Heaving To

[Jammer Six]

To resurrect an old thread, I have more data.

Last Sunday, I tried the wind vane method again, on a different boat.

goboatingnow, only a fool would think he can "sail the damn boat" against Mother Nature. Mother Nature will win that contest every time. She kills mountain climbers, hikers, sailors, skiers and all manner of other athletes every year because they're arrogant enough to think they have more endurance, patience, persistence, knowledge, strength or power than she does.

Andrew, this set of information did not come directly from heaving to, but I did notice several things worth mentioning here. This thread is one of the more valuable threads on this board, in spite of the posing.

The story is this: we took another fleet boat out, a 38' DuFour. She's an older boat, she is much beamier than the newer DuFours, and I'm told that's the result of a new Chief Designer at DuFour, that started working there since she was built. Sailing her is like sleeping with a large woman: she's wide, she's strong, she's got lots of room, and it's way more comfortable than you'd think it would be.

The water was flat, the wind was small. It never blew more than six or seven knots all day, but this boat has lots of sail on her, and six or seven knots could get us five knots through the water on just about any point of sail.

We started with man overboard drills, and things immediately went to hell in a bucket. We tied two fenders together to play the part of Bob, so when we got close, we could pick Bob out of the water with the boat hook.

The first helmsman ran Bob down. Direct hit. Bob got hit at four knots, and Bob is dead. One fender went to starboard, the other to port, and the line between them went straight to the keel. Oh, woe. Woe, woe, woe. Bob went down, and didn't come back up.

So we screwed around for at least two hours, trying everything we could think of to sail the boat straight backwards. We didn't want to start the engine when we knew we had lines wrapped around the keel. Nothing worked, and we finally started the engine, gave it a blast of reverse, and Bob popped right out from under the bow.

However.

One of the things we tried was the wind vane.

We furled the jib.

We tied the boom straight amidships, with a preventer as tight as we could get it to starboard, and the traveler to port, and then we used the main sheet to haul against the preventer. We got the preventer tight enough to play music by plucking it. We vanged down and hauled up with the halyard, and we outhauled until people were afraid to stand in front of it. The sail was as tight as we could get it.

Of course, the boat never sailed back, but during the screwing around, one of the things we ended up trying was to set the main about twenty degrees to starboard, locked down with our preventer-mainsheet power tightening.

The result, if we set the boat twenty degree off the wind to starboard, with the sail set to starboard, was this.

If we locked the helm amidships, the boat would first tack and then continue falling off the wind to port until the sail actually gybed, and the boat was running before the wind.

If we locked the helm to port, (into the wind) the process of tacking through the wind and falling off happened much faster, and if we locked the helm to starboard, (off the wind) there was a delicate balance-- either the boat would follow the helm off the wind and start running, or it would see-saw, into the wind and off the wind.

The boat never hove to properly, and, of course, it never sailed straight backwards.

What the boat wanted to do was lie beam on to the wind. Even after it tacked through the wind, it would hesitate at almost exactly 90 degrees off the wind, and try to stay there, but then it would keep going until it was running before the wind. I wanted to play with this beam on phenomenon some more, but we did have another agenda: Bob was wrapped around the keel, and we wanted him on the surface.

The boat wanted to be beam on to the wind, with the main backed into the wind.

We were all at a total loss to explain why that was so, none of us could draw a diagram explaining why in the world the boat wanted to be 90 degrees to the wind, with the main backed into the wind.

So now I've completed my duty, and reported this strange stuff here.

[goboatingnow]

goboatingnow, only a fool would think he can "sail the damn boat" against Mother Nature. Mother Nature will win that contest every time. She kills mountain climbers, hikers, sailors, skiers and all manner of other athletes every year because they're arrogant enough to think they have more endurance, patience, persistence, knowledge, strength or power than she does.

By " sail the boat " I mean simply not assuming you can heave to and sort of go below and hide under the security blanket. What I mean is you try to retain control over the boat by active methods. I don't mean you hoist sails and go out for a " jolly"

In my direct experience with modern boats heaving to in survival conditions is a desperate ploy, used when crews have become either exhausted or run out of ideas or just get plain frightened. At that point you are simply rolling dice.

Dave

[Jammer Six]

Yup, same logic used by dead hikers, who thought they could walk out, or keep warm by staying in motion, rather than stopping and building a fire.

