The Art Of Heaving~To

[skip1930]

Say that the skipper wants to stop the boat to go below for something. Or to do a repair or uncoil a line and find the fenders after a long haul across the pond.
I Heaved~To just yesterday to go below for a spot of tea. The wind was a strong 10 to 12 knots yet the boat was stable, comfortable, with no fwd speed and a slight drift down wind.

Here is where the Art OF Heaving~To is useful. To view in a larger print, hold the control key down and tap the plus key. Holding and tapping will reduce the font size back to normal.







skip.

[Joseph]

Nice article, Skip.

Heaving-to is a key maneuver in any sloop but much less evident in a cat rig... and I miss it!

One comment: the article says "any tack" but, if conditions permit, and particularly in areas with sailboat traffic, it is better to heave-to to a starboard tack than to a port tack. The reason is to minimize the chances of having to give way to another sailboat (which sort of defeats the purpose of being hove-to...). While hove-to a boat is still underway and subject to the crossing rules in the ColRegs. A boat hove-to to a port tack will have to give way to any crossing boat approaching on a starboard tack plus those approaching on a port tack from leeward. On the other hand while hove-to in a port tack it will only have to keep an eye for sailboats crossing on a port tack and approaching from leeward (which, still, has happened to me twice...).

Cheers,

J.

[skip1930]

Touché`

skip.

It was pink only because my old tired eye balls let the cursor do the walking carelessly, apparently stopping at the wrong column.

[Bob23]

Skip:
   Please don't use pink text...it's so unbecoming of you!
bob23

[sailen69]

I am most often a single hander and use this quite a bit.  Mind the lee shore, it works great.
Rich