would a boom vang help in this situation

[Duckie]

This morning I was out trying some heavier weather sailing with my 16.  The wind was off the big lake at just above 20 mph and gusting to just over 30.  In the Duluth harbor, the chop can get pretty serious because it is so shallow and the reflective waves don't help either.  Anyway, I had a reef tucked into the main and the working jib tied down to the deck on the solent stay when I left the dock.  I motored out into the clear and raised the main.  I have to admit that I was a little surprised at how well the boat stood up to the wind and waves.  I was sailing on a more or less broad to beam reach, and pulling up to a close reach just to see how it would go.  I wasn't going warp speed, but I was making decent headway, and could have kept going for quite a while just like that.  I did notice that I couldn't get the main to flatten out enough to allow the laminar flow to stay attached without the luff backwinding, or the leach stalling.  I really wanted to flatten that sail. Would a vang help me in that situation?

When I tried to tack, I got caught in irons each time.  I figured that the jib that was flapping around on the deck was just enough to keep me from passing through the eye of the wind.  I had considered rigging a downhaul on the jib before I went out, but didn't.  That was probably a mistake.  I know that tacking in high wind can be a problem.  Would the jib have helped me get around in those conditions? I was a little reluctant to hoist the jib because the boat was doing so well without it. 

I plan to do a lot more sailing in just these conditions.  After all, that is why I bought her in the first place.  I liked getting soaked with spray before I even got the main up, and was glad that the scuppers were working well.  That little bugger is a helluva boat.  I can't wait to take another whack at it.

Al

[Duckie]

Well,

I may have answered my own question.  I reworked the reefing system on the boom, and checked the integrity of the gooseneck hook.  I also lengthened my topping lift because I thought that it might have been a major contributor to the slack leech.  Once I got all that squared away, the sail pulled nice and tight.  At least in the driveway. 

I can't say that I am impressed with the reefing system on this boat.  The single line reefing system I built for my Weekender allows me to reef while underway without letting go of the tiller, and in only seconds.  This system requires that I let the halyard down until I can wrangle the eye on the luff onto the hook at the gooseneck, then raise the sail again.  After that I can pull the leech line tight, then tidy up with the cringles.  All the while the boat is doing its own thing.   I wonder how I'm going to accomplish all that single handed. I'm not too worried about it though because I have found that even with the 150 genoa up, she will stand up to a pretty good hit with just spilling wind and rounding up a bit. 

The forecast is for more wind tomorrow, so I guess I will find out if I am right then.

Al

[TedStrat]

Al - interesting posts. Do you want to share your single line reeling system? Would it work on the compac lines?

-Ted

[Salty19]

I feel having the jib up will help with tacking for two reasons:

1. More speed generated by the extra foil area of the jib prior to the tack will provide more time to complete the tack before the rudder stalls out.

2. The backwinding effect of the jib once you are facing the wind will push the bow through more easily.

I never had much luck with the just main sail up on the 16.  Instead, I reefed the main and wrapped the jib around the furler a bit to depower in higher winds.

One question...do you have a foiled rudder?  If not, highly consider it. She will turn more rapidly and the rudder stall will be delayed.

Do a search at the home page on this site for Boom vang to read about how these help to add or reduce power based on conditions and the tightness of the vang. You'll learn a lot.

[Duckie]

My reefing system on my Weekender is a single line jiffy reef system.  I found a good illustration of it on the interwebs somewhere.  Anyway it involved me putting three cheek blocks and an eye bolt on the boom.  The line begins at the aft end of the boom on the Port side just behind where the reef eye would lay against the boom so that when pulled tight it will tension the reefed foot of the sail.  From the attachment on the Port side of the boom, the line is fed through the reef eye on the leech of the sail and down to a cheek block on the starboard side of the boom directly across from the eye bolt.  This pulls the leech tight against the boom when hauled in.  The line then runs through a series of saddle eyes along the starboard side of the boom to another cheek block at the most forward part of the boom just behind the gooseneck.  The line is then turned up to go through the reef eye on the luff of the sail and down to another cheek block on the port side of the boom directly across from the starboard block.  From there it is led aft to a cleat on the Port side of the boom where it is tied off. 