Heaving to is an active course of action. You're projecting your own assumptions into it.

Contempt prior to investigation.

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

By " sail the boat " I mean simply not assuming you can heave to and sort of go below and hide under the security blanket. What I mean is you try to retain control over the boat by active methods. I don't mean you hoist sails and go out for a " jolly"

In my direct experience with modern boats heaving to in survival conditions is a desperate ploy, used when crews have become either exhausted or run out of ideas or just get plain frightened. At that point you are simply rolling dice.

Dave

Heaving to, by various methods, is a time tested technique...hardly a "desperate ploy". I might be more inclined to agree with that comment for lying a hull, but heaving to, hardly. Enormous number of first hand accounts, over the entire history of Western sailing, of heaving to being used deliberately and successfully.

Heaving to properly is a deliberate and active technique during which the situation should be monitored and an active watch maintained.

I've never been in what I personally considered "survival conditions", and hope to never have that life experience, but I have deliberately and successfully hove to many times in heavy weather, up to and including Cat 1 hurricane conditions.

[goboatingnow]

My issue with heaving to , is not the problem with simply stopping in a storm
The fact is that modern canoe hulled fin keeled vessels are very difficult to setup so that they remain hove to , especially in boisterous wave action

My experience is that they either lye far off the wind to be almost ahull or they will not remain give to and typically tack through the wind and power up.

Even when hove too they tend to forereach quite a bit. Due to wind age of the cabin top , deck house. Etc.

I do not see it as a good survival technique with modern designs. Comments about historical perspectives miss the point entirely

Dave

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

My issue with heaving to , is not the problem with simply stopping in a storm
The fact is that modern canoe hulled fin keeled vessels are very difficult to setup so that they remain hove to , especially in boisterous wave action

My experience is that they either lye far off the wind to be almost ahull or they will not remain give to and typically tack through the wind and power up.

Even when hove too they tend to forereach quite a bit. Due to wind age of the cabin top , deck house. Etc.

I do not see it as a good survival technique with modern designs. Comments about historical perspectives miss the point entirely

Dave

For such vessels, I don't entirely disagree. Many can be very difficult.

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

The fact is that modern canoe hulled fin keeled vessels are very difficult to setup so that they remain hove to , especially in boisterous wave action

Absolutely - modern boats tend to lie beam on, which is a horrid position - leading to a slam.

[OceanSeaSpray]

Deep, slow, old hulls won't sail upwind any more and often won't run either past a certain point as the weather deteriorates, so what have you got left to do? Besides, they tend to have a lot of area under water, and little above, so they can be less exposed to breaking crests - for a while, up to a point.
Trying to apply concepts that came out of this context to modern designs makes no sense.

Decent modern yachts are completely different and first of all they are hardly ever forced to stop. If you can heave to and you get away with it, the weather wasn't bad or you were unbelievably lucky. As soon as you stop a boat, you have no directional stability any more and it ends up with the sea on the beam. If the weather is bad and the sea is dangerous, sooner rather than later, it will be all over: knock-down, capsize and plenty of damage.
From my observations, most of the weather-related accidents offshore are the result of not sailing the boat or sailing with the sea on the beam. Start by not doing that, and safety skyrockets upwards.

This speaks against any kind of heaving-to tactics if weather is the issue. It is merely a way of steadying up the boat and waiting in good or moderate conditions if need be.
Unfortunately, there are still people who feel like chewing on this old rag to find something to write (and often sell) about the "so-called heavy weather tactics". Stopped or beam-on is the shortest path to an accident and it doesn't take a very big wave to knock down an average size yacht. Fin keelers go over even more easily, but they are also the easiest to keep out of trouble, usually by simply pointing into it and controlling speed.

[s/v Beth]

I think that calling modern boats inability to heave too and that you would be better just to run off is not in keeping with current knowledge. Even the cats throw out a sea anchor when things get too rough. I have never sailed a boat I cannot use sea anchors and/or drogues on to become safer in a storm.
Sorry, just not buying it.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by s/v Beth

I think that calling modern boats inability to heave too and that you would be better just to run off is not in keeping with current knowledge. Even the cats throw out a sea anchor when things get too rough. I have never sailed a boat I cannot use sea anchors and/or drogues on to become safer in a storm.
Sorry, just not buying it.

