We always called heavy jibes "cracking the whip" (particularly if the traveller was loose and "shot" off the end of the traveller track taking out the track end "stopper")
If the correct "three point" jibe is used when tacking downwind, ALL jibing should be quite calm and controlled. It’s only the so-called "Chinese jibe" where control of the boat is "on the edge" and damage can easily occur.

A couple of reasons why gybing with the chute in heavy air may be easier than with a cat rig or sloop rig without spinnaker:

• You are typically moving faster, so if you execute a crisp gybe and the boat doesn't slow down much, there is less force slamming the main across.
• The traveller is much more centered when sailing with a spinnaker than main and jib alone, so the main has less room to accelerate across the boat and you are exposing less of the main to the wind.

When we've capsized while gybing with the chute its normally been me trying to steer too quick into the gybe and one of the three following comedy moments occuring:

• Skipper loses balance from the g force of the turn and falls off the boat on the new leeward side, normally pulling the hotstick towards himself in a vain attempt to keep contact with the boat. Boat rounds up, over she goes!
• Crew loses balance from the g force of the turn and can't get across fast enough. Their weight on the new low side plus the skipper heating it up too quickly = capsize
• Skipper jerks the rudders over to try and gybe quickly, slowing the boat down as they stall. He then gets in a hurry to accelerate out of the gybe and rounds up to quickly. Windward hull comes up rapidly and skipper is unable to head down again because the boat isn't moving fast so the rudders aren't responsive and he fails to blow the traveller in time. *Splash*

And the moral of the story - "Slow down to win". A nice smooth gybe with progressive initiation of steering feels like the boat never slows down and "carves" through the turn. Jerking the rudders throws skipper and crew about and slows the boat rapidly.

And as Wouter said, it feels much more controlled than gybeing a non-spinnaker boat in high wind.

Chris.

Darryl,

I'd appreciate if you would describe your "three point jibe" so I can compare it with what I'm currently doing.

Jerry

When you are preparing to gybe, you steadily point the cat down onto a “dead” run, all the time pulling in the main sheet line so that with the wind directly astern, the boom is straight fore and aft down the middle of the tramp’ and the main sail is set “flat” (this is stage no 1). You then helm the cat onto a slight reach on the other tack and the mainsail will simply flip (quite gently) onto the other tack and the mast will rotate onto the new side (stage no 2). Then by steadily bearing more up onto a higher reach and letting out the mainsheet steadily with the change of direction the cat will remain stable and fast throughout the complete operation (stage no 3). You have complete control of the cat and if practiced, you have excellent speed through the entire process.

Doesn't everybody do it this way?

Don't you ever get guys "screaming" downwind on a broad reach, with their mainsail and boom out hard against their leeward side stay, them they suddenly throw the helm over into a gybe with their mainsheet completely loose, with the result that their bows drive deep in the water, their transoms lift high and they actually (in a very scary way) pass through the wind direction onto the other tack except that their sail doesn’t pass through until they are already on a screaming reach on the other tack, WHEN, THWACK – SHUDDER – SHUDDER -BOOM, their sail and boom come flying around onto the other side of the boat, pulling up with the gentleness of being whacked by the jolly green giant, hard against their other side stay??
That’s what we call a “Chinese gybe” and we see guys who have raced for years still occasionally do it.

Are we talking about gybing with spinnakers? If you don't have a spinnaker up and in a strong breeze, be sure not to sheet the mainsail in too much prior to a gybe or when it fills on the new gybe, you'll be in the water before you can say "holy fly swatters batman!".

The trick to smooth heavy air gybes with our without spinnakers is to keep your speed up and don't try to slow down before the manuever. The faster you go downwind, the closer you are sailing to windspeed and the sails will absorb less shock when they switch sides.

I sail Formula 18s. My experience with gybing a kite is that it is mostly pretty tame in up to about 22 knots of breeze. That is because you are doing windspeed or better with the chute up.

While sailing downwind the main is almost center travelled and sheeted pretty tight to get the telltales to fly. Most of the time the windward hull is in the air. Give your crew lots of warning before you gybe. I start my warnings about 30 to 60 seconds before a gybe, that way she can prepare coming in off the wire. During the gybe I loose the main traveller out about 1/2 way. She keeps the spinnaker sheet, she was holding, fairly tight while she pulls on the other. The idea is to sneak the sail around the forestay. On the opposite gybe I travel in while she sheets in and hopefully we have completed the gybe enough to be flying the new hull immediately. While turning down I try to do so smoothly keeping the speed up. I am trying to keep the boat going faster than the wind. I do not even feel the main hit the other side. I just hear the pop of the battens, and then feel lift off. A great gybe is a thing to behold.