When I reef the main, I pull the reef line on the port side of the boom while lifting the boom with my other hand until the leech is tight against the boom at the clew.  While I do this I am sitting with my knee over the tiller holding the boat steady.  After the clew is tight, I reach forward and uncleat the throat halyard and let it down while pulling on the reef line until the reefed tack is tight against the boom.  I then haul the luff tight again and cleat off both lines.  The sail is now effectively reefed.  I could sail on with just this, but I mostly don't.  I like to tie the cringles and tidy up the foot of the sail or it will bug me later.  All of this is accomplished while remaining seated in the cockpit.  Needless to say, all of this happens with the sail flogging.  I don't think I could do it if the sail was full and pulling.  Also I need to be pointing into the wind pretty close or I wouldn't be able to reach the cleat on the boom to tie off.  The main sail on my Weekender is a gaff sail.  I don't need to use the topping lift to reef if I do it this way.  By reefing the clew first, the peak halyard on the gaff holds the sail up until the clew is fully reefed, and only allows it to fall as far as the throat halyard is loosened during pulling the tack tight.  After reefing, I also have to adjust the peak halyard a bit, but that is normal sailing with a gaffer. 

I tried this method on my CP, but for some reason the boom wouldn't lift enough to allow the clew to tighten up.  I had to lower the luff and wrestle the eye over the hook then tighten the luff before tightening the clew.  On my  boat the cleat for the reef line is over the cabin hatch so I have to do most of the work while leaning over the cabin.  In my opinion, this is a much more dangerous operation to attempt while underway and alone.  I think that while I have this system on the CP, I will always tie in a reef at the dock if I think I might need one later.  I found that at 25 mph wind speed my CP 16 will not heel too much or act squirrely with just the reefed main up and pulling.  Even with the sail bagged out, I was relaxed and making decent time.  Next time I will make sure that everything is working the way I want it to before leaving the dock and I bet I will be getting a lot better speed.

Salty,

Yes, I have a foiled rudder.  There aren't any upgrades to make on this boat that I can see except that I might want life lines at some point.  She is a 16/3 and in darn nice condition.  My homemade boat is a traditionally rigged gaffer with all the benefits and burdens attendant to that.  I can't say that everything modern about current sailboats is better or more versatile than the traditional way.  For example, the foot of the main sail on the CP has a bolt rope so that it is permanently attached along the length of the boom.  When reefing the gaffer which is laced to the boom, I can tie the cringles around just the sail instead of the boom which if they are tied too tightly on the CP, will put unwanted tension on a weaker part of the sail.  I have to remind myself to tie them loosely to avoid that stress.  I am really unhappy with the hook system that is there now.  I think that if it isn't too much bother, I will likely rig a second line for reefing the luff.

I think that I may have implied that I had the jib tied down good in my first post.  I did not.  The longer I sailed the more the knot slipped and eventually the jib was about three feet up the forestay.  In that heavy wind I'm pretty sure that this is what killed my tacks.  I fell off and got up good speed before trying again each time, and just when I got to the eye of the wind, I stopped dead no matter how much inertia I had going in.  I have learned to leave the jib alone in a tack until the main refills before letting the sheet fly and hauling in the other side.  That works like a charm.  Tacking like that, she dives through a tack and isn't so chaotic as when I try to do both at the same time. 

There is a small craft warning out right now so I don't think I am going to test rigging today.  When I get a chance in safer conditions I will try it out again and will report on my findings.

Al

[Duckie]

Well,

I finally got a chance to answer my own question.  I just got back from a fun sail in the Duluth Harbor with the wind out of the NW at between 23 and 30+. Because I had a proper reef in the main, the sailing was just like a regular day with my main at full and my genoa hauling away.  I was able to tack in 30+ winds with no trouble at all, and I was making some pretty good speed. The boat handled exactly the same as it always does.  I never got excited, even when the rail got wet for just a second.  I had full control at all times such that I was more worried that my tell tales were flying right rather than the actual wind speed.

