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Big Freakin' Sails

593K views 3K replies 293 participants last post by  smackdaddy 
#1 ·
Okay - this thread is for people that ACTUALLY LIKE Big Freakin' Sails (note for morons: the verb, not the noun). BFS simply means sailing that pushes limits - whatever those limits may be. And herein lies the rub...and the reason I need to explain a couple of things so people don't start foaming at the mouth right off the bat.

There has been a tremendous amount of hubbub over this "philosophy" in another thread - but that thread apparently "came with a lot of baggage" - to the point that the topic itself got lost in the fog of war. So, this is an attempt to start cleanly.

It must be understood that the love for the adventure and excitement of hard sailing is just as valid and robust in the newbie as it is in the big-sailing old salt. The gap between the two is experience and knowledge. And the goal here is not to fill that gap by quashing the spirit of adventure and excitement with a deluge of cynicism and technicality - but to help us all learn, if and when the time comes, how to better handle that moment when mother nature starts rising beyond our sailing abilities. Because if you keep sailing - it will happen, period. And as you'll see, it can get very frightening very quickly.

For an old salt, these limits will obviously be worlds beyond those of the typical newbie. That old salt will probably snicker at the point at which the newbie becomes terrified - understandably so. Yet, there will inevitably be an even more seasoned salt that will, in turn, snicker at the snickerer when he/she soils his/her own breeches in a blow. It's all subjective and un-ownable.

Therefore, the BFS factor of a newbie experiencing a hard heel and wayward helm for the very first time is just as exciting, important, and valuable (in BFS terms) as the old salt battling a 50 knot gale. It's just about the attitude with which the exploit is approached and remembered - and taken into account as they go back out for more. There are great stories and valuable lessons in both experiences - as well as great opportunities for good hearted slams on the brave posters (which is valuable as well). That's BFS.

So, to be clear this thread is JUST AS MUCH FOR THE SAILING NEWBIE (of which I am one) as it is for the old salt. It's a place to tell your story, listen to others', learn some lessons, and discuss the merits or detractions of Big Freakin' Sails.

The following inaugural BFS stories illustrate what this thread is all about. As I said, I'm a newbie - and you see my first BFS story below. You can then compare that with the other great BFS stories thereafter (sometimes edited to protect the innocent) which I think are great tales from great sailors; they cover the spectrum of "pushing the limits". Then, hopefully, you'll throw down some BFS of your own (either your own story, stories you admire, or stories that are just flat-out lies but with great BFS value - whatever).

Now, let's have some fun...shall we?
 
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#2,847 · (Edited)
dear smacky baby,
margo roark, aka flysci, has earned her ragged wings.
she, directed by me, sailed through a papagayo. she only used one single reef. i think id a done at least second reef point-- so, lady who studies flies of fruit variety has earned the bfs tee shirt.
oh yeah-- she used a sloop. when i sailed my huge chubasco i used 2 small sails on a ketch....she wins!!!
i told her reef n run..... whooooot.... and wow.

yeah. the main blew

i forgot to say she is sailing from costa rica, quepos, to chiapas, mexico, then from chiapas mexico to barra de navidad, jalisco mexico, some 20 mi north of manzanillo..
yes she knows it is furycame season, and yes we have her back.
hell she not doin bad--she got there from bern , conn, originally....lol
 
#2,850 · (Edited)
oh i failed to mention, that most folks who know me get a wild ride on their way to this port--even i did--lol mine was only a chubasco of 60 kts, but, hell that wasnt anything after some of those severe storms in gom.. shoot those are wicked...
message sent, thankyou!!

post scriptum
from Margo Roark
7:15 PM

to me
"The sailing was fun and fast! Ron hand steered for hours. Made great time for awhile. I think the sail opened along a seam, so we wouldn't need anymore material. So if someone has a tough machine and the right thread, and the space to spread it out that would be great.
We are having a great time. Keep us up to date on any possible storms forming. Can't wait to get there for the partay!"
 
