (me) should probably be pinching more to try to keep the boat flat.

With some furlers taking half a roll actually flattens the headsail, could be worth a try.

We have considered it but have not tried it. We have a smaller 110 jib we can use.

Thanks for commenting.

[cal40john]

From Jack Horner review BoatUS - Boat Reviews - Beneteau 323 :

On the other hand, the ballast is only 26% of total displacement and even though the VCG (vertical center of gravity) is lowered with the modified-bulb keel, it not surprising that she is also reported to be a bit tender.

Her broad beam and wide transom make it more important that she be sailed flat - like the big dinghy she resembles.

[OldFrog75]

For what it's worth I just got the following information from the owner:

2004 Beneteau Oceanis - purchased September 2005 and put in the water Spring 2006.

The main and jib are the original sails. The 135 genoa was purchased used shortly thereafter.

Given it's a charter boat and added to the probability that the rigging hasn't been tuned in quite some time and I think we know what the problem is. Still doesn't tell us how to solve it.

As an aside I've googled, "trimming old sails", "trimming baggy sails", "trimming blown out sails", etc, and for the most part every link recommends buying new sails or having the old ones recut. No suggestions whatsoever on trimming what you got.

[Stu Jackson]

12-15 knots your main should be flat, flat, flat. Dan's right, reread his post. Forget traveler up and mainsheet out. Traveler up, yes, mainsheet tight, tight, tight.

And, one moves one's jib fairleads to make the telltales on the luff break evenly. What you say about a tight foot is meaningless.

And just because they don't reef, doesn't mean YOU shouldn't, even if they are identical boats - and in this case i doubt if they are, right?. 20 deg heel is often too much. I've beaten fully canvassed boats with 130s and full mains with our 110 and a reefed main. Really.

[OldFrog75]

Originally Posted by cal40john

From Jack Horner review BoatUS - Boat Reviews - Beneteau 323 :

On the other hand, the ballast is only 26% of total displacement and even though the VCG (vertical center of gravity) is lowered with the modified-bulb keel, it not surprising that she is also reported to be a bit tender.

Her broad beam and wide transom make it more important that she be sailed flat - like the big dinghy she resembles.

Yeah, I read that. Pretty funny. But on balance a pretty favorable review.

[cal40john]

Originally Posted by OldFrog75

Yeah, I read that. Pretty funny. But on balance a pretty favorable review.

I think that translates to less than 20 degrees of heel, maybe as little as 15, and get more crew hiking.

[OldFrog75]

Originally Posted by Stu Jackson

12-15 knots your main should be flat, flat, flat. Dan's right, reread his post. Forget traveler up and mainsheet out. Traveler up, yes, mainsheet tight, tight, tight.

With all due respect, because we suspected the sails are old and blown out, we have been sailing in these conditions most of the summer with halyard on tight, outhaul on hard, vang on hard, and mainsheet tight while working the traveler to spill the wind and the result was consistently excessive heeling and rounding up head to wind in only 14kts of wind.

We were simply trying different things to try to get the boat to heel less and reduce weather helm.

And, one moves one's jib fairleads to make the telltales on the luff break evenly. What you say about a tight foot is meaningless.

I know this but we're trying different things to get the boat to point higher and stay on it's feet while giving us enough power to drive through the chop.

And just because they don't reef, doesn't mean YOU shouldn't, even if they are identical boats - and in this case i doubt if they are, right?. 20 deg heel is often too much. I've beaten fully canvassed boats with 130s and full mains with our 110 and a reefed main. Really.

Understood and we might have to go that route but it seems crazy to me that a 33 foot boat should need to be reefed in only 14 kts of wind.

I just confirmed with the owner the sails are 8 years old which means the CE is probably so far aft there my not be an effective trim solution.

Thanks for commenting.

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by OldFrog75

Thanks for the comments..

Froggy, I don't understand: if you are sailing hard on the wind making 6 knots, there should be more like 3-4 knots difference between true and apparent winds, depending on the apparent wind angle, etc. 1/2 knot doesn't compute for me, so I wonder what is going on here.

Now, as to raking the mast forward a bit -- might help, and perhaps your mast is actually raked aft more than normally now. Again, FWIW, many years ago I was racing my Catalina 22 on SF bay, in winds that were honestly a bit more than her designers had intended. That design is a bit flat-bottomed, and became very cranky when heeled much; uncontrolled roundups were not unknown! I found that raking the mast forward helped a lot with the weather helm, and nearly eliminated the roundups. Looked crappy, got a lot of laughs, but the year the nationals were on SFB we did very well in the afternoon races (where the winds were in their usual 25 +/- 5 knot range. The morning races in light airs (something we never did in the SYRA series) found us underpowered without a genoa, and we tanked a couple of those.

So, I don't know if your owner would accept playing with the rig, but it doesn't cost anything and might be a big help.

Cheers,

Jim

[OldFrog75]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Froggy, I don't understand: if you are sailing hard on the wind making 6 knots, there should be more like 3-4 knots difference between true and apparent winds, depending on the apparent wind angle, etc. 1/2 knot doesn't compute for me, so I wonder what is going on here.

Have to take your word for that, Jim. All I do is toggle back and forth on the digital wind indicator. Perhaps we should add anemometer and/or windex is not calibrated properly to the list of "adjustments" needed on this boat?

Now, as to raking the mast forward a bit -- might help, and perhaps your mast is actually raked aft more than normally now.

You might be right but doesn't that contradict the idea of bending the mast back to tighten the middle and upper parts of the sail to reduce weather helm? Or is the thought here that old sails have the draft/CE so far aft you have to bend the mast forward to compensate?

Until this discussion I hadn't really given tuning the standing rigging much thought (other than to assume it's probably out of whack) because as charter/club members the boats we sail don't belong to us so we pretty much sail whatever we've got as provided to us by the owners, and we trim them as best we can the way they are.

None of the club/charter boats (and I've sailed on over 35 of them) have a cunningham that I can remember and only a few have a backstay tensioner - which is the only time I've seen anyone attempt to adjust the tension on standing rigging.

So, I don't know if your owner would accept playing with the rig, but it doesn't cost anything and might be a big help.

I've never discussed it with the owner of this boat and honestly, other than what I've read in books, I wouldn't know how to properly go about it. Many of the boats have tape or covers over the turnbuckles, suggesting those owners don't want it messed with. The Charter company might also have a prohibition against it from a liability standpoint. I will have to check on that. Like I said, I've always assumed tuning the rigging wasn't an option...unless done by the owne(s) of the boat(s).

Cheers,

Jim

Thanks again for the comments

[StuM]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Froggy, I don't understand: if you are sailing hard on the wind making 6 knots, there should be more like 3-4 knots difference between true and apparent winds, depending on the apparent wind angle, etc. 1/2 knot doesn't compute for me, so I wonder what is going on here.

That struck me too.

At 12 knots true /12.5 apparent to 15/15.5 you are sailing with an APPARENT wind angle of 70 to 75 degrees. Your TWA is over 90 degrees - you would actually be sailing slightly downwind.

I'd suspect that your wind instruments are totally screwed up and you have no idea of the actual wind strengths/angles.