Heeling & Performance

[cdreamIII]

I am taking the Coast Guard Auxiliary sailing skills & seamanship class and ran across this quote from the textbook:
"Some boats have a more effective underwater shape when slightly heeled, but this is generally true of older craft...Today's high performance sailboats are almost always at their best when sailed flat or nearly so.  In almost no case is a boat's performance going to improve beyond 20 deg of heel, and in most boats performance will deteriorate badly above 25 deg or so."
Any thoughts? 

signed
"desperately waiting for spring"

[Vectordirector]

My experience in keel boats is limited. I'm still learning to trust the keel on my Eclipse so I haven't had it over far enough for it to self recover.  35 years of sailing dingy type boats will do that to you. That and not wanting to scare the wife.  I would tend to agree with this sail it flat statement with the following exception:   We used to sit on the lee side to heel our sunfish over fairly hard in light air to decrease wetted surface area.  It did seem to help increase boat speed and the sunfish is of course very sensitive to weight placement.  I have seen the same thing done with numerous light centerboard sailboats racing in light air.   I don't know how far over my Hobiecat would be when it was flying a hull but it wasn't more than 30 degrees if I could help it.  It was a fine line between flying and capsizing on that one and it seemed to slow down anything past 45 degrees or so.  Catamarans are "different".   That is all that immediately comes to mind.

Any one else?

Spring is but a month away.....

Vectordirector

[NateD]

My keel boat experience is limited to mostly Com-Pacs (16 and 23), but I would say they are both more efficient at going to windward if they are sailed relatively flat. The stubby little keels just can't get enough bite to prevent leeway when they are heeled over hard. On my 16 I could actually see the boat sliding backwards (to leeward) when heeled hard in strong gusts.

[skip1930]

Sail the CP-19 as flat as you can for max speed.

skip.

[Koinonia]

Your text is right, alot of older designs do sail faster with a slight degree of heel.  A good example of this would be the old J class yachts with their long overhangs and short waterline length compared to their overall length.  The reason for this is that as they heel their waterline will get longer, waterline length is a big factor in boat speed.  This was carried on primarily in wood boat design and migrated to fiberglass boat design in the 60s.  Boats were still build long and skinny with the long overhangs, check out the pearson vanguard,  C&C redwing, and columbia sabre as examples of this.  A more modern boat like our compacs are best sailed flat as possible, the only exception I can think of right at the moment is when there is almost NO air.  This is when your windex does circles and you need a cigarette, cigar or something else to produce smoke to know wind direction.  In PHRF racing this is when we will put people on the leward rail and try to get some heel.  This is called gravity filling the sails to try and get them to get a little better shape.  Two years ago we did this on a catalina 27 and passed, though slowly other fast boats like J24s and a J80.  They had faster boats but werent paying attention to their surroundings.  In a non racing situation though, I use that other sail called the iron genny.