Finally some wind and I have crew!

We went out this weekend on Sarasota Bay in 32 to 36+ mph wind. I did not reef the main because I wanted to learn how to handle the boat and having never sailed with a reefed main on any boat in the past 25 years, I did not want to ad to the "unknown" factor. While this trip out was not about perfect performance, I felt that I did learn a lot. Mostly that I need to learn a lot!

I know from my hobie experience that EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE TIGHT! Reefing was never a good racing decision in my past experience with Hobies. Our wave conditions were maybe 3 foot chop and we did stuff the bow both upwind and down wind as well as lose the rudder control to cavitation. I never felt that I was going to lose the boat. Just that I needed a little more finesse and experience and needed to push harder. I felt that with more practice and a lot less paranoia about breaking a mast, I should be able to handle those conditions reasonably well.

Having said all that, I wondered what would be the pros and cons for reefing the main? Could a Corsair 28R be sailed like a Hobie 16 in heavy air? i.e. rake the mast way back.

I would appreciate hearing from anyone with an opinion or experience on heavy air sailing.

I don't have a lot of experience but I think you would be faster with a reef in that level of wind. I know it works that way with monos at least... but would make sense for a tri too. Being overpowered loads things up too much, more drag, etc...
but like I said, not a lot of direct experience.

First - take a bucket...tie a line to it, have Paul hold on to the rope and toss the bucket overboard...of course, you want to make sure you have the spinnaker and jib hoisted and on the proper tack before you do this.

Am I sensing fear and a lack of self confidence?

I thought you would be one of the first to offer advice to a new female owner on heavy air sailing in a Corsair. You are the one that has been coached by Randy Smyth for over a year.
Oh by the way, Bob Harkrider has brought his boat to Sarasota. He and Doug Fisher have agreed to practice with me this weekend. I am hoping for heavy air again. You busy?

Sorry, North for the holidays. What ever happened to coming to Destin to practice?

Lacking self confidence...I always believe I sail against better sailors than me. Fear...hmm...call it respect...I've seen you on the starting line in heavy air.

Hell Kathryn, you've kicked our butt so much it's just self awareness...the days of saying you don't know how to sail the boat are long gone.

All I've learned to do in heavy air is stay on the boat and drive - you'll have to talk to the crew about sail trim. They are good at it, that's for sure. Heavy air is lots of cunningham, extraordinarily tight mainsheet, and weight astern. And smiles...lots of smiles.

Life is what happened. Crew, work, Homeland Security, which by the way finally contacted us last night!

Regarding heavy air sailing... we got the weight distribution, cunningham, and smiles...lots of smiles! We were all doing an excellent job with that!
I had a new crew on board who had claimed to be a die hard monohull sailor. He is now a convert and looking for a Corsair to be steady crew on. Yes!!!!

I think that you are probably right about the reef. The last time I sailed with a reefed main was the early 80's on a Hobie 16. It was slow and the Hobie 16 sailors since learned to rake the mast back to depower. I just wondered if any Corsair sailors had tried to apply the same principles. On further thought it would probably take a forestay extension and a recut of the jib to accommodate such serious mast rake.
Cliff, maybe the next time you see Randy you could ask him if he has any words of wisdom on this?

Why would a reef cause more mast rake?

We've talked about it and I think the answer is "it depends". The Houston NOODs last year (2006) Craig and Scott crewed on Kevin Grice's boat. 50/50 beat everyone in heavy air without a reef (everyone else reportedly reefed). Craig said they were about equal upwind, but downwind they just killed everyone. I've never raced reefed, but I'm willing to try it to see.

I think you've gotten some fantastic and detailed advice on heavy air on the F-boats mailing list. You should post it here for all to see as well.

I'm interested in whether or not the precourt shrouds will let you adjust rake beyond what we can currently do with the turnbuckles now, although we've found that you can actually have problems with the mast rotation if you rake it too far.

Cliff,
You should be able to rake more than you can imagine with the precourt system (aside from the obvious issues with forestay, jib, rotator, halyard blocks, etc). You just need to make sure the shroud itself is 1-2 feet shorter than the actual wire stay. My boat has them and the lashings at the amas have about 1 ft or more of distance between the amas and the bottom of the eye (and these are at the length they would be if the mast were up). The lashing just needs to be longer when the mast is more upright. I think that is the great thing about the precourt system. The previous owner of my boat always used the precourt system and although the abrasion issue makes me nervous to think about it, 3/8 dynex has a breaking strength of something like 24,000 pounds so even with a lot of abrasion they should still be fine (not that I would let it get to a serious level of abrasion, but you get my point).

p.s. I always have to remind myself that the mainsheet has to be really tight in high winds. A guy I sail with on a cat is mr "sheet the hell out of it- it ain't tight enough until you hear something cracking." It just seems counterintuitive to start with until I think about it more.

I think you misunderstood me. You don't reef a Hobie 16. You rake the mast back instead of a reef. The side shrouds are not adjusted, just the forestay. The whole rig is then looser falling off to leeward. You still sheet the main really, really hard; downhaul, really, really hard; and use the traveller in the puffs. The jib is travelled all the way out. It works unbelieveably well in making the boat quite controllable and is fast!

The forestay on my 28R has about a 1/4" or less adjustment left to rake back, which isn't worth bothering with in my opinion. I would need to change the forestay or add a section. Last year, I checked my mast rake against Dealers Choice and I was in the ball park with his. Todd had said initially he had the mast raked farther back but now he keeps the rig more forward.