Not sure what " current knowledge " you ate reverting to. Certainly several major tomes don't agree with you.

My own personal experiences ate what drives my own views.

I think the difference cones from comparing heavy weather and survival weather.

Given the loads , the chafe issues , foredeck work etc. I personally see no use for sea anchors , ( maybe for cats ) drogues to me are stern devices designed to slow the boat. That's different

Dave

[s/v Beth]

I should of quoted ocean spray. It is his post I am referring to.

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by Chrisc

I have seen 'heaving to' alluded to in a few posts on different subjects, and usually followed by something along the lines of that nobody bothers with it much these days or in fact knows how to get their boat to heave to.
Is this true?
Personally I regard the ability to heave to as one of the most useful attributes in my sailing repertoire, and do so quite frequently. Admittedly I have a long keeled boat which aids in the maneuver, but have also had success in fin keeled boats.
Does anyone else appreciate my enthusiasm for heaving to as a good skill to have?

I tried it for the first time last week while on a short 5 day cruise. I hove to for an hour or so waiting for some squalls to pass so I could enter a narrow creek which happened to be the direction the weather was coming from.

It worked like a champ.

[OceanSeaSpray]

Originally Posted by s/v Beth

I should of quoted ocean spray. It is his post I am referring to.

Sailing happens at sea, it is not just a matter of debating opinions, and I was referring to monohulls, keelers to be more precise.
Claiming that "this is the way to do it and it is current knowledge", because something might supposedly work for a certain type of boat, i.e. multihull with large initial stability and near-zero draft, is as senseless as claiming that modern boats should just do what the old boats used to do when they wouldn't sail any more.

Try throwing out a sea anchor of some kind in the middle of the North Atlantic in winter, with 200-300m between wave crests and see what happens. When you get caught into a breaking crest, the energy is such that you will move backwards and stretch your warp until the boat is sideways in the sea and we probably won't ever hear from you afterwards - that is if you don't also rip everything off.
There is no substitute for having been there in the first place.

When I read this thread, I was amazed to see how many were still hanging on the old "heave to" mythology. Dave is the only one who really made a stand against it, and it is easy to tell that he has seen what does actually happen out there.
Heave-to in every way you want and have a good rest if conditions are fine, but stop a fin keeler in a breaking sea in any way you can imagine and you will become an accident statistics before long. They get rolled, dumped, people fall across the cabin, break their limbs and that is just at the moderate end of the weather spectrum, 40 knots and 5-6m seas with the odd good break.
Centerboarders with the board up can stand a bit more of it because they don't trip over their keel, but within limits. This is one of the reasons why the old Presto boats from the US Atlantic Coast were found so seaworthy in 1885 already.

Eric

[goboatingnow]

+1 Eric. ( but then I would say that ! )

The problem is people try heaving to on relatively sane conditions. Then they extrapolate that to survival conditions. Doesn't work like that.


Think about sea anchors. Where on a modern boat without a proper functional Samson post are you going to attach a sea anchor.

Secondly what about chafe which may require trips to the foredeck , that can be suicide, then consider all the shock loadings.

Anyway I don't regard heaving to with a sea anchor , heaving to at all. It's completely different
Dave

[D&D]

FWIW (i.e. our experience only) we used heave-to in very heavy conditions very easily and successfully...and we will certainly use it again. We carry a drogue, but have never deployed it.

The heave-to on the L440 is dead easy. You need both sails up (very likely fully reefed and that's fine) and then position the vessel for a close-hauled tack. Make sure also that there’s plenty of sea room all around (at least 5nm, a lot more is better) as you’ll creep over the ground a little bit (probably 1-1.5kn) when in the heave-to. Then when you’re sure there’s enough boat speed to complete a tack, commit the helm fully into the tack; it can be either side, of course, but let’s say for our purposes here that we’re tacking to starboard, to end up on a port tack. Do not release the headsail, i.e. as if you were using it to back-wind your way through the tack only this time leave it sheeted on the windward/port side. When the mainsail fills on the starboard side – The headsail will be back-winded on port, of course – put the helm back hard to port, i.e. as if you are now trying to reverse the tack just completed…and lock the helm in that position. You’re done. You should now ride quietly ~15-30 degrees off the wind!

We offer no opinions on other vessels, but for us the heave-to is an excellent option.