Hey guys,

I recently picked up Rick White's Cat Sailing for the 90's... I got to downwind section, don't remember the page number, but he talks about two methods of sailing downwind.
The first being set the sails for the course and then steer to keep the tell tales going.
The second was keep the bridle wind vane 90 degrees to the boat and adjust the sails.
The thing I don't get is how is the second method different, if you keep the boat 90 degrees to the wind then your sails shouldn't need to be adjusted right, you are just staying on a beam reach which is what the first method is. I know i'm missing something, been a great book so far.

Yes, that description is fairly ambiguous, and sailing downwind well is a combination of steering and trimming, but I think what he is getting at is whether the crew adjusts the jib or not. On sloop-rigged boats, where you aren't trying to do the wild-thing downwind, you usually set the mainsheet and don't touch it much. So you can either steer to keep the jib flowing or trim the jib to keep it flowing.
In reality, you should do both. As the wind direction changes or the boat changes speed, the apparant wind will shift causing the jib to luff or stall. Usually the jib can be trimmed faster and more smoothly than the boat can be turned. Tell the crew to concentrate on keeping the jib flowing while you steer to keep the boat powered up and surfing if possible.

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It has to do with apparent wind. If you are on a beam reach and your sails are trimmed properly, the wind vane will be angled less than 90 degrees, more like 45 or 55 degrees. You have to picture the boat as it's moving. Both the wind from behind you and the wind created by moving forward work together to move the vane to 90 degrees.

Consider walking around a carpark....

Wind is North at exactly 1mph.

Stand in the middle of the car park. Where is the wind coming from ? Answer - N at 1mph

Now walk south at exactly 1mph - where is the wind - nowhere, you are walking in the same direction as the wind at the same speed. You feel NO wind.

Now turn around and wak directly INTO the wind at 1mph. where is the wind ? in your face at 2mph

Now turn east and walk at 1mph, now where is the wind? well it's now coing from NE as you have a VECTOR of the true wind (N) plus 1mph east (your walking speed) and the wind you will feel is root(2) 1.41mph.



now turn southeast and walk at 1mph, again the wind you FEEL will be shifted as a function of the fact you are walking at an angle to the wind, the faster you walk, the more the apparent wind will go east.



now do the same on your boat. Sailing southeast in a North wind, as you speed up, the VECTOR changes and the wind moves east, the more you either

1, Sheet in
2, Bear off to keep the apparent wind at the same angle....

Faster you go, more sheeting in, or more bear off....

This is the toughest part of sailing for me so,

1)I understand a Beam Reach as going 90 to the wind.
There would not be wind from behind

Question: Is that true wind or apparent wind?

(Assuming constant winds)
If it is true wind, than once you are at max speed, sails are set and your just crusing right?

If a beam reach is 90 to the apparent wind, wouldn't you just keep going in circles? As the apparent wind changes you have to change course to stay 90 to it <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

Beam reach is defined as 90 to TRUE.

No, you will not go in circles as, as you bear off, the appaernt moves back ast, yes you MIGHT continute to accelerate and so the apparent mores forwards again, but you cannot keep on bearing off and keep accelerating; at some point friction overtakes you and you cannot bear off any more.

This is something that trips me about ice boats. They are always going to weather.

Set your sails and steer in the groove between powering up an footing off. For me it is more about feel. Try to keep that groove without killing your power by footing off too hard. If you are surfing down waves, you may be able to foot a little harder, but power back up before you bottom out.

As far as setting sails, it depends on the boat. Spin boat, travel in to center.... others travel out just past the strap. H16s like to really let off on the mainsheet to give it more more twist, but I like to sheet it in a little tighter like I did when I sailed H20s. Lot's of H16s like to foot as hard downwind as possible, but I think it pays to power up a little and keep that apparent wind working for me.

Not sure this is right... but it's worked for me plenty of times.

Yeah I think that is my problem, I understand apparent wind and all, but in the bigger boats I'm use to it's not such a factor. So it sounds like you can start to sail a beam reach but will gain so much speed that the apparent wind will start to shift forward therefore you need to head off to keep the wind 90 degrees to you. thanks for the replies guys.

The 90 degrees rule applies to the Hobie 16, I don't know about other cats. On the downwind leg we go with 90 degree of apparent wind, then set the jib accordingly (in lighter wind the crew has to hold the tack with the hand in order to induce more bend in the battens) and now we steer by the jib telltales (never ever stall). If we note we are going higher than 90 degrees with the lee telltales just before stall, the jib as to go out more. So it really is a combination of the two. Remember, the jib is it all for going downwind.