I think that what I am learning is that the downwind in heavy air is the concern. Sea conditions are a huge factor in determining how easy it might be to stuff the bows and with a full main, that may be all it takes to push you over.

I raced the Canadian Nationals in Nova Scotia several years ago on my Hobie 17 in over 50. It was the last race of the event and I was fighting for 2nd place so I was pushing very hard. I sailed the downwind with my traveller centered and the main sheeted hard. I sailed the upwind with the traveller all the way out and the main sheeted hard. The difficult part was the transition between upwind and downwind. I managed to gain well over a leg lead on the fleet, including Paul (who had already won and was sailing his throw out), with this technique. The kiss of death is relaxing and allowing any slack in the main. This technique may also work on a Corsair, but there is absolutely no safety margin with it.

Also Cliff, sorry about asking questions that led you to assume I didn't know what I was doing. I don't know the idiosyncrasies of the 28R or where the edge is. And I can't help but wonder if there aren't better techniqes than the ones I currently use. So I ask, and I truly appreciate the feedback that I get. Besides... how else can I live up to the graphics on the side of my boat. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Smyth reefs, I've seen it. He reefed his 25c in 20+kt in the 2000 Nationals. Hell, we were all reefing.

Steppin' and fetchin' to keep the overpowered boat under control isn't fast... think about it. You're too busy "losing rudder control" and "stuffing the bow" and not actually sailing.

You don't have to believe me: read Gavin leSueur's MULTIHULL SEAMANSHIP. And reef for the gusts.

I think the tight main downwind is right, (much tighter than I'd ever do on a keelboat) but not so that it's stalled.

The 28R seems to be a pretty forgiving boat - the worst stuff we've done was fixed by a major ease of the chute. Not a foot or two, more like 7 or 8 feet. Have your chute trimmer hold about 5 or 6 feet of slack between the trimming hand and the "lazy" hand. If the bow stuffs, then blow the chute to get the boat back on it's feet. Also I'd plan on driving a little deeper than normal in really heavy stuff to both max VMG and lessen the influence of the main wrt pushing the bows down. Finally - crew weight as far back as you can...both helm and stern.

If you ease the main when your bow stuffs (assuming it's tight to begin with), you're just going to power it up and push your bow further down until it's truly to the point of dumping air. I don't know about you, but our mainsheet tends to get fouled up when we try to let it run quickly.

It's edgy stuff, but I can't remember the last time I heard about someone flipping a 28R in wind/leeward conditions (hope I didn't just jinx us all).

Is there a fleet of F28's regularly racing in Sarasota?

I wish! Is there a fleet of anything regulary raced in Florida? Ouch! That sounded bitter didn't it. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />
Currently there are three 28R's in Sarasota, 1 in Bradenton and 1 in St. Petersburg. Sarasota has a lot of opportunity for PHRF racing weekly. PHRF is absolutely not my cup of tea, however, It's an opportunity to practice and I seem to be the only one that is consistently there racing! Of the boats at the sailing squadron, I suppose I would be considered obsessed. The next boat is sailed when it is convenient and crew happens to be around. The third is only here for the winter months and... well..., they enjoy their boat. The fellow in Bradenton is desperately looking for competent crew that can help him learn to sail the boat and compete in the Bradenton Yacht Club events. The fellow in St Petersburg is an awsome sailor, but life seems to keep getting in his way and we have only seen him once since last year's Key West Race Week.
The dealer has sent several local perspective buyers to come out on my boat with me, so hopefully the fleet will grow soon. Sarasota also has 1 Sprint 750 2-F24, and a 28C. There are also a couple of other 24's floating around on the bay but they don't sail from Sarasota Sailing Squadron.

Okay, time for me to put my to pesos in. I agree with rake back, works on a lot of other types of boats so why not a fully battened main. Unfortunately the 28Rs are limited to rake with the current rigging set up (wire/turnbuckle) but that could change when ever the class goes modern and goes precourt. No precout debates as the biggest advantage to going precourt in a class is rigging and derigging the boat, not the weight savings as a class if everyone shaves the same weight. The biggest concern is crew safety. As the rig goes back so does that boom. When I wore a kayak/wakeboard helmet at KWRW it was to protect my noggin after we adjusted to more rake aft. It is obvious to me that the rest of you clowns don't believe that I had anything in my noggin to protect, but.... Anyhow, with further rake, the boom comes back down lower into the ****. The protection time is prestart when the crew is in that position and the boom is going back and forth quite a bit. The second issue is at the top mark, when the main comes flying down in that breeze. That and heavy weahter tacks when the main is realesed early. Something to think about. But don't go with a bicycle helmet as that is designed for a single hit and throw away, go with the kayak/wakeboard helmets. IOther than that, sheet in like hell, pray Cliff isn't on Port Tack and hang on! Weeeee HAAAA
http://st09.startlogic.com/~pendrago/graphics/everytime.bmp

Very true. I noticed in some pictures that Cliff had sent to me, Strategery's boom sits substantially lower than the rest of us with Ullman Sails. The mast rake didn't appear to be much different as best I could tell from the pictures. I assume this to be a difference in the cut of the sail. I often wished I had full body armor when sailing in strong wind and I need to cross behind the main sheet as the boom is whipping towards me from the other side of the boat!

Is this the reason why Randy usually sails boomless on his F25C?

Tap-Tap, Hello, is this thing on?? <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

This isn't another test is it?

No, no, Please NO!

I was just wondering what happened to all the F boat sailors.