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I want to relate a slightly sketchy event that happened this weekend and see if you think my assessment of what caused it is correct.
My inexperienced friend was driving (as I usually let them do) and we were going to weather pointing pretty high. Jib was in tight, main was on the center line (traveler up) and the mizzen was also in as well. I didn’t notice they were pinching so hard (which they are prone to do).
They came up a bit more back winded the jib, so I quickly unloaded the sheet and tacked the jib over. What immediately happened was the boat quickly tacked back and forth. Winds were like 10-15kts and seas were calm. I took the helm there was a lot of weather in it. I quickly furled the jib and dropped the mizzen (thinking maybe we were having a rudder issue), got things under control and then we flew the jib again after that but I left the mizzen down.
So, my analysis is that with everything in so tight that when we got in irons the mizzen was really steering the boat (not the rudder) and that this is what kept us from being able to complete the tight tack.
What I should have done was let the initial tack happen and kept coming down (sheeting out all the sails) to prevent us from getting in-irons and at the same time correcting the pinched point of sail we were on.I’m not sure I’ve described that very well, but let me know what you think, I’m especially curious if my thinking of the action of the mizzen sail in this instance is correct.
Thanks,
-p
s/v Deep Playa | Pearson 424 #152 | http://www.DeepPlaya.comPost generated from Pearson424 Forum using Mail2Forum
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Thanks Dawn and Patrick! -
Patrick,
Certainly the mizzen sail can function as a big wind rudder. In fact, that’s the beauty of it. I wrote an article about that once (online now at http://www.tor.cc/articles/mizzen.htm), which I shared with the group a while back. You might glean some insight from it for future maneuvers.
It sounds like you could have alleviated the situation by simply easing the mizzen sheet, and perhaps the main, too. Having the main boom “on the centerline” sounds a bit tight for this kind of boat in general – typically it would have been causing the mizzen sail to luff hard on the wind, anyway – and no doubt it exacerbated the boat’s tendency to keep rounding up. But mostly I suspect it was the mizzen sheeted in tight.
So, you’re correct. As the boat slowed down, the rudder had less and less effect on the boat’s heading, and the tight mizzen sail had more control. Had you simply let the mizzen sheet go the boat would have fallen off on her tack.
Tor
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Silver Heels, P-424 #17
http://www.SilverHeels.us
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Thanks Tor, you have sent that out before and I’ve even put it into my offline digital library. It was good to read it again though.
-p
s/v Deep Playa | Pearson 424 #152 | http://www.DeepPlaya.com<.. snip>
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Thanks Dawn and Patrick!
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