Single handed with too much wind

[nolatom]

Sailbot, cranking up that little Honda 8 may work fine, so long as the motor works fine. If you get in a bad sea, you may have a problem with the prop coming out of the water. Or maybe not, you're the one out there, not us, so I'll take your word on what works.

But you've started an interesting discussion, with some experienced sailors differing on what sail combination is best to stay off a lee shore if you have to do it under sail alone. I stand by what I said, I'll bet the others do, too, and we don't all agree, so take something from each sailor's advice, and try it out in real life, which can be different from sitting at a computer.

[chucklesR]

Ya'll need to pay attention to the point that he has no reefing points, smaller head sails etc.. and eliminate them from the option list.

Speaking of lee shores everywhere - you do have an anchor with suitable rode aboard? Sometimes it's the only thing that will work, it will at least slow you down and mostly keep your bow into the wind. That 8hp o/b even with a long shaft is going to be poppin out of the water in a serious chop.

Once I had to drop anchor because the motor died and a squall was coming. Of course that happened 200 yards off a lee shore. I always imagined if I dropped anchor (windlass on the bow so I can drop from the cockpit) and let all sheets go after heading into the wind I'd wind up pointed into the wind and luffing and then be able to furl and drop the main from a flat deck. It worked, mostly. Even if the hook doesn't set it'll hold me mostly steady while I get the sails down; I blow backwards almost as well as forward. Being a catamaran I don't have the option of 'toughing it out' it's reef early or drop 'em all. Monohulls can reef for the steady wind and pinch/heel in gusts, I reef for the gusts.

[Boasun]

Use to sail and teach on a 26 ft knock about with no reef points. So we trained our students to drop the main and move the jib back and use it as a stay-sail. The boat handled fine.

[nolatom]

Boats, that makes way too much sense.

Sort of like a tall storm trysail.

But again, you'd have to try it on the particular boat in question (first in moderate breeze, later in a blow) to see how it behaves. I think that's the front and back page in all the advice here

[sailbot]

At this point (with present knowledge) Its all about keeping the bow into the wind for easy sail douse. I,ve heard about sea anchors can keep the bow into the wind and waves until a guy can gain that all important control

As far as single handed sailing is concerned, stupid , but sometimes if u want 2 sail u go by yourself

Thanks 4 the Help guys

[Firstandshort]

Run a light line up the hanks on the jib, led back to the cockpit. Release halyard, pull downhaul, ease sheet as it gets tight. Jib ends up on deck, not pretty but safe.

[ste27]

As long as you've got a non-overlapping up I'd expect the boat to be able to handle 20-25 without tooooo much trouble.

Assuming you have all of these controls:

Whack on a handful of backstay, tons if you don't need to point, little less if you really do need to go to weather and you don't have a lot of room for wide tacking angles. Same goes for any adjustable jib leads you have... back back back, it's kind of like outhaul for your jib.

For your main, I'll also assume that you've got the typical small boat = small traveller problem. Sheet on HARD, then grab as much vang as you can... now you can use your main sheet as a big traveller and the boom won't rise and temporarily power up the main when you go to dump the sheet like it normally would. Outhaul and cunningham as appropriate.

Ever sailed a dinghy? Ease, hike, trim. Too windy? Dump the main... the boat will keep trucking on the jib and you're just using the main to help steer the boat - you may have the front third, front half, maybe more of the sail luffing and the only drive you're getting off the main is just a bit off the leech, that's fine. Big gust? Dump the main, but since you've got a pile of vang, the main will just spill instead of powering up and then spilling. Let the boat flatten out and then sheet in again, just until the shows signs of not being 100% flog... you'll be busy and you'll feel it in the helm, but the helm will tell you what to do with respect to the main.

Anyway, that's what I'd do

[anthony11]

Originally Posted by sailbot

As far as single handed sailing is concerned, stupid , but sometimes if u want 2 sail u go by yourself

Most of my sailing has been singlehanded because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to sail at all. Yes, I joined a club so I could use their boats, but there was little way to interact with other members (and little interest in sailing with strangers). I also tried a social yacht club that was entirely powerboaters, so no sailing buddies to be found there.

