How do you keep your catamaran still, keep her from capsizing, without having to tend the sheets and tillers?

I have seen bits and pieces of this information, over the years. It is high time to bring all of our collective (wisdom?) experience together to answer the question:
"How do you keep the catamaran in one place, without having to manhandle her?"

Some common terms include:
Heave to
Hove to
Park
Parking
Parked
Planted, In Irons (me )
Lay a hull
Laying a hull
laying in the hull

Please tell your thoughts on this subject. I see three things being accomplished when parked. Foremost is to prevent capsize. Then, second is to keep the boat from falling off the wind and running away from the present location. Finally, you want to keep the boat in the same approximate spot. All of this, we want to accomplish without having to tend the controls.

I have heard of a few ways to do it. I have practiced two, maybe three of them.

I have "hove to" (accomplished by "heaving to") by filling the main and the jib on opposite tacks from one another. The result is a boat that firmly remains at a certain angle to the wind and drifts downwind, about 45º off of the wind.

I have actually stood up on my boom, rested my shoulders against my main sail, and spectated some racing while my catamaran was in this "hove to" situation.

I must be able to stop my boat in any number of conditions, so I must use a method that works with no jib present, when cat rigged. The method I use is something that I call "planted in irons." I can't honestly remember where I got this idea and it seems to me that I discovered it on my own.

Even if I did discover it on my own, I am certain that I am not the original inventor. I just worked this system out for myself and I must say that it was hectic and scary to learn it.

Here it is: Planting the cat in irons.

Furl the jib. Sheet the mainsail as hard as you dare. Center the traveler. Affix the tillers all the say over to one side or the other; either tack. I stuff my tiller extension stick under my hiking straps to jamb it into an immovable position. What follows will make your gut become tense and may even make your butt constrict. (butt pucker)

The inflated mainsail will pull the stern of the boat toward weather (weather helm) until the luff (mast) of the main sail will cross the eye of the wind. Then the mainsail will invert and fill on the opposite tack. As the weather helm pushes the sterns in the opposite direction, the locked rudders will force the sterns to move backwards over the water away from the wind and this will cause the mast to once again tack across the eye of the wind. Now the sail will fill on the original tack and will move the boat forward over the water, enough to turn the cat through the wind again.

The cycle will repeat again and again. The cat will always remain within a few degrees of "dead up wind." The sail will oscillate from one tack to the other and back again. The cat's movement over the ground will be somewhat "dead down wind."

Please tell us how YOU park YOUR cat!

GARY

Parking by sheeting in the jib, letting main-traveller all the way out and loosening the mainsheet. Push tiller away from you. Boat will drift very slowly sideways. Standard starting procedure stuff..

Never sailed (or at least, parked) without the jib.

Same thing without the jib: Main way out and tiller hard over to leeward. The boat will tend to keep oscillating a little away from the wind and toward the wind, but will stay on the same tack (unless there is a MAJOR wind shift).

If you are parked in this way, whether with or without jib, and if you need to stay parked but get onto the other tack (like if you are about to go on the rocks and need to drift the opposite direction), you do the "dime tack" as described in Hobie U:

DIME TACK (Performed when the boat is stationary or moving very slowly.)
1. Push the tiller hard over as if to turn the boat up into the wind.
2. Grasp the boom or main sheet blocks and pull it to weather until the boat is tacked.
3. Reverse the rudders when the boat moves backwards.
4. Release the sheets leaving the sails loose. You are now in the Safety Position on the other tack.

Gary's technique of sheeting the main in tight and keeping the tiller hard over, and oscillating between port and starboard tacks, may work when you are out in the middle of nowhere, but when you are in the midst of a lot of other boats, you want to park in such a way that you stay on the same tack, usually starboard so you have some rights even though you are parked.

Also, with Gary's technique of keeping the tiller secured to one side with the main in tight, if there is a MAJOR wind shift which switches the boat to the other tack, the boat could capsize. That won't happen if you use the main-out technique.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

Spot on, Mary.

Main out, traveller out, downhaul released, rudder hard over. Boat is in a stable, safe attitude.

This is not the case with Gary's method.

I want to correct my statement about driving 45º backward off of the wind when hove to. As Rolf indicated you drift sideways. I just checked a record I had of a time when I set a Prindle 19 in a heave to position in 13 knots wind with 2 foot seas. Over the ground, the boat went about 90º to the wind at a speed of 0.8 knots. It moved in a directoin toward the windward side of the main.

I'll have to try it without a jib and see what the results are.

