Upwind Sailing

[Jonathan M. Cohn]

I just finished a fun week of sailing my Core Sound 17.3 in Pensacola with the Florida 120 group. Going up wind on Saturday I thought my tack angles were good but felt like I was going slower than I should. I had everything sheeted in and tight for a close haul but the slot was really narrow. Even a slight turn left or right and the boat depowered. Is that normal? Should I have sheeted out more to a close reach for a faster over all time to destination (Velocity Made Good)? Recommendations or thoughts appreciated. Please ignore the terribly poor first few tacks.

 

GPX tracks can be seen with more detail here:

https://www.viewgpx.com/route/vZyLmctP

 

[AmosSwogger]

I'll bet you were sheeted in too tight.  I used to make that mistake. 

 

The way to know is to watch your tell tales.  If they are streaming straight back you are getting good air flow over your sails.

 

I had a bad habit of sheeting my mizzen in too much and I wasn't looking at the tell tails.  Sheeting it out just a little bit while watching the tell tails made an improvement. 

 

Flattening your sails with the snotter helps as well.

 

Graham and Allen have made some great posts on upwind sailing; do a search for upwind and read them.  They helped me.  

 

When I sail upwind with similar length boats they can point higher but I can sail faster which compensates.

[AmosSwogger]

Another mistake I've made is not reefing in strong winds and waves.  When I'm not reefed like I should be I pinch too much which slows the boat down, and then the waves slow the boat more.  Reefing properly prevents those problems and you pick up speed and punch through the waves better.

 

[Jonathan M. Cohn]

Thanks Amos. Do you adjust the mizzen and then the main or main and then mizzen? Does it depend which sail is getting the wind first?

[Hirilonde]

As a basic rule I sheet in my main to just inside the gunwale and then the mizzen comes in more. This opens the slot and increase wind speed through it.  I set the main first, then tweak the mizzen till the tell tales stream smoothly. 

 

Sail shape is based on wind speed. In light winds it is easy to stall to weather by sheeting in too much or over flattening the sails. As to reefing, I find that the easiest decision to make. If I can't keep the boat flat, or near flat most of the time I reef. In a gust I sheet the main out a tad and dump some wind rather than feather up too much. This keeps the boat driving through waves. In really light winds I move way forward and to lee to reduce wetted surface area and the heel helps keep sail shape ready for the next puff of wind. I am always testing the wind, from falling off a tad much to feathering up a tad much, always looking for the sweet spot.

[Steve W]

Lots of good advice. I adjust the sails and centerbord to get neutral  or just a slight bit of weather helm. In gusts I slowly point up. But I watch the water to ease off and keep the boat driving as the puff eases.  The key is to keep rudder movement to a minimum. 

 

Lastly,  avoid trying to point with sloops. Set an unwind way point and put your GPS in VMG mode and play on a day with fair wind. 

 

I had a Sea Pearl 21 that took me years to really sail to its potential.  Same with Skeena. 

[Jonathan M. Cohn]

I appreciate all the advice. I didn't adjust the centerboard much. I'll keep that in mind for the future. I need to find more time for sailing!

[Don Silsbe]

“I need to find more time for sailing!”

Don‘t we all! 

[Alan Stewart]

Jonathan, 

This is a topic we spend a lot of time thinking about on the EC. How to get the boat sailing as optimally as possible. It's no secret that the Cat Ketch rig doesn't typically do as well upwind as a Bermudan rig but we can usually hold our own well enough that we make up for it on other points or just in comfort (outlasting the other guy). One thing I haven't seen mentioned is boat trim. From the first picture and also screenshots from the video below I notice that the boat is pretty down by the stern. When sailing in the EC my Mom and I did our best to keep heavy stuff up in the bow knowing we both would likely be in the cockpit most of the time. When sailing upwind in light wind someone should be sitting as far forward as possible either leaning against the companionway bulkhead or sitting up there and the helmsman can be driving sitting up by the thwart with the tiller extension to minimize the weight in the stern which only slows the boat down. With a bit of extra speed comes better pointing ability, more flow over the rudder and just all around better handling. In these pictures it looks like the boat is squatting and about the same trim as the first picture. Keeping in perspective that the boat is only 17 feet and optimally intended as a solo cruiser one should expect a slight dip in performance when sailing 2 up in light conditions. This boat also has a bit of extra ballast in the way of those lead acid batteries in the forward half of the ballast compartment. 

