Could Someone Define Fore-Reaching for Me ?

[unbusted67]

I don't know what it is. I know it has something to do with heaving too but...

[delmarrey]

A forereach is the shooting or moving ahead a sailboat makes when coming about or luffing into the eye of the wind. IAW a forward movement when head to wind. Kinetic energy.

One may do this to get across a finish line, head to wind or into a slip. Sometimes known as forge ahead.

[minaret]

When properly hove-to your boat should be pointed at an angle head into the wind and waves, but drifting slowly dead down wind. Fore reaching is when you are hove-to but the boats sail balance is such that you are making some headway instead of drifting DDW. In some cases this could defeat the purpose of heaving-to and hence might be a bad thing, ie fore-reaching at 2 knots instead of drifting DDW at a knot or so. Some boats are very hard to heave-to without fore reaching.
Also one of the keys to proper heaving-to is that a boat drifting DDW leaves a visible wake or slick directly to weather which causes waves not to break. A boat which is fore reaching will sail out from behind this wake or slick and therefore lose one of the most important effects of heaving to in bad weather.
In other words the purpose of heaving to is to completely stall the forward motion of the boat through the water. Fore reaching is when you have almost succeeded in doing this but not quite.

[TEE]

I have used forereaching in bad weather before. Basically, when forereaching, you are actually steering the boat actively. As you go up a wave you steer into the wind just enough to keep the boat going forward. Then when you crest a wave, you steer off the wind to control your speed down the back side of the wave. The trick is to get the feel of the boat and not pick up too much speed or lose too much speed going up or down the waves. The trick is also not to accidently tack as the boat gets thrown around in big waves sometimes in a sloppy sea.

The book Storm Tactics by Lin and Larry Pardey descibes reaching on page 34. They say that if you are hove to and you are forereaching the boat is sailing forward out of the protective slick created by being hove to and that is a bad thing.

Hal Roth in his book describes fore reaching as the practice of taking down the jib entirely and proceeding solely with the mainsail basically pinching and tacking back and forth. "Handling Storms"

Adlard Coles describes fore reaching under bare poles during a storm in his book.

Except for me, I would say all are experts, but all define fore reaching differently. I think minaret above agrees with Lin and Larry Pardey, but many other people have used my definition too.

[boatman61]

What I call heaving to is also refered to as fore reaching by some...
I've never had any boat go DDW with jib backed...
in fact most advocate that when you heave to choose the tack that will send you in the general direction you'd like to go... usually between 1/2 and 1 knot...
Very useful in a prolonged storm thats driving you down on a hostile coast 20 or more miles away.. can set the tacks to your advantage maintaining sea room but slowly working your way to a beneficial position to make a run for port.. ie; if the winds from the N you'll be headed ESE or WSW... on some boats with fuller keel this works well with just the reefed main..
But thats me...

[Triton106]

The best answer I have read is from an article by Beth Leonard - "HEAVING TO AND FOREREACHING: Mastering these key boathandling techniques makes sailing safer – and more fun".

Here is an excerpt:

Five miles out from the harbor entrance, Evans leaned forward and said something to Bob. Bob throttled back and cut the engine. Under the reefed mainsail, the boat slowed gradually. Bob kept the helm centered, and after a few minutes Isalei-Rua ended up at a 45 degree angle to the wind, moving forward at between one and two knots. She would slowly come up to the wind until the mainsail stalled and started to luff, bringing her almost to a halt. She’d fall off ten or fifteen degrees and start sailing again, building up speed until she got to two knots. Then she would work back up into the wind until the mainsail stalled. And so she went at a slow jog across the water, weaving back and forth.
As she bled off speed, waves stopped washing down the decks, and spray stopped flying over the coachroof. Everything got quieter and calmer, and the motion became easy and slow, like a rocking horse. Jacquie’s grip relaxed on the binnacle, and Bob smiled. “This is forereaching,” Evans said. “You’re jogging along to windward, not making much forward progress, but not going sideways either. You can see you still have a small wake behind the boat. Now let’s try heaving to.

[Mycroft]

Link to Beth's article in PDF format on her website: Heaving To and Forereaching

[opolily]

unbusted67 Thanks for asking this question and thank to all for replies. Beth Leonard's description is the clearest I've read.

[delmarrey]

Originally Posted by opolily

unbusted67 Thanks for asking this question and thank to all for replies. Beth Leonard's description is the clearest I've read.

And just as important was the description of heaving-to with different hull/rigging configurations.

[alctel]

Holy Moly thats a great link

[Palarran]

Originally Posted by TEE

I have used forereaching in bad weather before. Basically, when forereaching, you are actually steering the boat actively. As you go up a wave you steer into the wind just enough to keep the boat going forward. Then when you crest a wave, you steer off the wind to control your speed down the back side of the wave. The trick is to get the feel of the boat and not pick up too much speed or lose too much speed going up or down the waves. The trick is also not to accidently tack as the boat gets thrown around in big waves sometimes in a sloppy sea.

Interesting question in that so many of us have different views of what it is. This description from Tee is what I've considered fore-reaching. Somewhere between close reaching and stalling. I would have considered it mandatory to manually helm the boat to fore-reach and anything else is a form of heaving too. I'm positive my boat couldn't actually sail the configuration that Beth Leonard describes but that could be because it's a cat.

[delmarrey]

From what I understand forereaching has more then one application. But the basic meaning is the boat moving forward slowly usually after loss of thrust in the sails.

AKA kinetic energy.