What is considered a normal degree of heeling?

[annsni]

As the "alarm", I can go to about 10 degrees comfortably but I just asked hubby and he said we can go to about 30 before we lose speed. He likes to sit around 20 if he has to heel because that leaves it with some room to move.

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by avb3

Best advice so far!!!

P.S. Girlfriends work the same way.

Plus it has a easy to understand proportional rate.

Increasing frequency and/or volume = increasing heel.

[Sea Dreaming]

Originally Posted by Wotname

Having the gunnel in the water is usually too far

Having the decks awash is almost always too far.


As A64 says, what is normal in boat dependant but IMO 10 to 20 degrees are about the normal limits of range.

When I was first learning to sail and we had just bought our Catalina 22, I discovered "too far".

I had just gone below and my BF was on the helm. I needed to use the head. In that boat our Porta potty was in the cabin walkway because my BF could not fit being the bulkhead. Anyway, I, sitting on the pot when the boat takes a quick dip to port. The portlights were completely submerged! I was able to keep my seat as my BF let out the main.

I remember saying "good news! The ports don't leak!"

[Cheechako]

It matters not what direction the "flat part of the bottom" is. Water is water. The only advantage of heeling is many designs create a longer water line and/or variable wetted area doing so.

[cwyckham]

Originally Posted by DefinitelyMe

The maximum angle of heel can be pretty well estimated by how the helm feels. If when heeled the helm feels fine with minimal weather helm then the boat is sailing well. When a big gust comes along it will try to pull the boat up to windward and you will feel more weather helm. It will get to a point where the rudder is acting more as a break than to turn the boat. This is just beyond your max angle of heel and the rudder is now slowing you down, so dump some air out of the main to depower the boat a bit and bring it more upright. (In extreme case, such as when reaching in heavy air with a spinnaker up, this rounding up can become a full broach with the helm effectively useless and the boat right over on it's beam ends)

A good main trimmer on a racing boat is looking at two things in particular (assuming he's got his sail shape sorted) - the angle of heel and how hard the helmsman is having to work to keep the boat going in the right direction. Communication between the helm and the main trimmer is of great importance on a race boat because the two are so dependent on one another.

This is a super important point. A little bit of weather helm will actually help the boat lift to windward (think of the rudder as a flap on a wing), but more than about 10-15 degrees of rudder is like driving with the parking brake on. The more heel you have, the more weather helm you get.

Also, the more heel you have, the more leeway you have (the boat is sliding downwind a bit instead of going where it's pointed) since the keel is no longer straight up and down.

We reef when we have more than 20-25 degrees of heel or our wheel is over more than 60-90 degrees. Anything more, and you're going slower even though it might feel fast. In fact, that's already probably going too far.

I do allow more sail when we're beating into really big, steep seas because I feel like the extra power helps us get going again when we get stopped almost dead by a wave. That's just a gut feel, though, and it may be that the decreased speed and increased leeway is actually hurting us even in this case.

[cwyckham]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

It matters not what direction the "flat part of the bottom" is. Water is water. The only advantage of heeling is many designs create a longer water line and/or variable wetted area doing so.

Since I've done far too many races with very light wind, I'll add another one: about 15 degrees of heel will let gravity put a nice curve on your sails so you get a better airflow and better lift.

In light wind races, we'll put the crew on the leeward rail to get just the right heel.

Derek Hatfield, the RTW solo racer also told me that this is part of the power of the canting keel on an Open 60. In the Doldrums, you put it out to leeward to tilt the boat and shape the sails.

[Cheechako]

Originally Posted by cwyckham

Since I've done far too many races with very light wind, I'll add another one: about 15 degrees of heel will let gravity put a nice curve on your sails so you get a better airflow and better lift.

In light wind races, we'll put the crew on the leeward rail to get just the right heel.

Derek Hatfield, the RTW solo racer also told me that this is part of the power of the canting keel on an Open 60. In the Doldrums, you put it out to leeward to tilt the boat and shape the sails.

OH yeah! "toerail meat to the leeward side!"

