Small Boat, Inland Lake, Quite a bit of Wind

[Captain Smollett]

I had previously given our small boat to my nephew, Mike, on an indefinite loan.  He was interested in learning to sail, and figured since we could spare her, this would save him from having to buy a boat.  If it turns out he does not like sailing, he would not be out anything, and in the mean time, my boat would get used - and maybe upgraded a little.   ;D

Last year, we took Mike out for his first sail (he had ridden on sail boats with friends in the past, but never as working crew) and a quickie one-day lesson on towing, rigging, launching, sailing, retrieving and unrigging the boat.  On that occasion, we had fairly light air and did not use the jib, so it was not the best demonstration of how the boat handles.  But he had fun, and vowed that he would keep at it.

Some time later, while I was halfway across the United States, I got a cell phone call from Mike.  He was out on the boat with a friend (who had limited, but not zero, sailing experience) and they were having some trouble short tacking out of a cove in light air.  I should point out that while I really love that boat, her light air handling takes getting used to and she is kinda easy to stall the keel.  Alls well that ends well, though, and they got her out, eventually deciding to motor back to the ramp.

I don't know how many times total he has taken her out, but I've been meaning to get down there and give him a proper lesson in some decent breeze.  This weekend turned out to be the opportunity we'd been looking for since we were going to be in town on other business and had Sunday free.  The only "if" was the forecast.

As of this morning, the forecast was for winds 15-20 with gusts to 35, 50% chance of thunderstorms.  That's a pretty big "if."  At 8:00 am, I was convinced the radar looked "clear enough, at least in our general area," that we agreed to meet at the boat storage lot at 9:30.

We got the boat hitched up, towed to a gas station (my tow vehicle was "just about out"), to the ramp, rigged, launched and were underway a bit shy of 11:00 am.  Not too bad, considering we did a lot of yacking, "here's what you do," and that sort of thing.  It was blowing every bit of 15 knots in the lulls and topping at 20-ish in most of the puffs.

A quick reminder:  the boat is a 1982 Skipper's Mate 17 (exact same hull as the more well known Sanibel 18), 17'9" LOA, 1300 lbs designed by Charles Ludwig.  She has a baby keel about 4" or so that runs right aft with a centerboard and transom hung rudder.  She "looks big" at the dock or on the trailer - I've had many seasoned sailors and more than one marina employee think she was 20-22 ft LOA, just by "feel."  Most are surprised she is only 18 ft by looking.  I've sailed her in 32 kts (inland water), and singlehanded fairly routinely in 20-25 kts (again, inland water).

The ramp where we launched was alongside a 4 lane highway, set back into a very small cove sheltered by a treed point.  The wind was from the SSW, and we were getting quite an eddy at the ramp, so sometimes, the wind was from the NW (though much attenuated from the main wind).  At the dock with full main and jib up, the main was 'tacking' back and forth, but as we moved away from the dock, it settled from the SSW/SW and filled in "nicely" as we cleared the tree lined point.

Even with 3 adults and two children aboard, hull speed was a no brainer in that air with full working sail up.  We trimmed for a beat and began working our way "up" the lake.  The highway was a lee shore, but we had no problem clawing off.  We dunked the rail in the water in each puff, and Mike was heard to say (of the heeling), "Is that NORMAL?"

"Yes," I laughed, telling him he'd get used to it.  I had tried to explain about heeling on our first outing, telling him that beginners often find it unsettling and not really trusting that she won't just keep going over.  Since he had not been out in "real" wind before, he had not experienced a real heel - so my warning was just an abstraction.  Putting it into practice was more fun for me, less so for him.  Each time we got pushed over, though, his eyes widened a little less, his death grip on the coaming lightened a bit, and he seemed a little more resolved to his fate.

I did spill the wind in the bigger puffs, or if they lasted more than a few seconds.  This taught him the value of holding the mainsheet in hand while sailing - something I do almost religiously, especially lake sailing or in any gusty conditions.

After a bit, though, I thought it was time to show him the value of reefing.  But first we hove-to so he could see that.  With full main and working jib, she settled into a nice dead-to-leeward drift riding placidly on the 2-3 footers that might get the tummy turning on such a light, initially tender boat.  It was a great demonstration, and we could even see the "slick" to windward.  Showing heaving-to in lighter air is almost a non-demo, but in this wind, he saw what heaving to was all about.

We reefed with me at the mast and Mike at the clew, so it only took a few seconds.  Popped off the windward jib sheet and set to sailing again with a MUCH calmer ride.  It was pretty much sustained near 20 kts by this point, at least on the western half of the lake.