One day I reserved a J22 to go out on the lake. The office guy told me that line squalls were expected. Silly inexperienced me, I thought that meant rain, and appreciable wind on the lake was rare, so I went out unreefed (and singlehanding). This boat was set up reasonably well for singlehanding in that the halyards were reachable from the companionway, though with a hanked jib with no downhaul.

So the squalls started rolling in



and I was slammed pretty hard. I don't have much experience gauging wind speed, but I'll guess about 40mph. Maybe it was only 30, but it was certainly way, WAY beyond anything I'd ever encountered. No time to reef the main, and no real way to lash the tiller on that club boat. I ended up just uncleating both the main and jib sheets and letting them flog. The wind was driving me obliquely toward shore -- a lee shore I guess. I was scared out of my mind and convinced that I was going to capsize and bite the dust.

Eventually the gust subsided -- seems like an hour but it was probably more like five minutes -- and I fired up the outboard and bounced my way to shore. The office guy then told me that I should have hove to -- wish I'd known that going in, as I'd been taught that heaving to was for taking a lunch break. Later on, in my basic coastal class he brought up the idea of heaving to to facilitate reefing.

I've recently found an informal sailing Meetup that seems like it attracts people interested in sailing together, so I've been considering joining a different club to get access to their boats and hopefully get in some sailing time with folks I can learn from, or who at the very least can be a second body on the boat. There are always more people interested in sailing than there are spots on boats, though I suspect that interest will wane as the weather turns colder.

[sailingdog]

When someone says squall...that is generally bad in a small sailboat... I hope you realize that now.

Originally Posted by anthony11

Most of my sailing has been singlehanded because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to sail at all. Yes, I joined a club so I could use their boats, but there was little way to interact with other members (and little interest in sailing with strangers). I also tried a social yacht club that was entirely powerboaters, so no sailing buddies to be found there.

One day I reserved a J22 to go out on the lake. The office guy told me that line squalls were expected. Silly inexperienced me, I thought that meant rain, and appreciable wind on the lake was rare, so I went out unreefed (and singlehanding). This boat was set up reasonably well for singlehanding in that the halyards were reachable from the companionway, though with a hanked jib with no downhaul.

So the squalls started rolling in



and I was slammed pretty hard. I don't have much experience gauging wind speed, but I'll guess about 40mph. Maybe it was only 30, but it was certainly way, WAY beyond anything I'd ever encountered. No time to reef the main, and no real way to lash the tiller on that club boat. I ended up just uncleating both the main and jib sheets and letting them flog. The wind was driving me obliquely toward shore -- a lee shore I guess. I was scared out of my mind and convinced that I was going to capsize and bite the dust.

Eventually the gust subsided -- seems like an hour but it was probably more like five minutes -- and I fired up the outboard and bounced my way to shore. The office guy then told me that I should have hove to -- wish I'd known that going in, as I'd been taught that heaving to was for taking a lunch break. Later on, in my basic coastal class he brought up the idea of heaving to to facilitate reefing.

I've recently found an informal sailing Meetup that seems like it attracts people interested in sailing together, so I've been considering joining a different club to get access to their boats and hopefully get in some sailing time with folks I can learn from, or who at the very least can be a second body on the boat. There are always more people interested in sailing than there are spots on boats, though I suspect that interest will wane as the weather turns colder.

[SSBN506]

I am not an experienced sailor but this is what I do when solo and things get dicey or even if I just want to bring the sails down. I didn’t notice if you mentions if you had a way to lash your tiller. If not set something up. I have a clamp under my tiller and I run line attached to bungee on both sides hocked into my toe rails. When I want to drop my sails I turn on my engine turn into the wind then bring my engine up to half throttle and lash the tiller. I then release my halyard that is run to the cockpit. But most times the sail won’t drop entirely. So with a jack line on I can go on deck and pull the sail or sails down and the motor will keep me going into the wind. I bring the jib down in bad weather because it is the furthest away and if things get really bad the main is closer and in the middle of the boat and I don’t have to go as far.