 

Two other points. One is that when sailing 2 up and with a mast head float it's a ok time to consider taking out the water ballast when conditions are light. The mast head float gives you peace of mind that the boat won't turtle and assuming your crew is practiced in small boat capsize recovery (not always the case) they can help in the unlikely event the boat does go over. 

 

And lastly, when the boat feels sluggish especially in Florida i always check that I'm not dragging some seagrass on the rudder. Even just a few blades of seagrass can zap a knot off the boats speed. It's a real drag! On some trips across Florida bay we were raising and lowering our rudder on every tack because the water was dense with seagrass. This will have a similar effect on the boat to being out of trim or too heavy, slow sluggish, can't point, can't get boat speed up. It's a frustrating feeling I know too well. 

 

 

 

[Jonathan M. Cohn]

Alan, thanks for the pointers. I am working on moving weight forward more. My scuppers are leaving a bit of water in the rear cockpit and this is allowing some water to drain in through the piano hinge of the rear compartment. I didn't know it in these pics, but that rear compartment had enough water to float my epropulsion battery. I am going to double check that the scuppers themselves have no leak. I purchased some rubber gasket to help limit water ingress. Do you sell the foam kind you use on the hatches? I think this could go around the bottom bezel of that rear hatch. I am also lengthening the tiller extension to make it easier to sit ahead of the thwart.

 

At what speed would you consider it needful to fill the ballast chamber considering the 200 pounds of batteries are already in place? Should i think of filling the tank as part of the reefing regime? Is there a rule of thumb? i.e. Fill the tank when winds are over 15. Put in the first reef when over 19, second reef over 24. Others have mentioned sailing flat. Should I be reefing when she starts to heel? In Graham's  Carlita in the Tx200 video he's heeling quite a bit but no reefs. In his Across FB  video it looks like he has both reefs in and is sailing her on her ear.

 

Thanks everyone for all the suggestions. I often feel like a "newb" but I've enjoyed learning. I have really liked the boat and she shines on long runs. My local lakes are just small ponds to her.

 

 

[Alan Stewart]

I'm a bit skeptical that a gasket on the stern hatch will be able to keep water out of there but really the water shouldn't be getting that high. I'd be looking to store all my water bottles in the forward locker (right behind the tabernacle bulkhead) and anything else heavy. Even putting some ballast (maybe a sandbag) up there to help trim the boat toward the bow might result in better performance even if it made the boat a tad heavier. Keeping the transom out of the water in light wind as much as possible is the goal. 

 

In light winds sailing flat is fine so long as the transom is out of the water (weight forward). If you were racing you'd definitely be sending your crew forward in the cabin to stand in the forward hatch to get weight forward. On some boats heeling the boat in light wind is faster if it means less wetted surface area in the water. On the 17mk3 I don't think that has as much effect as say on the EC-22 which has a big wide surfboard bottom that can easily reduce surface area by heeling in light wind. 

 

As for when you put in the ballast. Firstly this is assuming you have the mast head float which you do. If you don't have a mast head float then I would always sail with the ballast in period. The risk of the boat going turtle is too great. The 17mk3 is very stable but it's not self righting and we know that if the ballast is empty and the centerboard is up she will turtle. So with that in mind and mast head float firmly attached...

 

It's really just about how comfortable you are. If it's really gusty that might be a good reason to have it in just because the boat motion is less predictable. Or if you're far from shore and self rescue is a must. So not just wind speed dependent. Sailing upwind in strong winds you'll pretty much always want it in for the added righting moment. "strong winds" might be anything above 10 knots when solo or 15 knots when 2 up. Sailing downwind you can do fine without the ballast but it's often the case that the wind picks up and you round up to reef and realize that conditions are even bigger than you thought because sailing downwind the wind speed feels much more subdued. So that is something to watch out for. 

