Hive to on every boat...

[Rakuflames]

Originally Posted by Wotname

Fair enough comment but please remember to factor in the increase in wind speed as you get higher. I have forgotten the percentages but someone here will remember them . The wind speed at say spreader height is significantly higher than at deck level.

I'm not an engineer and I think I've made point. It did feel good for someone else to validate it.

We're sailors. We notice every little nit-picking point. We have to -- some time our life and/or our boat could depend on it.

I know how the boat handles, and I have confirmation of it -- the fellow who has the 34' version of the boat and I had an extended conversation on it. He's been saling a very long time and he pays attention. He sails intelligently (not everyone who has been sailing a long time does, NOT meaning anyone here).

The conversation helped me, because I approached my assumptions with more confidence and found that they held. Others here may not have had reason to test it as systematically as I did -- more experience can make some testing redundant and boring.

[Rakuflames]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Raku... CF is as close to a Blog as I want to get.. and Sex, Drugs n Rock n Roll has been done to death already...
I don't teach...
I don't even advise... as such..
I just post what I do that's worked for me in certain senario's.. and occasionally play 'Devils Advocate'...
The rest of the time I'm just a PITA on a lot of ignore lists...

Exactly -- ane we all respect and like that about you. But I think a blog for newer sailors is going to drive you nuts because you know there's so much more to learn. I can't think of a single reason why you would want to read my blog, and that's not offensive to me at all.

[Rakuflames]

Originally Posted by boatman61

I suggest you give him the link to your Blog 'For Newer Sailors'

You know, it really is time for you to stop with the sniping. There's nothing comparable about a BIG trailer and a 31' sailboat. in that particular situation, however, some sailing principles applied.

You have no reason to be reading it (except, perhaps to target the author?) He has no reason to be reading a blog on sailors.

Sailors on the dock who understood what the wind was doing to his boat was enough for him to get it in, and once it was pointed out to him, he immediately modified how he was handling the boat quite skillfully. The boat was safely in the slip immediately.

I think you enjoy this, but it's not attractive and I think you should stop. I think most people know you're just needling for the sake of needling.

[boatman61]

Raku... I don't eat fish... but love fly fishing...
if the trout keep rising I'll keep casting...
but..
I'll always toss em back in the water..

[CaptFrankM]

Raku, I agree with your point about thinking of the windage of your boat like a sail. Many years ago, I chartered a Hunter out of Miami. As is usually the case with a charter, we ended up leaving for Biscayne Bay later than we wanted to. There were late evening storms coming up the bay and, as we headed south, the wind was dead on the nose.

We were running under power and I couldn't make any headway. We kept falling off to port and starboard. The pressure of the wind on the bow was overpowering the ability of the fin keel to give us directional stability. It was only when we raised the main and jib that we were able to go where we wanted.

The key to sailing that boat was taking the windage into account as if it were a third sail and balancing the forces. It wasn't an "uncontrollable" sail. You could adjust your course to adjust the effect. But you had to think it through with every course change. Well, at least, I did. Otherwise, if I set the sails to what I expected, I was often sailing in a direction I did not anticipate.

I have sailed a lot of non-fin keels since then and have never seen the effect be nearly as powerful as on that Hunter. It would turn on a dime, though.

[Eumelia]

In thinking about the forces on a boat while heaving-to, or any maneuver for that matter, let's not forget that the response of the boat is a balance of the shape below the waterline as well as above...not to mention the effects of linear and angular momentum. It is a mistake to focus exclusively on any one factor such as topsides (note that freeboard is a vertical dimension, not to be confused with the complex surface area presented by the topsides).

[captain58sailin]

There has been much made of the windage of certain vessels, and true enough. The current should not be discounted either, the effects can catch one off guard and put the vessel some where the owner doesn't want to be.

[Rakuflames]

Originally Posted by CaptFrankM

Raku, I agree with your point about thinking of the windage of your boat like a sail. Many years ago, I chartered a Hunter out of Miami. As is usually the case with a charter, we ended up leaving for Biscayne Bay later than we wanted to. There were late evening storms coming up the bay and, as we headed south, the wind was dead on the nose.

We were running under power and I couldn't make any headway. We kept falling off to port and starboard. The pressure of the wind on the bow was overpowering the ability of the fin keel to give us directional stability. It was only when we raised the main and jib that we were able to go where we wanted.

The key to sailing that boat was taking the windage into account as if it were a third sail and balancing the forces. It wasn't an "uncontrollable" sail. You could adjust your course to adjust the effect. But you had to think it through with every course change. Well, at least, I did. Otherwise, if I set the sails to what I expected, I was often sailing in a direction I did not anticipate.

I have sailed a lot of non-fin keels since then and have never seen the effect be nearly as powerful as on that Hunter. It would turn on a dime, though.