#2,857 · (Edited)
How's this contribution? October 1995, l was crew on an engineless 29ft sloop. The owner, a non-sailing woman and me. I figured it would add to my skills for a trip from Florida to Belize and back. A fine sail down to Isle Mujeres it was to enter. While there l met a norwegian girl and had 9 fun days with her. 2 ships that pass in the night we thought. Engineless is interesting, but on with the story. It is about a 6 day sleigh ride home from Belize. Ours took 16 early January. SW of Cuba it didn't look good. The winds went too light and dark ominous clouds were interlaced with heat lightning. An awesome spectacle. The next day high headwinds and building seas. Easily 15ft+ heavy rollers out of the north, but not breaking. Absurd weather for January. We heave-to with a parachute and watch for chafe. Several hours go by, then boom, our rudder gets a smash from a breaking wave that breaks the tiller. Jury rigged with vice-grips we sail on into the night. The owner wants to get home. We make it through one night, but not the next night without further damage. We loose the mast over the spreaders. The weather hasn't changed. It's cold. We aren't prepared for it. We jury-rig again, secure what we can, and sail on. The boat is starting to look like ****e inside and fatigue is showing its ugly head. The next night we lose the whole shooting match over the side. He likes yelling, l don't. I know he's tired and scared, so is the woman. Just getting finished fishing in Alaska for a year myself, I'm ok. Now we rig the boom as our mast and take the jibhead to the bow, tack to the top of the mast and sheets to the clew. It starts to become apparent l have a more level head about things and the "captain" doesn't like it. Hell, l seen this kind of stuff in Alaska. For example, his favorite knot is 8 clove hitches to secure the mast and just balks at my trucker hitch suggestion. "Hummf, what do you know about sailing!" Nothing but a 100 ton cert and my AB card hasn't taught me l say. Anyhow, rigged, we sail on. They run out of cigarettes. Anyone who knows this problem, knows it's a problem. Irritation sets in without them quickly. We have water, but food is a problem now. The weather is abating. For the next days we each get one bowl of rice each day. 3 days later, we flare a fishing boat, bum Kent menthols, some rolls and sail onwards. I got to hand it to him though, we popped out of the clouds 2 days later at home. He and the woman dingy in to rent a tow, spend the night, and get me the next day. We sailed through "The Blizzard of 96" (Look it up on the NOAA website). I go see my friends who give me a letter from a crazy norwegian girl who was here looking for me. It reads "Call me, I'm pregnant "...., but that is another story.

Lesson learned you ask? Quality condoms are a must for cruising.
 
#2,861 ·
How's this contribution? October 1995, l was crew on an engineless 29ft sloop. The owner, a non-sailing woman and me. I figured it would add to my skills for a trip from Florida to Belize and back. A fine sail down to Isle Mujeres it was to enter. While there l met a norwegian girl and had 9 fun days with her. 2 ships that pass in the night we thought. Engineless is interesting, but on with the story. It is about a 6 day sleigh ride home from Belize. Ours took 16 early January. SW of Cuba it didn't look good. The winds went too light and dark ominous clouds were interlaced with heat lightning. An awesome spectacle. The next day high headwinds and building seas. Easily 15ft+ heavy rollers out of the north, but not breaking. Absurd weather for January. We heave-to with a parachute and watch for chafe. Several hours go by, then boom, our rudder gets a smash from a breaking wave that breaks the tiller. Jury rigged with vice-grips we sail on into the night. The owner wants to get home. We make it through one night, but not the next night without further damage. We loose the mast over the spreaders. The weather hasn't changed. It's cold. We aren't prepared for it. We jury-rig again, secure what we can, and sail on. The boat is starting to look like ****e inside and fatigue is showing its ugly head. The next night we lose the whole shooting match over the side. He likes yelling, l don't. I know he's tired and scared, so is the woman. Just getting finished fishing in Alaska for a year myself, I'm ok. Now we rig the boom as our mast and take the jibhead to the bow, tack to the top of the mast and sheets to the clew. It starts to become apparent l have a more level head about things and the "captain" doesn't like it. Hell, l seen this kind of stuff in Alaska. For example, his favorite knot is 8 clove hitches to secure the mast and just balks at my trucker hitch suggestion. "Hummf, what do you know about sailing!" Nothing but a 100 ton cert and my AB card hasn't taught me l say. Anyhow, rigged, we sail on. They run out of cigarettes. Anyone who knows this problem, knows it's a problem. Irritation sets in without them quickly. We have water, but food is a problem now. The weather is abating. For the next days we each get one bowl of rice each day. 3 days later, we flare a fishing boat, bum Kent menthols, some rolls and sail onwards. I got to hand it to him though, we popped out of the clouds 2 days later at home. He and the woman dingy in to rent a tow, spend the night, and get me the next day. We sailed through "The Blizzard of 96" (Look it up on the NOAA website). I go see my friends who give me a letter from a crazy norwegian girl who was here looking for me. It reads "Call me, I'm pregnant "...., but that is another story.