Later,
Dan

Dan, I also sail an F18 and our gybing technique is similar. What is the thinking behind letting out the traveller when gybeing then sheeting it back in again? (I leave it centered and sheeted the whole time, but am always interested in learning new stuff).

I know what you mean about the feeling of a great gybe - the boat seems to carve through and never misses a beat and you are back up on a hull instantly with a big grin

Chris.

Chris:

It is not sheeting it is the traveller. Here is the deal, as good as you can gybe you will not be able to keep ALL the boat speed through to the new direction. You will slow down a bit. By travelling out you will keep the sails from stalling for the initial couple of seconds. As you get back up to speed, travel in. It all happens so quickly you may wonder about the advantage, but think about the speeds of these boats. Two seconds stalling a sail is about 3 boat lengths in wind. How many races have you lost or won by three boat lengths? That is for one gybe, now multiply by the number of gybes you perform in a race. This also aids in getting the hull out of the water, like a big birds wing on takeoff. Hopefully you will be travelling the main in at the same time the spinnaker is getting in and there will be the GREAT GYBE feeling!

This may not be exactly right for everyone. I have tried it several ways and settled into this one. It gives me the most consistant results in a gybe.

Later,
Dan

I haven't been easing the traveler in a gybe - but I'll certainly give it a try. It makes sense.

Coming through a gybe with fresh breeze as I heat the boat up, it really feels "bound up" for a few seconds and although we're flying a hull, the boat doesn't REALLY start getting back to speed until some time passes and I've steered back down slightly and the hull lowers a bit. This certainly could be attributed to the main being stalled until the spinnaker propels the boat enough to bring the apparent wind back to where it was. I've never really thought about it (or had the spare effort to look up at the tales during the manuever)

Thanks Dan!

Another cause of the "instant capsize" in a gybe is the new weather spin sheet getting hung up, not allowing the chute to blow through to the leeward side.

Crew needs to know that they can't sit/step on that sheet if they don't want to go for a swim. Learned it the hard way (twice) at CatFight.



Nice weather / waves we were havin', eh?

Hi all,

some great ideas here, appreciate the hints. But you guys are all spoilt, all those extra hands and bodies to do stuff. 22kt. gybes are way to busy one up to be playing with traveller. Or maybe thats the problem?

Regards Gary.

The same tought struck me Gary, when I read about using the traveller in gybes, and we are always two-up (doing it one-up might be slower than 'standard' gybes ).

It's a long way over to the other side on a T, but I sure will try it, as it makes sense.
I dont think it's common practice on the T, and can't really remember seeing anything like this used at Athens (from the TV coverage). Using the mainsheet is quite common tough, and more so with the new carbon masts I believe.

Gary, you are not wrong, us single handed people just don't have time for playing around with the traveller

I just bang it across while keeping up max speed when I'm singlehanding. I concentrate fully on having the spi gybe properly. The rest just seems to fall in-line.

Wouter

You got TV coverage of the Olympic sailing in Norway? That's just spoiled my day

Oh, dont you worry!

We got some coverage from the Europe class, where Siren Sundby won the gold. But almost no coverage from the Laser, Yngling, 49er or Mistral classes, even if we had sailors there as well.

The coverage I got to see, I recieved from fellow T sailors who taped the T coverage aired in the US. (OLN?)

My long-suffering crew was over at my place to work on a jib the other day, and I showed him the video. His first comment after watching the 5 minutes of coverage was "what a dull production", and he is very right. Sailing deserves better producers who know sailing and are able to present it in a more exciting and informative way.

In the age of the internet, it's amazing that we are unable to select for ourself what we want to see from the olympics. I understand the resources might be a bit limited, but the IOC could demand a bit less for the TV rights and let the media partner spend their money on good coverage of more sports.

I'm with you Gary--I'm happy if

a) I don't capsize
b) I get the kite reset quickly

I agree. I think the IOC could do a lot more than just selling the rights to commercial TV companies who aren't interested in the sailing anyway. This topic is worth a thread by itself.