Yeah. i didn't call it an "uncontrollable" sail. I said "untrimmable." You can't change its size, nor give it more or less belly, etc. And, you're right. Even motoring only with it can be peculiar. Because of the way it acts with the wind right on the nose, this is no boat to allow to be trapped on a lee shore in a significant storm.

Your experience has been my friend's with the bigger one. He doesn't like it, and just want a boat that sails more like what he's used to. I'm glad he's able to get what he wants, but if he couldn't, I'd tell him to do what I did. Take a two week vacation, and take it out every single day no matter what the weather was like (well, not in a hurricane) -- stop taking it out only when conditions are ideal for that boat, and find out how to deal with it. The boat will show you if you let her (however, wind on the nose in a narrow channel in a lot of weather wouldn't be where to do it. You could do it, but how annoying!)

I appreciate your speaking up. it IS a surprise after having sailed on other boats, but she's fast and she's a great live-aboard boat, so I figured it out.

She does point up well ... the bow cooperates with whatever you're trying to, but as I said, i suspect she needs a slightly smaller head sail than other boats her size.

And that ability to pivot ... That was also part of what got me into the slip that hairy day. I got a lot of points that day and a lot of respect from the other sailors, and it was because I'd learned my boat. We all need to do that, of course, but I used an annoyance to my benefit that day.

My really good expert sailing friend really admires this boat's maneuverability. His heavier-for-its-size full keel boat isn't nearly as maneuverable ... but on the other hand, he can take his out to sea, cross the gulf, cross the Atlantic -- with his boat and his skills he could do all of that safely. But I started at 62 and couldn't reasonably expect to get to that point. So *for me* it's not a downside.

[Rakuflames]

Originally Posted by Eumelia

In thinking about the forces on a boat while heaving-to, or any maneuver for that matter, let's not forget that the response of the boat is a balance of the shape below the waterline as well as above...not to mention the effects of linear and angular momentum. It is a mistake to focus exclusively on any one factor such as topsides (note that freeboard is a vertical dimension, not to be confused with the complex surface area presented by the topsides).

Well, I don't think anyone was focusing ONLY on that, even when we were discussing only that. Balancing the boat means balancing ALL the forces on it, or it just won't do what you want to do -- stay put or move very slowly and predictably.

[SkiprJohn]

Aloha Rakuflames,

You've made some very good points and in particular the point of how each boat has different characteristics that need to be considered.

Just a comment about the use of your analogy. Since being an old sailing instructor I like to use proper terminology. When you said third sail it invoked a visceral response in me so I just wanted to point that out to you so you can either internalize that or ignore it.

Freeboard acting like a sail is not actually being a sail. You can use your freeboard and bare poles to sail with but they are not truly sails.

kind regards,

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by SkiprJohn

Aloha Rakuflames,

You've made some very good points and in particular the point of how each boat has different characteristics that need to be considered.

Just a comment about the use of your analogy. Since being an old sailing instructor I like to use proper terminology. When you said third sail it invoked a visceral response in me so I just wanted to point that out to you so you can either internalize that or ignore it.

Freeboard acting like a sail is not actually being a sail. You can use your freeboard and bare poles to sail with but they are not truly sails.

kind regards,

Another way of looking at this is that a sail provides both lift and drag while windage (from hull, rig, appendages, whatever) can only have drag... a categorical difference IMO.

And Raku, you might be surprised how much of the total windage that you experience is from the rig. I know that I was quite surprised at the difference when motoring about in a sheltered marina with the mast out and no furled sails in the foretriangle... boat handled very differently (better!) in slow speed cross wind situations. (And while our freeboard is not as exaggerated as your Hunter's, it is considerable, and our underwater profile is even shallower in the forefoot.)

Cheers,

Jim

[captain58sailin]

I would submit that you can indeed trim your hull, purely by changing the angle of the vessel in regards to the direction of the wind, I do this frequently, to help me dock my vessel. I also use the current in a similar fashion.

[motion30]

I went fishing last week off shore..it was very rough I lost my lunch over the side . then one of my crew .........heaved to

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by motion30

I went fishing last week off shore..it was very rough I lost my lunch over the side . then one of my crew .........heaved to

Someone has already commented that us sailors can be a nit -picking bunch so I feel it's alright to point out that in this sense, it should have been .....heaved too
but

[Rakuflames]

Originally Posted by SkiprJohn

Aloha Rakuflames,

You've made some very good points and in particular the point of how each boat has different characteristics that need to be considered.

Just a comment about the use of your analogy. Since being an old sailing instructor I like to use proper terminology. When you said third sail it invoked a visceral response in me so I just wanted to point that out to you so you can either internalize that or ignore it.

Freeboard acting like a sail is not actually being a sail. You can use your freeboard and bare poles to sail with but they are not truly sails.

kind regards,

You don't have to like it, but sailing vernacular does not extend to analogies, sorry.

Explaining it as a sail helps people on my boat understand it. If anyone spent any time correcting my language they'd be off at the next port. We all need to work together on a boat, and trying to control people's analogies is, IMO, over the top.