Tacking was actually a bit of a challenge, as we have a bit of freeboard forward that the wind LOVES to push around.  After a bit, though, we were flying through our tacks, in a few cases, hardly losing much boat speed at all.  We finally missed a tack and lost a bunch of southing that we had worked hard to gain, and set back to clawing back uphill.  We were still getting pushed over in the puffs, even with the main reefed, so I elected to drop the jib and show Mike yet another important lesson:

"On a sailboat, you sometimes go faster by going slower."

While on the foredeck dropping the jib, and during one gust, I heard "that noise" in the rigging that I personally associate with 30 knots.  I figured it may just be prudent to be dropping sail.  Mike had asked if at some point we WOULD drop a sail (or all the sails), and I told him "yep, but I if we had 'em, it would be better to move down to smaller sails and keep the sail plan balanced."  Oh well, you work with what you have.

So, though we had started with full main and working jib, we had now dropped down to just a reefed main.  I explained that with reefed main and working jib, we were rigged for the lulls but over powered in the puffs.  With the reefed main only, we were in trim for the puffs but maybe under powered for the lulls.  The boat was absolutely docile under reefed main alone (as I figured she would be, this was a sail configuration she and I had found ourselves in quite a number of times when it was just her and me), flat on her feet and a nice easy motion through the chop.

Though our boat speed was only 2-ish knots (3-4 in the puffs), our leeway was practically nil and we actually made MUCH better progress to windward.  We almost doubled our windward distance (even on a close reach rather than a true beat) in half the time, with half the boat speed through the water.  He got to see in action the notion that you cannot go by how fast you "feel" like you are going through the water...if that 'speed' is not in the direction you want to go, it's wasted energy.

On her feet, not fighting the wind, we had 2-3 knots of course made good on our heading.  Heeled at 20+ degrees going 4-5 knots, we were having leeway city.  20 degrees may not sound like much, and in 12 knots with that boat maybe it isn't, but there you go.  5-6 tacks across the lake and our windward progress was measured in boatlengths.  3 tacks with reefed main only and our windward progress was measured in miles.

During this period, working along under reefed main alone, I took the children to the foredeck and let them ride for a bit.  They had a blast, riding over the chop with my daughter SINGING at the top of her lungs with a beautiful smile on her face.  They will NOT be raised believing "stay off the foredeck in rough conditions."

For the most part, she did not want to tack with main alone in that wind, so I gibed.  It was another good opportunity - to teach the gibe in 20 knots of wind.  We did get one tack under reefed main alone, though, and it was a fun punctuation near the end of our allotted time out.

After a little over two hours, it was time to head back.  On a broad reach, it took us 17 minutes to get back to the ramp docks.  The chop was trying to broach us of course, and we had more roll, so Mike commented, "the motion is certainly different."  He has the gift of understatement.  Approaching the ramp area, I started the outboard but sailed in most of the way.  We ended up motorsailing the last 50 yards due to foul wind and a very narrow approach.

After securing the boat, we had what my children call "Linner" at TGI Friday's.  I asked Mike if he had fun and he said yes, acknowledging he has a lot to learn.  I told him I thought it was great to get the boat out and see what she can do in those kinds of conditions - that she can handle it.  He admitted he's not ready to try that by himself yet, but I told him someday he would be.  Now "normal" conditions won't seem as scary and he can see that it will be okay to push his comfort zone a little bit as he gains experience.

Don't have numbers for the lake itself, yet, but general weather data for the region (RDU airport, about ten miles away) showed max sustained at 25 knots with gusts at 30.  As for the forecast, the wind call was right on.  We had no rain, and the morning overcast blew off to partly cloudy blue skies by the time we turned around to head back to ramp.  Sometimes you roll the dice and win one.

Final Note:  The rig is bad out of tune...I never fully tuned after replacing a broken spreader, and that certainly lessened our handling...that will be a priority fix, but I was not going to do that today.  Still, she didn't do TOO badly and I could tell...that boat has missed wind and wave.  It's been a too-long winter.   ;D

[Gary Guss]

Sounds like Mike is lucky to have a knowledgeable mentor, thanks for the description of your outing.  I'm still learning and hopefully I'll get there someday.

[AdriftAtSea]

Nicely done Capn.

[Captain Smollett]

Thanks guys.

Sounds like Mike is lucky to have a knowledgeable mentor

Dunno how knowledgeable his mentor is, but I am willing go out and try.  

I'm still learning

Me too; that's for DARN sure.  Learn something new every time I untie the docklines, even if it is just to motor to the other side of the marina.