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by chadc

I'm a newbie sailor having recently purchases a 79 Watkins 27 and hadn't tried out using full sails until this weekend, I had just been cruising a long using the genoa, so I was cruising along at 5 knots with around 8 degrees of heel with both the main and genoa up in about 8 knots of wind, according to the windy phone app, and then the wind picked up and as soon as it did the boat heeled over to 15 degrees and picked up speed to 6.5 knots so needless to say with me being inexperienced this kind of freaked me out so I pulled in the genoa and just kept the main up and cruised along at 3.5-4 knots. Afterwards I felt like I should have just kept going and that is exactly what should have happened when the wind picked up, so I'm wondering if there is a normal, sorta, degree of heel?

Your boat will be fine in winds probably well up into the 20's with a Bal/Disp of almost 47% and a SA/Disp of 14.79

As for the degree of heel, it all depends on you and what you are doing.

Are you after forward speed to blast through large waves?

Are you trying to sail close to the wind?

Are you racing and trying to be very efficient getting to the upwind mark? Or Upwind fix?

Or, are you simply having fun, on autopilot, and having a beer on the cabin roof on the windward side enjoying the view while the boat is heeled 30 degrees plus.


Watkins 27:

WATKINS 27 sailboat specifications and details on sailboatdata.com

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by captstu

... when cruising in big blue water, I trimmed for minimum ruder force - in the case of big cats, measured by rudder angle on the autopilot. In the case of smaller boats, just force on the tiller or wheel. When that force grew, I found it uniformly corresponded with lost of boat speed...

Indeed.
Trim to a neutral (or very slightly "weather") helm (2 to 4 degrees rudder angle).

[JPA Cate]

chadc,

I think the guys above have got you covered for a while, so I'll just add one more variable for you to consider: when the boat's sails are old and blown out (as they often are on 2nd [or more] hand boats, by the time they come to you), your boat will heel more for a given wind speed. Get her new sails, and she'll go faster and heel less.

Ann

[thomm225]

This is where you might want to consider racing. Too much rudder slows you down.

Many new sailors believe the rudder is the main thing that steers a sailboat, but you can actually overcome rudder control with the sails or overly stress the rudder with the sails

Some folks believe it's a good idea to jump into say a 40' monohull as their first boat. And yes, you can do that but you are clueless for such a long time on the effects of rudder and sails.

If on the other hand, you race small boats weighing 300 lbs or so with the same sail area as your average 3.5 ton 70's monohull you learn quickly the relationship between sails and rudder(s) or you lose by a very long way ....

As far as heel, Hobie 16 sailors when the wind is in the upper teens enjoy being trapped out and seeing how high (angle of heel) they can make without capsizing which can be as high as 75 degrees or more which makes a little heel on a monohull with 2500 plus lbs of ballast not such a big deal

Here's a nice video. Winds look to be like 8 -10 knots or so. Think or what it's like at 20 knots. Point is you learn fast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MO_8tClTVA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMxnCI46kkA

[jamhass]

Originally Posted by Ann T. Cate

chadc,

I think the guys above have got you covered for a while, so I'll just add one more variable for you to consider: when the boat's sails are old and blown out (as they often are on 2nd [or more] hand boats, by the time they come to you), your boat will heel more for a given wind speed. Get her new sails, and she'll go faster and heel less.

Ann

And ...

MUCH less weather helm, thus less rudder, thus faster. New sails were the best improvement we made in our boat.

By the way, to some extent (usually minor on modern boats) heel buys you waterline, which in turn buys you hull speed. As noted, not a big deal on most boats today (hull speed goes as cube root of waterline), but was significant in older racing rules -- look at some of the older boats with a lot of bow and stern overhang. In that case, a bit of heel bought them lots of waterline!

[patprice]

..."heel buys you waterline, which in turn buys you hull speed. As noted, not a big deal on most boats today (hull speed goes as cube root of waterline),"....

I think that should read square root...

Signed

Smartass

[GILow]

You are heeling too much when the gin starts to spill. At this point it is best to release the sheets a little.




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[weavis]

This is as about as far as I want to go.