Lesson learned you ask? Quality condoms are a must for cruising.
Oh hell yeah!!



Unfortunately, we don't sell BFS Condoms. Yet.
 
#2,860 ·
My very first time sailing my own boat, I was 15 and had just bought a Hobie 16. It was a beautiful day and I had no idea what I was doing besides what I'd read in books. Some other sailors helped me to rig it, and one loaned me his attractive daughter to be crew. One of the best days of sailing I've ever had.

This story is about my second attempt. That one didn't go as well. I brought a friend who'd never been on a boat before in his life, and we pulled the sails up with the boat facing downwind... and blowing 20 knots. I thought I was pretty smart when the catamaran launched itself right off the beach and all we had to do was jump aboard.
The bay is a couple miles across, and it looked like we were going to cross it in only a few minutes. I tried to turn off the wind and immediately buried the leeward bow, so I turned back downwind and tried to figure out what else I could do.
Having seen pictures of sailboats going upwind with only the jib, I decided that we should pull down the main. It had reefing points, but I didn't have any line to reef with, so down came the whole thing. It didn't slow the boat down any, and now I learned that catamarans need the mainsail to go upwind. I was still heading across the bay, going just as fast, and no hope of going any other direction.
Figuring to do less damage if I hit the lee shore going more slowly, I danced out on the bow to drop the jib, while my friend steered. To this day I have no idea how he managed not to see it, but he ran us straight into a channel marker piling. I managed to dive onto the trampoline before we hit, and the bridle stretched back, the mast stood up straight, and then the whole boat bounced back a good five feet! I grabbed the tiller and steered us around the piling, then aimed the bows at the only patch of sandy shore I could spot and handed the tiller back. Dumb luck that at this point I didn't know the rig should have been tight; that is probably all that kept a bow from snapping off. I danced out on the bow again and finished dropping the jib, and we slowed down to probably five knots under the bare mast.
I took the tiller back and guided it to the shore. When we beached, it turned out to be a trailer park, and a little wandering around brought us to the office where I called home for ride. We left the boat on the beach for the night, and I returned the next day. The wind wasn't blowing any less, but I'd brought a line to tie in the reefs. Up went only the reduced mainsail, and off I went for an upwind slog across the bay. It took a lot longer, but was a hell of a lot more fun!
 
#2,862 ·
My very first time sailing my own boat, I was 15 and had just bought a Hobie 16. It was a beautiful day and I had no idea what I was doing besides what I'd read in books. Some other sailors helped me to rig it, and one loaned me his attractive daughter to be crew. One of the best days of sailing I've ever had.