One of the things I am learning just how much we (or at least I) rely on our own personal "local knowledge" when sailing in our home waters.  Now that I am sailing in "new to me" locales more often, I am finding a whole new skill set in reading wind and water developing.

And in that regard, among many others, I have a *LOT* to learn.

[newt]

This was a very timely post. I just finished an overnighter with similar winds. Our objective was dead upwind ( an island) I bashed and toiled with a small jib and reefed main, my poor compac had the rail in the water quite often. We just could not seem to make progress through the three foot swells.  Would it have been better to furl the jib and go on main alone? I just felt that my best option was to keep the power in the boat and deal with the slippage.
I will have to try that next time.

[Captain Smollett]

I know this is VERY boat specific, but my general rule of thumb is that if you are heeling THAT far over, you are making a fair bit of leeway, especially in stronger winds.

The boat I was on really does better on her feet.  Round bilges, relatively flat bottom between the turns of the bilge and that centerboard is VERY narrow...roll her a bit and leeway goes out the roof.

Plus, you have to keep in mind we had a relatively inexperienced helmsman on the tiller most of the time (I handled the gibes).  Trimming for the puffs and going easier overall was better for him.  When I was helming, even with full main and jib, we did make decent progress to windward (though the sailing was FAR better and more comfortable after reefing).

Putting it in perspective, see the picture below:

Black = ramp
Red = reefed main
Green = Dropped Jib
Blue = turn around

Wind roughly from the South, or a bit west of South.

Between reefing the main and dropping the jib, we spent about 5-6 trips bouncing back and forth between those two beaches you can see (course made good about 90-ish degrees off the wind...boat's heading was averaging about 50-55 degrees or so off the wind).

The time from dropping the jib to turning around was about 1/3rd of the total time on the water.  

Time from turning around back to the ramp, broad reaching, was about 20 minutes.  That's just about 1.25 miles or so straight line distance.  So, a couple hours out, less than a half hour back.  :)

So, maybe an experienced helmsman can keep her 'up' a bit better...certainly the ride was more comfortable after dropping the jib.  Walk in the park.

Edit: Clarification:  I was on the helm with full main and jib between the black and red dots.  Mike was with reefed main + jib red to green and reefed main alone green to blue.  So, clearly, windward progress and general control was better FOR HIM with the smaller sail area up.  I sailed 'er back down wind (reefed main only).

The ride was MUCH more comfortable, either helmsman, with the small sail area.

Different boats, different crews...YMMV.

[newt]

Thanks for the in depth Captain. For me it's always a tradeoff. I need the sail's power to go forward, but too much tilt and I get leeway also. It all comes to a head when the swells are up. Then my little boat gets overpowered often and I am tied to the tiller rather than letting my crew "train".  I tried to teach how to upwind in swells, but when I went forward to secure something...my feet were in running water on the side deck. Maybe I need to pay more attention to my teaching.

[Captain Smollett]

Would it have been better to furl the jib and go on main alone? I just felt that my best option was to keep the power in the boat and deal with the slippage.

First off, have a grog for being out there in the first place.   :)

Second, I've been thinking about this point a bit more.  My answer to your question (though I recognize it may have been rhetorical) is that for me it depends on how gusty it is.  We had lots of gusts; the lulls were short duration but defined the 'sustained' windspeed.  The gusts were lots of short duration 'spikes.'  It was definitely a squally frontal weather pattern.

So, in this wind, I think it makes a lot more sense to rig for the gusts.

If, on the other hand, we had had more steady wind with a few gusts here and there laying us over, I think rigging for the lulls would be better.

In other words, calling it "20-25 with gusts at 30" can mean different things.  How quickly do the gusts come?  How long do they last?

All this might be obvious, I suppose.

[newt]

Now this is what a sailing forum is all  about.  I was sailing with my 22yo son today, who is very keen on learning the craft. We were about 5 miles out when he spotted thunderclouds in a NW direction. We turned and split, but the winds were SW and pretty much on our nose to the marina. Sailed all the way to 100 yards of the harbor entrance, and winds started becoming gusty and changing direction. After trying the marina twice and getting forced out, he wanted to start the outboard. "Let me try one more thing" as I remembered our conversation together. I furled the jib and went in under main alone. A few nervous moments, but she stayed off the riprap like a pro.  Your system is slower, no doubt, but the control is amazing! Sailed all the way to the slip, and got out 10 minutes before the rain arrived.
Now that's fun!
Grog to ya!

[Captain Smollett]

Sailed all the way to the slip, and got out 10 minutes before the rain arrived.
Now that's fun!

Very cool.  Good Job.  Grog to ya, mate.   8)