Doug, Thanks for the clarification on heaving to and the position of the mainsheet. You are correct. Jesse ----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Kelch" <doug_kelch@yahoo.com> To: "For and about Montgomery Sailboats" <montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Saturday, June 28, 2003 6:57 PM Subject: Re: M_Boats: Telltales on Mainsail?
Randy,
Don't you just love confusion?
Never heave to with the main running free, it sort of defeats the purpose and the boat will oscilate back and forth almost beam on to the seas.
In theory you can leave the main cleated just like you were on a beat. You just tack without moving the jib across the bow. Just tack slowly to take most but not all the forward speed off of the boat, hold the tiller to leward on the new tack and the boat should just foot into the waves making some forward progress.
In practice My M15 will tack on it's own if I leave it that way so I ease the mainsheet out a few to several inchs and then cleat it and watch what the boat does for little while before I trust it enough to go below for several minutes. I have gone along hove to for up to an hour while I made lunch and repacked some things.
It really does work well.
Thanks
Doug Kelch --- Jesse Tate <gunsblazing@charter.net> wrote:
Randy,
When you heave to you let the main run free. Do not sheet it in like you do the jib. If I were single handing I think the only choice to reef in any kind of heavy air would be to heave to. With crew you may be able to do it on the run.
Jesse M 15 #343 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Randy Graves" <RandyG@cite.nic.edu> To: "For and about Montgomery Sailboats" <montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Friday, June 27, 2003 6:38 PM Subject: RE: M_Boats: Telltales on Mainsail?
Thanks everyone for the great information! I did search the achieves at www.msog.org and found some great threads. A couple of threads pointed to an article on reefing from Pineapple Sales http://www.sailmaker.com/articles/reefing.htm . The article was good reading, as was the achieves, and your replies. Thank You!
There seems to be 2 schools of thought regarding on what point of sail to reef a small boat. Some prefer to reef on a close reach, other prefer to reef while hove-to. In our M-15 (#407) all our lines are lead aft but, as I sail alone, I still must let go of the tiller in order to reef. I am concerned about letting go of the tiller on a close reach in high winds. Certainly she would fall off-wind or round up? Any thoughts or comments?
The heave-to method would allow me to secure the tiller in a hard-over position and then have both hands free to work the lines. I want to give this method a try next time but will first practice and attempt to perfect heaving-to!
It looks like I made 2 mistakes yesterday while heaving-to. 1- The back winded Jib was not fully flat, I should have sheeted it in tighter. And 2- it sounds like I should have sheeted in the main just a bit. I will give these a try on Monday. From the pictures in the books <grin> I was expecting the bow to be apx. into the wind, with a side-to-side wiggle. Yesterday I hove-to on a port tack and the bow settled apx. 30 degrees off-wind to port and no-wiggle. I also seemed to be making more forward headway than I expected, apx. 1.7 - 1.9 knots of forward movement in apx. 15 - 20 knots of wind. Any other thoughts or ideas?
Thanks again, Randy Graves M-15 #407
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- --
----
_______________________________________________
http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/montgomery_boats
_______________________________________________
http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/montgomery_boats
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com
_______________________________________________ http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/montgomery_boats