 

Sailing that boat heeled over upwind is just the product of sail trim, boat speed and righting moment. Firstly, you must have the sails sheeted in hard in order to point and sail upwind period. Once you do that you can steer the boat to maximize vmg upwind. If you get a gust you might need to sheet out a bit but assuming you can just steer to the wind and it's not super gusty you can either be sailing too high (pinching) and the boat will stay flat and you'll be going kind of slow but pointing fairly high. OR you can bear off a little, increase boat speed and heel over. VMG will go up so it's worth the extra distance sailed to not pinch.  If you go too far off the wind but don't let the sails out then you'll just start heeling more and more. VMG probably won't increase. Somewhere in between there is a sweet spot where boat speed feels good (boat is driving and feels fast) and that's where you try to stay. You can keep the boat flat as you bear off by hiking out but the 17mk3 isn't setup for hiking out since it's more of a cruiser (we stay sitting on the seat and use the water ballast). Sometimes the boat feels fast and is pointing well and the boat is heeled way over (or at least feels like it is). 15 or 20 deg is not uncommon. If you can't bear away and get up boat speed up without the boat just getting blown over then you've got too much sail up and it's time to reef but by then you've probably already thought about reefing already. 

 

In some conditions it can make sense to "foot off" for more boat speed. This is where you sail further from the desired course but the extra boat speed means more VMG. This is a game that can be played if you're staring at the gps with vmg speed and you're actively navigating to a point far upwind. A lot of times this doesn't always make sense because for example, footing off means going faster and lets say you get .2knots more VMG but now you're getting soaked because the waves are smacking the side of the boat more often. Personally I'll take the more comfortable angle in the EC but buoy racing you'd go for broke. Needless to say there are always LOTS of variables with sailing but I've found the 17mk3 to be responsive to input so if you feel like you're going slow you probably are and you can play with weight placement, sail draft, sail angle, heel angle, maybe try tacking to see if the other tack is faster (Typically starboard tack is a bit stronger than port due to the main sprit being on starboard). 

 

One other note is that once you have a reef in the boat might feel completely different. Reefed sails are flatter, so you might need to point further off (worse tacking angle) to get good boat speed and that's the price for a reefed sail sometimes. 

[Don Silsbe]

I see that everyone in the photos are sitting well aft of the mizzen.  This happens a lot, until you  become aware of the importance of fore-aft boat trim.  Especially in medium to light air it is important to position yourself up near the mizzen when sailing solo.  In light air, both my feet are forward of the mizzen thwart (when sailing solo).  

 

 

If you have a passenger, they definitely need to be ahead of the mizzen thwart.  Even in that situation, the helmsman should only be as far aft as the seat hatch.  I have friends who sit alongside the tiller.  In doing so, they take the boat off her lines, and bury the transom.  This throws everything off.  The only time I sit that far aft is in higher winds, and then only when on a run.

 

@everybody else— Am I right or wrong?

[Paul356]

I agree.  Solo I sit up at the mid-thwart if I have gear forward, or straddling it if no gear.  Passengers sit foward of the thwart, normally up against the cuddy, except on the rare occasion when the boat is really loaded down with gear, and they can sit back a bit.  This is on a MkI.

[Hirilonde]

When solo, I set right up near the center thwart/mizzen.  When I have 1 other, they are in the foreward cockpit. In light air, I will sit foreward of the mizzen using the hiking stick, and if a passenger, they are foreward as well As Alan points out, keeping the transom out of the water is key. And if really light winds, healing the boat over to lee and foreward reduces wetted surface while helping the sails keep shape ready for the next puff.

[Don Silsbe]

@Hirilonde— Geez!  Don’t give away all the light air secrets, like puffing on a cigar to determine wind direction.  A piece of mag tape from an old cassette clipped to the foot of the main is another way.