Heaving-To

[49captain]

I am new to catboats after having having sailed slops and ketches for years.  One skill I always learned for each boat was the art of heaving-to.   Sloops and ketches are relatively straightforward although each boat requires a bit of tweaking due to sail and hull configuration.  My favorite was our Island Packet 29, a full- keel boat that sailed about as ideally for a cruiser as can be.
I have been wrestling with our Horizon Cat.  Most of what I read says you need to ease the peak halyard.  I have added lazy jacks to our boat and am loathe to add another line.  Too many tangles as it is.  I can use the lazy jacks, to some extent, to keep the boom up but they don't work really well for that.
We sail in off-shore conditions and reefing underway is often necessary.  I almost always leave the dock with a reef tucked in but, on occasion, we leave under full sail and need to reef, or we need to add a second reef.  I often single hand and like to just drift while eating lunch or dolphin-watching.  I usually just ease mainsheet and let the sail luff but then it's noisy and hard on the sail and it's difficukt to reef with the end of the boom way out to the side. 
Any advice?  I've looked at the CatBoat site and have searched fairly extensively.  Maybe I will have to add the topping lift, which I hate to do.  I've been trying but, after 40+ years of sloops it is a struggle and a puzzle.   Or, perhaps the saying about teaching old dogs new tricks........

[bruce]

Sorry, in spite of what is bantered about, even currently on the CBA list, there is no direct equivalent to heaving to in a catboat. You can lie-a-hull, and the boat will settle beam to wind quite nicely, but without support for the boom, other than the gallows, it will get wet. Topping lifts are traditional on a catboat, but I get away with my lazy jacks. Not ideal, as you point out.

You have one sail. The CB and trim can be set to help with lateral resistance and heading, but you don't have a second, or third(!), sail to back wind or drive the boat while you're playing with the only sail. You can fire up your auxiliary, of course, that would be the easiest. When adrift, with the sail on the boom, some raise the peak halyard to raise the gaff a bit to weathercock the boat into the wind, as a mizzen might, or you could rig a sea anchor of the bow, but the best bet is to adjust your reefing lines to be a accessible from the cockpit with the boom off to the side. Generally that means bring then forward on the boom, or to the mast, or possibly back to the cockpit.

Bill Welch's book, The Competitive Cat, Racing Small Gaff-Rigged Sailboats, is a great resource for learning about gaff rigs. The racing is secondary, it's mostly good basic info about sailing a gaff rig.

[Jon898]

Discussion  in the manual referred to here - http://cpyoa.geekworkshosting.com/forum/index.php?topic=7604.msg55992#msg55992 from 2014

In a cat boat, you don't really heave to, you lie a-hull.

Jon

[Andre]

I agree totally with what Bruce and Jon have said.    I have lazy jacks and a topping lift on both my PC and HC, and think that they're both needed.  I do not have clew reef lines on the PC going far enough forward on the boom and so that can make reefing out on the water a real pia! The inability to truly heave-to is one of the compromises of sailing a catboat, another is the increased importance of reefing.  In the plus column is obviously the simplicity in tacking.

I have not read Welch's book but the books that feature older historical catboats (and gaff rigs) - The Catboat Book, American Small Sailing Craft, The Gaff Rig Handbook - have many illustrations of old-time gaff-riggers.  Virtually every one has lazy jacks and a topping lift.  Those old-timers making a living without engines knew what they they were doing!

If you do decide to add a topping lift, I suggest you use fairly light (like 3/16 as a starting point) nylon, rather than polyester, line.  The added stretch has allowed me to usually set the TL so the boom just clears the boom gallows yet still be able to sheet the boom down to the gallows without making any adjustments (although the TLs are adjustable).

Also, I've rigged my lazy jacks using the rolling hitch method shown on p.463 of The Sailmaker's Apprentice book.  It seems to work for me.

Andre

[Jim in TC]

The manual cited by Jon898 is a good guide to keep handy. For a short "break" in up to a medium blow (sorry, can't offer MPH and "medium" for me is a gale to the first mate, so I recognize that it is subjective) I have found that simply de-powering from a close reach, sheet let completely out with rudder hard over (experiment with that - I am going by memory which may be faulty) gives me at least several minutes of down time. Must be wary of falling off the wind and going for a run! This is for a pee break or equivalent, and is no help for reefing since the boom will be far off the gallows. For us, reefing remains something best done before setting out but if caught out I will drop sail, motor into the wind and set the reef. Partly because we have not practiced enough, probably mostly since we have neither a topping lift nor lazy jacks (which most swear by but I have not felt hampered in other situations).

[49captain]

Thanks everyone.  I've been wondering if  "heaving-to", in the classical sense, isn't really possible in a catboat.  I think you have confirmed that.  I was really hoping I was missing something.
I guess I'll add a topping lift and I'll consider running the reefing lines to the mast.  I hate to add so many lines to that area.  I get confused easily at my age.  Also, one of the reasons, among many, for downsizing from our cruising boat was to simplify and have fewer lines to deal with.
I hadn't considered the sea anchor.  For a 20 ft. boat a small one would work and wouldnt be very large or hard to handle.  That sounds like a good idea and I'll try it. 
Our boat does quite well lying ahull with the sail luffing.  I just hate to do it for any length of time.  Another option is to just luff up,  drop the sail, and raise it again when ready to get underway. 
Every boat is a compromise.  You have to give up something to get something. 
Thanks again for the replies.