It was already blowing at 20 when I got to the landing, so I set up with the main reefed on the trailer, and my Weekender jib hanked to the solent stay.  I don't trust the attachment for the solent stay, so I also rigged the furled genoa as a backup.  Otherwise everything was the same.  I tied the reef eye at the tack with a line rather than use the hook, and I am sure that I will replace it with a second jiffy reef line for safety sake.  With the main properly reefed this time, I was able to flatten the sail and get a very good shape on it no matter the wind speed.  No vang required. 

I really liked sailing in bigger wind, but I bet my sails didn't like at all. 

Al

[Salty19]

Hi Al,

Yes, I seem to have misread your post about the jib.  I had read it as the jib was not deployed but tied down to the deck.  Since you were having trouble tacking, that is the first thing I thought about.   Sorry about that.

I too am not a fan of that reefing hook. The cringle always seems to slip out while raising the sail for me.   It would be nice to have a spring latch to keep the cringle within the hook.   Most CP16's have roller reefing so I am guessing Hutchins changed this for the CP16/III model, just like the 19's.

I had tried the jiffy reef setup on our 19, but found it too hard to pull the reefing line tight enough to make it work easily.  Too much friction of the line passing across the cringles. I had to wrestle with it too much and it seemed to take longer to get it right that doing it the old fashioned way.   I had wrote Harken to ask about making a cringle block roller  (imagine a plastic two piece round contraption that could be screwed together from either side of the cringle, with a V roller in between) so the line could roll over the cringle easier.  I didn't get a reply, but I think it's a darn good invention ready to happen.   I have since deinstalled the jiffy reef system. 

What I do now on our 19 with loose footed main is use a snap shackle pinned to a sail slug on the clew. A 3:1 outhaul pulls from behind and the snap shackle can be unshackled and reattached at the reef cringle. I just point into the wind, lower the sail about 1/4 of the way, re-shackle the clew and hook in the new reefed tack end, then raise sail.  Sometimes the tack comes out of hook, so I still sometimes wrestle with keeping it in while raise the sail.

Here is a pic of the contraption unreefled.




I have 1/4" 3-strand through the middle two reef cringles that stay there all the time with a parrel bead on one end and a small spliced eye at the other.  I just pull it tight and slip the eye through the cringle.

Here is a pic of one of the cringle ties. You can barely see the second one too.



Anyway, if you're having trouble tacking, here are some tips.  First gain speed before the tack by bearing off from a close reach. When at a good speed, turn tiller hard and fast while leaving the working jib sheet cleated. This "backwinds" the jib.  Once the bow is through the wind and you are getting pushed off the wind, uncleat the jib, reduce tiller angle, then re-cleat and carry on as usual.  The secret is speed.

Tacking in very light or very strong winds takes some technique, but once you do it a few times, you'll be fine. 

[Duckie]

Yeah, 

For a loose footed sail, that looks like the way to go.  On my loose footed balanced lug, I made a rope ring to hold the clew down and a separate line for the outhaul.  Its old fashioned but effective.  One of the problems that I had yesterday was if I had the outhaul pulled tight, I couldn't wrestle the cringle onto the hook because the tension caused the gooseneck to twist to the other side so that the hook was pressed tight to the mast.  I had to loosen the outhaul then haul the jiffy reef line tight before going after the luff cringle.  I finally gave up on the hook and simply tied the cringle down to the boom with one of the pieces of line I always keep in my pocket.  After all  that I pulled the outhaul tight and I was reefed.  I really didn't have to tighten the outhaul though because the jiffy reef line was putting a lot of tension on the foot of the sail without it.  But, I don't like to have loose ends so I tied everything off.

Thinking back on it, I think I could have used a bit more headsail.  The standard lapper that came with the boat probably would have given me more speed without burdening the boat too much more.  The little jib from my weekender would have been a good storm jib for the CP.  I didn't notice any weather helm at all with the small sail so I suppose I was balanced well enough, and it helped me through the tacks, but I think the standard CP 16 jib might have done a better job. 

Learning to handle heavy wind is one of the main reasons I bought a CP 16.  I think I made the right choice.

Al