Reflex Actions, Part Two

[John Rousmaniere]

	The key to acquiring the skills essential to good seamanship is to consciously practice them over and over again until they become reflex actions.

In last month’s column, I proposed a list of five skills so fundamental that they should be personal resolutions.  Each is so basic to good seamanship that it should be practiced and practiced again until it is a reflex action.  Here they are:

1.  I shall not run.

2.  I shall watch the telltales.

3.  I shall exploit my traveler.

4.  I shall learn how to reef in two minutes.

5.  I shall remember that I can fall overboard at any time.

Numbers 1 and 2 were the first subjects.  To summarize:

1.  I shall not run.  The least efficient and most risky point of sail is a run square before the wind.  Because the wind is blowing onto the sails, not across them, the sails aren’t generating any lift, or forward drive, and there’s no side force to steady the boat against a roll.  The consequence?  The boat’s slow, unstable, uncomfortable, and liable to jibe or broach accidentally.  The solution?  Sail on a broad reach.

2.  I shall watch the telltales.  Telltales are those short ribbons or yarns up and down the luff of the jib and on the leech of the mainsail.  They tell you how the air is flowing across the sails.  On the jib, keep the telltales on the windward side of the sail flowing parallel – adjusting the jib lead forward or aft, sailing higher or lower, and trimming or easing the jib sheet.  On the main, keep the top telltale streaming straight aft most of the time.

	Exploiting the traveler to its fullest should also be an innate quality of all sailors.

Here the subject is travelers.  

3.  I shall exploit my traveler.  The traveler is a track or bar across the boat on which there runs a slide (sometimes called the car) that’s attached to the mainsheet. As the traveler slide or car is pulled up or let down with control lines, the boom swings back and forth across the deck.

The top traveler here is a simple bar on a Class A, a classic 24-foot wooden centerboard sloop designed in 1910, built in 1923, and now raced out of Groton Long Point, CT.     

	Like any other piece of gear or equipment on board, there are different degrees of sophistication for travelers.

The second traveler is a modern ball-bearing system on the Redwing 30 Jolly Mon, out of Fishers Island, NY.  The Class A’s traveler is a little crude compared with Jolly Mon’s high-tech version. While its slide may not move as easily, they work the same way using accessible control lines. Both are end-boom travelers, unlike the mid-boom travelers seen on top of the cabins of many modern cruising boats. The theory and practice are the same with both types, but a mid-boom traveler is more heavily loaded than the end-boom type and requires a more powerful block and tackle to make adjustments.

Mid-boom of end-boom, a traveler serves three functions.  On a reach, it can be let down directly under the boom to hold it down, serving like a boom vang.  When sailing closehauled in light or moderate wind, you can make the boat point higher by pulling the traveler car to windward until the boom is on the centerline, always keeping that top mainsail leech telltale streaming.  

"The third, most valuable function of a traveler is to allow quick helm adjustment."

The third, most valuable function of a traveler is to allow quick helm adjustment. Helm is the angle of the rudder as indicated on deck by the tiller or steering wheel. Here, the two skippers, Jim Egan and Geordie Loveday, have let their travelers down until the helm feels right for their points of sail.  The Class A, sailing on a close reach with the traveler car all the way down, has just the right amount of weather helm, with the tiller cocked a few degrees, while Jolly Mon is sailing on a run with the helm properly neutral.  

The target is weather helm, or the tendency of the boat to head up when the boat is sailing close-hauled or on a reach.  As a rule of thumb, the higher the car and the boom, the more weather helm the boat has.  Ideally, when reaching or sailing closehauled there should be three to five degrees of weather helm—that’s a moderate tug on the tiller or steering wheel, as the Class A has here.  If you have to fight the tiller or wheel, there’s too much helm. An excess of weather helm is uncomfortable and slow because the water is packing up on the rudder, not flowing across it and creating lift.  

	On a boat with a steering wheel you can gauge weather helm by using as a reference point what is commonly known as "one spoke of helm."

Gauging weather helm can be a matter of feel, but it helps to have a reference point. You can put a mark on the deck under the tiller. On a boat with a steering wheel, make a reference point by marking the spoke that’s upright when the rudder is centered under the hull. This spoke is called the king spoke. On most boats the helm is about right when the spoke next to the king spoke is vertical and the king spoke itself is off to the side at about the angle shown here. This is called “one spoke of helm.” If the king spoke mark is a wrapping of line (as here on Walter Keenan’s Southerly, out of Fisher’s Island), you can gauge weather helm by feel with your fingers.

The traveler adjusts helm because it is a wonderfully quick-acting tool for powering-up and depowering the mainsail. The higher the traveler slide is and the closer it is to the centerline (the imaginary line running from the bow to the center of the transom), the wider is the angle of attack of the wind on the sail, which means that more sail area is exposed to the wind.  The lower the slide, the narrower the angle of attack, and the less area is exposed.  

In a puff, the boat heels suddenly and develops weather helm, meaning that it tries to head up and the tiller or wheel puts up a fight.  When that happens, depower the sail by narrowing the angle of attack.  And to do that, let the traveler slide down a few inches until the helm becomes manageable at that three to five-degree point. Think of letting down the traveler as an “instant reef” that depowers the sail, brings the boat back upright, and eases the helm.  Once the puff is passed you can “untie the reef” by pulling the traveler up again. With practice you’ll know exactly how much line to adjust.

	Adjustment under load is not always easy in most traveler systems, but you can at least improve the cleat with a jammer as seen above. This enables you to easily let down the traveler car in a puff.

The weak point in most traveler systems is adjustment under load. If the purchase is not powerful enough—as is typical in many mid-boom travelers—uncleating or cleating the control line can be extremely difficult in fresh wind, which is exactly when you want to move fast. If you can’t increase the purchase, at least improve the cleat so anybody can easily let down the traveler car in a puff. The neat little Spinlock jammer on Jolly Mon releases and secures quickly with a flick of the wrist.