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
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