This story is about my second attempt. That one didn't go as well. I brought a friend who'd never been on a boat before in his life, and we pulled the sails up with the boat facing downwind... and blowing 20 knots. I thought I was pretty smart when the catamaran launched itself right off the beach and all we had to do was jump aboard.
The bay is a couple miles across, and it looked like we were going to cross it in only a few minutes. I tried to turn off the wind and immediately buried the leeward bow, so I turned back downwind and tried to figure out what else I could do.
Having seen pictures of sailboats going upwind with only the jib, I decided that we should pull down the main. It had reefing points, but I didn't have any line to reef with, so down came the whole thing. It didn't slow the boat down any, and now I learned that catamarans need the mainsail to go upwind. I was still heading across the bay, going just as fast, and no hope of going any other direction.
Figuring to do less damage if I hit the lee shore going more slowly, I danced out on the bow to drop the jib, while my friend steered. To this day I have no idea how he managed not to see it, but he ran us straight into a channel marker piling. I managed to dive onto the trampoline before we hit, and the bridle stretched back, the mast stood up straight, and then the whole boat bounced back a good five feet! I grabbed the tiller and steered us around the piling, then aimed the bows at the only patch of sandy shore I could spot and handed the tiller back. Dumb luck that at this point I didn't know the rig should have been tight; that is probably all that kept a bow from snapping off. I danced out on the bow again and finished dropping the jib, and we slowed down to probably five knots under the bare mast.
I took the tiller back and guided it to the shore. When we beached, it turned out to be a trailer park, and a little wandering around brought us to the office where I called home for ride. We left the boat on the beach for the night, and I returned the next day. The wind wasn't blowing any less, but I'd brought a line to tie in the reefs. Up went only the reduced mainsail, and off I went for an upwind slog across the bay. It took a lot longer, but was a hell of a lot more fun!
Sailing with a hot chick and not hitting stuff is way more fun. Here's my beach cat story:

FIASCO
 
#2,864 ·
This past week we were on our second cruise of the summer to Victoria, BC. After leaving Victoria, we headed north up Harow Straight towards Roche Harbor on San Juan Island. We had a following wind almost 180 degrees around 15k. We flew wing and wing with the 150 poled out for quite some time. Gradually the wind kept picking up and we had to steer right to hold a course toward our destination, that put the wind around 160 - 170 to us, so I brought the genoa over to the port side and gradually had to roll it in to where I only had about a storms jib worth of sail out. The main was still up all the way. The apparant wind was now in the vicinity of 22-26k and we were going 6k. It was about that time that I realized we were out in about as much weather as our good ship should safely take (going by the rule of thumb). There was a boat following us... same track and he had no main up but full foresail. I thought about that and decided to stay with what I had up. The ride was fair, had to work the rudder a fair amount as we were surfing with the waves on our starboard quarter.

It showed me my boat can go downwind with 30k of wind and handle it well. I'm guessing that if I was on about any other point of sail it might have been "real sporty". :eek: This was by far our "biggest freakin sail". :)

Dave
 
#2,866 ·
The crossing from BVI to Panama was uneventful except for a storm force squall at night that lasted 45 minutes. One crew member claims we hit 16.3 knots. I was too busy dealing with a main.

Flying home on Friday.
 
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#2,869 ·
Hmmm.

When I search on Youtube for Hunter sailboats doing big sails (crossings, passages, etc.) - I see very few offerings.





And that's just not right. Hunters obviously rock.

I think the boys and I will need to change that. So stay tuned.
 
#2,871 ·
Okay, I had a BFS this weekend. Well, actually, it's a small freakin sail to anyone else, but I just started sailing. This was my third time actually taking a boat out. I've had no training, but I did read Sailing for Dummies ( no, really.) The admiral and I took out 14' daysailer (with 110 sq ft of sail and no way to reef) out on the lake since we actually had good wind for the first time since we bought the boat. As we were rigging in the ramp parking lot two other sailboats - an AMF 17 and a 25' weekender headed out. Main up, jib up, we headed out of the cove dead down wind. As we hit the main lake both other boats passed us headed back in. Maybe we should have suspected something....

