Anchor Riding Sails - Do They Work ?

[jfssail]

I have used Sailrites anchor riding sail for the past two seasons in the North Channel of Georgian Bay. The sail is made from heavy boat- cover material (Topgun) and positioned on one of the backstays above the bimini with the tack led forward to the mast. It has reduced swinging from 90 degrees to 45 degrees. I use the main halyard for the head attachment For an investment of a little over $100, it has been very worthwhile . Head and tack lines must be very tight to avoid the flipping sound you will get if it is loose.

[scotty]

i so need to look in to this , my boat does more sailing under anchor then when i am on it. when i go check on it when the wind picks up its funny to see it cover a 50 yard area , funny but unnerving i though my anchor line broke once

[mikereed100]

Originally Posted by swagman

Suggest you try hanging a drogue off your anchor chain just below water level.

We've a high freeboard lightweight 46 footer with very little under the forefoot and a big 25 metre rig. Not surprising it used to heave about at anchor in any significant breeze.

Someone suggested hanging a bucket - not from the bow but from the chain - and we improvised a trial with one of our emergency steering drogues.

It appears to slow down the bows desire to sheer away, giving the stern time to line up again in the breeze, and for us it definately works.

Might be worth trying before you invest in a riding sail.

Cheers
JOHN

I love this idea and will definitely give it a try. I have had some success with simply lashing the kayaks to the stern pulpit to create a little more windage aft. It's free and your neighbors think you're nuts so they give you plenty of room.

Mike

[Nauticatarcher]

We added a riding sail a couple of years ago, made a huge difference, it's made out of heavy vinyl, with hollow cut leech and foot, we set it on topping lift and use main halyard to tension luff, clew is lead to halyard winch on mast and cranked up to tension sail, dramatically improves action at anchor

[delmarrey]

Have you considered a anchor bridle system. http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...fort-7087.html

I have an IOR and it works for me, depending on the wave action. Every anchorage is different. So trying different systems will get you what you want most of the time.

The worst anchorage I had once was when the waves were coming into a small cove but the wind was whipping around the hillside pushing me at a quarter towards the waves. I ended up with an anchor off both ends to keep'r straight into the waves.

[Boomp]

Surprised to see this post still going. I bought one from Sailrite and was very happy with it. My 30' shallow draft Morgan Out Island has high freeboard and sailed like a kite until I put the riding sail on. Last year the movement of our boat was a cause for worry and now it drifts a lot less and all very quietly.

[Sandero]

I find mine works well. It IS rigged on CL and it is probably a bit oversized. The tack rides over the boom attached to a block. I rig a 1.2 line from the forward end of one genny track through the block to another block on the forward end of the other genny track and back to a cockpit winch. By tensioning this line I downhaul and center the tack and the line clear the boom and flacked main. The clew is attached to the end of boom which is secured athwartship by pulling the traveler to windward and using another line to a winch to tension it to windward. This hold the boom rock steady where I want it which is CL. Then the main halyard is used to hoist and tension the sail.

This takes no more than 4 or 5 minutes to rig. The tack gear is attached the riding sail. Procedure:

Unfold sail and attached clew with wichard snap hook to a pad eye at the aft end of the boom.

Take the tack line (attached to the sail via a block) and snap the wichard snap hook at the end of that to sbt fron end of genny track. I have a sliding ring fitting which lives there permanantly.

Snap on a snatch block the other ring fitting on the opposite front end of the genny track and run the tack line through it and aft to a secondary winch.

Tie a line to the aft end of the boom and lead to under a cleat to the other secondary winch. Pull the traveler to the oppsite side and tension the line to bring the boom to CL. Now it's fixed there.

From the cockpit attach the unused main halyard to the head of the riding sail and haul it up.

Finally tension the tack line from the secondary winch and the halyard. This give a blade tight and flat sail precisely on CL.

Doesn't interfer with Dutchmen lines nor cockpit awing if I choose to rig one.

[scotty]

i am now just dropping a second anchor on a 3 to 1 scope off the stern, boats been rock solid for a week now including a night of 40 knot winds

[Easterly-30]

I use the anchor sail "kit" from Sailrite: Anchor Riding Sail Kit (12.5 Sq Feet) It works great! The boat used to sail at anchor badly, now it only sails a few degrees to either side. It is a far more comfortable ride at anchor now and it will improve your anchor holding too! Mine is hanked onto the backstay. The main halyard clips into the head. I tie a downhaul line to the tack and to a padeye that I installed just inboard of the backstay. The clew is tied to a line which goes to one of the forward Starboard side stanchon bases. I tie it so that there is a slight belly in the sail. Optimally I would fly it closer to the boom, but I fly it higher so that it will not interfere with the wind-generator so much.

[AdamY]

Surprised to see GreatKetch indicate that what I have been doing wiith my ketch doesnt work.

I sheet my mizzen (otherwise mostly vestigial) tight amidships and it acts like a perfect fletching and keeps Estrella bow into the wind. I am convinced apart from personal attention to chafing during the storm the use of our double reefed mizzen sheeted hard amidships kept estrellla off the rocks in Hurricane Henriette. I took the mizzen down at one point because I thought maybe I could save it from the hurricane and we went from moving 5 degrees or less either side to shearing 90 degrees either way. I had no idea how other people werent tearing their moorings out (and indeed 5 boats were lost in the mooring field, thankfully unoccupied).

with that mizzen sheeting tight in and our single snubber rigged to our 3/8" chain and 66lb Rocna the 1/2" snubber went bar taut and stretched to the diameter of a pencil. We sheared none at all and nothing touched that snubber.

So I suspect that while we may not have been doing it "right" we got nothing short of the most ideal result from our setup.

Cheers,

[Nauticatarcher]

One of the few advantages of having a Ketch

[SaucySailoress]

ANy more opinions about these riding sails before I buy one?? Which ones work best?? ANy other suggestions??

[fishwife]

After a poster mentioned using a drogue on the anchor chain (thank you), I made a drogue from a large, strongly constructed canvass bucket. With a short wooden bar keeping the handles apart and a three foot bridle to the handles, I fasten it to the chain about 5 foot under the water. It's made a remarkable difference to my high windage, sail-less boat. Very cheap and easy to replace if needed.

P.

[SaucySailoress]

We have some old dinghy sails lying around, and I just fixed my sewing machine, so I'm thinking of making one. I'm planning on making one based on the sailrite one at the end of the above link.... I'm assuming that they still work OK two years after the last posts about them!

[hpeer]

I bought a small used heavy hank on sail that I could use for different things:
1 - Principally use as a storm staysail if needed.
2 - But I can also hank it on the backstay to use as a riding sail. Not a lot of experience with this.
3 - Once I had trouble heaving to, I have a lot of freeboard and that night I had a bunch of sail tied to the fore rails. Hanked to the back stay the bow would point 10 to 15 degrees better. Not terribly windy, I was just beat.
4 - Lastly I could use it as a drogue if needed.