 | These are great pictures, and I'm sure everything was under control, but I can't help thinking the crew ought to have reefed. On both sails. Note how the main is pulling only in the aft half of the sail, and the genoa looks like it's pulling more backwards tha forwards, because it also is not really pulling in the front. I like heavy weather siling a lot, but it's not a question of "hanging in there", and "pulling through", it's a question of harvesting only a part of the energy available, because there is in fact too much available. Adjusting to reality, so to speak.
But I love theses pictures.
Jesper |
 | Fair comment. I do not agree that the headsail is not working to its full efficiency, apart from the worst of gusts the telltales would have been working and it would have been more or less in the groove.
In races with short legs when one selects a too bigger sail for the conditions (either caused by increasing wind or a miscalculation of the conditions) the time lost reefing sails can be more than the lost efficiency by not having the right sails up. These photos are of two races. In the one where we are overpowered (the other race we had the number 4 up) it was the type of race where we were sailing hard on the wind but we could lay the mark without tacking. This meant we would not have the luxury of changing the headsail while going through a tack but rather would have had the pleasure of watching boats sail past us while we had a sail lying on the deck.
One method that works in situations like this is to bring the boom up on the traveller and slacken the sheet, this spills the wind out of the top 1/3 or 1/2 of the sail where the worst heeling moment is while keeping the bottom of the sail working remaining a reasonable aerofoil. When cruising, racing on a long race or racing offshore one would not use this technique, but rather one would use the conventional methods but this works fine for short periods of time.
My sailmaker recons that the best approach for a half tonner like the albin ballad is too reduce head sail when the wind freshens and only reef the main as a last resort. This is partially because the main is quite small anyway, but more importantly that the roller reefing produces a pig of a sail shape. I would be interested in what experts who race Albin Ballads regularly do it. Have many converted to slab reefing?
One thing that always amazes me with the Albin Ballad is that even when abused like this the boat sails in a straight line, is easy to handle and rarely rounds up. |
| I see your point John, and quit honestly, I don't know much about racing, but I can understand that on a short leg track this is the right way to go.
Jesper. |
 | I agree on you Jesper. Very "salty pictures" lot of feeling, but sail trim is not good. I same conditions we trim main boom down so main sail doesn't add drag. |
 | Understand that the winds are strong in NZ. My 'trick' when the wind gets strong and heel-angle gets too great is first to add twist to the main, as you suggest, and the genoa, by moving the sheeting point aft. Then one reef in the main. (I have installed one-line reefing which means I stay in the cockpit). Then roll in the genoa some. This requires that the genoa has added thickness in the luff, so that it maintains a reasonable aerodynamic shape. Then reef the main again or even take it all the way down. By this time the genoa is providing more than enough power by itself and the main is just creating drag, and heel. Finally seek shelter. |
| Johns strong wind strategy was my strategy too, earlier. And in a short legged race, with a strong armed crew, I would still sail like that. Today I would not add twist to the point where the top af a sail is flapping. It destroys the sail, and to me it's like driving a car with the accelerator in the floor, reducing power and speed by stepping a little on the clutch. In case the wind changes direction or speed just slightly, you may suddenly find yourself in an overpowered situation, with a dramatic heel, and a boat rounding up and going about. You may also need to turn around to pick up a crew fallen overboard, and making such maneuvers with too much sail is not good. We allways start with rolling a few times on the genoa to flatten it. Then we roll the main down to the first reef, and make finer adjustments on the genoa. If the wind increases even more we roll the main down to the second reef and decrease genoa even more. Eventually we will roll down the main to the third reef, but I only had to do this once. On the other hand, on this one occasion the boat sailed just like in normal winds. We were in very sheltered waters with only minor waves, but it was still an impressive experience to be sailing "normally" with normal control, in 18 m/s winds. The objective of our reefing strategy is just that, to stay in control, with a balanced set of sails. Sailing only with a genoa, even a reefed genoa, can make it impossible to go about, the normal way through the wind, if waves and wind are furious enough. The other objective is to make as much speed as possible in the most comfortable manner possible, we don't sail to beat the nature, but to get somewhere. To achieve that I reduce sail a lot, and sheet it for maximum efficiency. I try to stay on or above 5 knots, sometimes I have to roll out a little genoa to achieve that. From experience 5 knots is almost allways possible except when there is not enough wind. I have considered buying a storm jib, to be set on an extra inner stay, but haven't really needed it yet, since we also seek shelter in very strong winds.
Jesper Milling |
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