We ended up running a broad reach straight up the lake under full sail with 13 kt sustained winds and off-weather gusts close to 22 kts. I didn't have a clue what I was doing, but the little boat was smoking along. The gusts were kicking us over pretty well but not enough to get a rail in water. I had the sail trimmed way loose to bleed some power though. My wife hasn't even read the book and she managed to fight the jib successfully through the whole affair. After an hour we turned her through the wind and came back down the lake for another hour, then started fighting dead into the wind up the narrow cove to the ramp. Once I realized we were progressing dead astern we decided to switch to motor. We eventually managed to take down both sails - my wife climbed up on the foredeck and took down the hank-on jib then we took down the main while I fought the motor and tiller to head into the gusts. Both were major fights of "How the hell do you do this??!!" Once down we motored up the cove (Minn Kota C30, big power) and dropped anchor to drink a couple cold beers and collect our thoughts before hitting the trailer.

If you had any experience sailing at all it would have been a perfect day on the lake, not a BFS at all. I learned a lot, and by next season I'll be praying for wind like that, but it sure made for a tense, exciting ride THIS time. We were both worn out by the time we got to the dock.
 
#2,873 ·
The boys and I had a great time hanging out with RTB (and his wife) and bob77903 down near Galveston. It's always great to meet up with SNers and talk BFS.

RTB's wife even gave us a chart for the Gulf! Now I can actually claim to have an actual paper chart aboard!

Also installed lazy jacks! Write up for that coming soon in my other thread.

Thanks RTB and bob77903!
 
#2,877 ·
#2,876 ·
Freshwater reservoir last Saturday (Percy Priest Lake, Nashville), winds about 18MPH sustained with 30+MPH, long-duration gusts. Pulled out of marina around 11am, lots of boats out, including a dinghy regatta getting underway.

Rocketed down the lake under main-only. The Kelt 7.60 sails beautifully and is well balanced under only the main when properly trimmed. Thirty-forty minutes or so later, tacked in front of the dam and headed back up the lake.

Surprised - no boats in sight. Sure, the wind freshened a bit, but no reason for everyone else to race to the marina. The wife and I were having a blast, yanking the boat around, sailing this small (but blue-water-capable) boat around like it was a dinghy. Awesome! Of course, we were being reckless and having fun. So yes, we had not one, but two uncommanded jibes, which are quite scary when the wind is kicking up this hard!

Booming up the lake on a perfect beam reach, the boat was on a 20-degree heel with just the main up. Just friggin' BIG. More recklesness, I decided hey, let's let out the genoa! Brilliant! Shortly after I started, the wind caught it and unfurled it for me. Gotta tail that furling line! The sheet was cleated loosely and the sail powerered up; and then the boat went waaaayyy over. I thought we might fall out, but naturally the rudder came out of the water and the ass-end of the boat slid around, luffing the sails into the wind. If anyone needs an concise description of a broach, please send 'em to me...

Anyway, last turn into the wind and my main just gave up:



Here's to a perfect day!
 
#2,878 ·
From Scituate to Boston Harbor yesterday. 15 knot winds gusting to 30 with 3-5 foot seas. We were sailing a Pearson 36 with only a 135 genoa, no Main. The rails were in the water and water splashing across the bow. Felt like temps were in the low forties; not sure but my nipples were harder than Chinese Algebra. I've sailed in bigger winds and seas but got video of this to post. So maybe not BFS, but some yahoo moments!!!

 
#2,879 ·
From Scituate to Boston Harbor yesterday. 15 knot winds gusting to 30 with 3-5 foot seas. We were sailing a Pearson 36 with only a 135 genoa, no Main. The rails were in the water and water splashing across the bow. Felt like temps were in the low forties; not sure but my nipples were harder than Chinese Algebra. I've sailed in bigger winds and seas but got video of this to post. So maybe not BFS, but some yahoo moments!!!


Oh hell yeah!!

 
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