I’ve been reviewing five sailing skills that are so important that any sailor should master them to the point that they are reflex actions. Know these five and you’re on your way to sailing more safely, more confidently, and faster, too.
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.
I’ve covered Numbers 1, 2, and 3 in the past two columns.
1. I shall not run. If the wind isn’t pushing across the boat, the sails aren’t working right and the boom can swing across and bash somebody. Instead of running, reach and zigzag downwind toward your destination.
2. I shall watch the telltales. Place short ribbons or yarns up and down the luff of the jib and on the leech of the mainsail. Then trim your sails and steer so they’re flowing horizontally most of the time.
3. I shall exploit my traveler. That’s the track or bar across the boat with a slide (sometimes called the car) attached to the mainsheet. If there’s too much weather helm, meaning the boat wants very hard to turn upwind, let the traveler down a few inches.
Now I’ll talk about reefing, which is another, more dramatic way to affect the helm while making the boat more seakindly, and often faster, too. Any crew should be able to tie in a reef in two minutes or less. With the confidence that you can reef quickly and easily, you won’t procrastinate when the wind comes up, the rail dives under underwater, the helm pulls like a horse, and the boat labors—meaning she’s slow and pitches wildly.
When should you reef? Every experienced sailor I know agrees with this rule of thumb: “When you’re thinking about reefing, it’s probably too late.”
Reefing is a way to shorten sail
—in other words, to expose less sail area to the wind. You can do it by dousing sail or by making sails smaller. The crew of the San Juan 24 in the photo has done both in this gusty wind in the mouth of Connecticut’s Thames River. The mainsail reef could be tied in better in order to better flatten the sail. The halyard should be taut, as should the reefing
line through the leech cringle (the stainless steel eye above the boom). And it looks like the reef points (the light
lines that control the belly of the sail near the boom) are tied a little too tight, risking pulling out the eyelets. Yet even with those problems, this boat is sailing nicely and under control. It’s remarkable how little sail area a boat requires to sail fast on a reach.
What tying in a reef, first take the load off the sail by luffing it. Then make sure the boom is supported with the topping lift or boom vang; you don’t want the boom to fall on deck when you ease out the halyard.
Once the sail is luffing and the boom is supported, it’s time to tie in the reef at the luff of the sail. Lower the halyard and pull down the luff until its cringle is at or very near the boom, where the cringle is secured. (It helps to mark the halyard at the right point with a pen, tape, or wire so there’s no guesswork.)
There are two ways to hold the cringle down. One is to grab it with a stainless steel hook secured to the gooseneck (the boom near the mast). But if the sail cloth is especially stiff, like the high-tech Kevlar/carbon fiber material here, the cringle might not reach the hook. In that case, use a line led to a cleat or winch as we did in the photo taken aboard the 35-footer Nightwind (she’s owned by her designer, Bruce Kirby, who also designed the San Juan 24). This line must be big, strong, and low-stretch. The loads on the corners of a reefed sail are heavy. The cringle must be snugged down hard and pulled forward. If the cringle is set back, you’ll eventually pull the sail’s luff or slides out of the mast. Once the luff is secure, tighten the halyard.
Now it’s time to complete the reef by pulling the leech down and out. The leech reefing line runs down or inside the boom and is led to a
winch. Because the load on the leech line is heavy and the pull is long, the line should be approximately the same size as the mainsheet and it should lead to a powerful winch (a self-tailing winch allows you to pull hard and long with both hands on the handle). Loosen the
boom vang before pulling on the leech line so the load is less.
The trickiest part of the leech control is making sure that the pull is
down to the boom and also
out so the sail shape is flat. If the pull is only down, the sail will be too full or round. An internal reefing line comes out through the end of the boom, then through the cringle, and then down to the boom where it is tied off right under or a little aft of where the cringle is at the boom. It may be tied to an eye or looped around the boom through a bowline at its bitter end, as shown here.
While we got the foot of
Nightwind’s mainsail tight enough (note the crease), we could not get the leech cringle close enough to the boom. We decided that if we had to reef in anger, we would lead a second, short line around the boom and through the cringle to pull them together.
Once the reefing lines are secure and taut
—first the luff, then the leech
—then you can trim the sheet and get going again, perhaps neatening up the sail’s belly with reef points (a long length of clothesline works well). More likely than not, once you’re sailing, the boat will be a lot more comfortable and seakindly. And if you’ve practiced and thought through your gear, you’ve made this important transition in far less time that it took to read this article.