Here is a link to a video that shows how to heave to. One thing not shown that I usually do is to slowly sheet in the mainsail, once the bows begin to blow off of the wind, to the point where I get the balance, attitude that I want.
"Heaving to" video

GARY

When hove to, I can confirm that you go sideways, but "drift" is not really the right word. Rick and I hove to one time on a Hobie 18 (or maybe it was the Nacra 6.0) when we were waiting around for a regatta to start. The boat went very aggressively and rapidly sideways, pushing a lot of water and with a lot of noise and turbulence. I was very surprised, because I always thought heaving to was supposed to be a very peaceful situation.

I would like to know if other people have "hove to" in catamarans and exactly how they did it. The only thing I have found in a quick search is that you center the helm, sheet in the after sail, and sheet the foresail on the wrong side.

To me it seems like a balancing act -- you have to have the right combination of sail area, both fore and aft, to keep the boat headed into the waves and just off the wind enough so it will not tack.

I don't know whether you can heave to with main only -- unless some combination of sail trim and rudder angle. Just doesn't seem like the right balance. Anybody?

We routinely heave to with our N6.0. From close hauled, sheet the jib over on the windward side, main sheeted and travelled in, helm usually pushed right over. She stays relatively stationary, crawling slowly forward, pointing as if sailing normally to windward. Occasionally she drifts backwards, which requires reversing the tiller. Calm and simple. To start sailing, simply sheet the jib over, straighten the tiller and off you fly.

Sorry, but I don't get the part about occasionally having to reverse the rudder. That, to me, indicates that it is not truly hove to and that the sail balance is not right, and I still think that when you are hove to, the rudder is supposed to be centered.

On a cruising boat, when you heave to, to ride out a storm, you set it and forget it and go below and eat and sleep, for hours or days, and don't worry about having to do something like go topside to reverse the helm. Seems like it would be dangerous to have the helm set to one side or the other, in case the boat accidentally gets tossed onto the other tack. Doom!

Again, I am still looking for more guidance on this, because I may be completely wrong. I know somebody out there has experience with heaving to on big boats, and the same principles would apply to small boats.

When I heave to on my Catboat (monohull) I pull up the centerboard, let the main all the way out and tie the tiller to the lee side. The boat drifts slowly downwind. In my Hobie 16, I center both the jib and the main and kick up a rudder part way. The boat will have strong weather helm from the kicked up rudder and turn into the wind and come about. It then does the same thing on the other tack and basically does S turns into the wind. I don't think I could apply the catboat method since the H-16 has no centerboard to raise and won't slide sideways.

I have done this in light winds with no problem. It is especially handy when it gets hot and I want to get in the water to cool off. I am not sure how it would work in heavy wind.

Howard

Okay, I did a couple of tests yesterday. First I hove-to inside the harbor in light wind. I set the main on port tack, the jib was sheeted to the port side (backwinded) and the rudder was locked into the hard-a-lee position, shoved all the way to the starboard side. I kept the traveler centered and then just sheeted in enough to keep the bows into the wind. Without the mainsheet tensioned the boat would do a lot more oscillating and moving around in general. Using the mainsail as much as possible, without allowing it to force a tack, decreases the amount of windward ground lost.

The result was movement of about 1 knot, approximately 90º to the wind, toward the lee side, the starboard side. So I conclude that in calm water with light wind, I can park while maintaining my windward progress.

Interesting that I have past data showing the boat moving 90º toward the windward side of the mainsail but this time it was toward the lee side of the mainsail. I suspect that I had the tillers unbound on that past test, or possibly I was actively steering while parked. I can't recall for sure. It is likely that the waves in the ocean were the variable that made the difference.

Regarding Mary's remark:

While this tossed boat would take off running on it's new tack, with a cleated jib, it still may have a chance of turning upwind again on its lashed rudder. It this were to happen with an unlashed rudder, wouldn't she just run and run downwind?

The movie in the link that I previously posted does show that the tiller is "tied" hard over. Video

I guess if the main were trimmed, and the traveler centered, then the boat tossed onto the other tack (with rudders relaxed) would round up, tack, and place itself back into hove-to position. But if the main were not trimmed fairly tight, that cat would run!

I see argument for heaving-to with rudders relaxed, but I can tell you that doing it with rudders lashed is much easier and requires much less finicky balancing between sails.

Yesterday I did a second test in the ocean on fairly calm waters with wind in the 7 knot range. This test had three parts. First I hove-to with both sails, then with main only with the mainsail inverted, then main only, non-inverted, with me standing on the boom. Yes, standing on the boom.

I just eased the sheet, shot the boat upwind, left the traveler centered, pulled the jib over to the wrong side, and tied the rudders over to the lee side. Once she settled down to a stop, I sheeted the main just enough to keep things from flopping around too much.

I drifted (over the ground as observed on gps track record) about 135º away from the wind (45º backward) at 2 knots. Keep in mind that I have waves pushing me and that is what I would attribute my loss of windward progress to. The drift direction was toward the windward side of the boat. Opposite of what she did in the harbor.

Next I furled the jib. This required me to ease the mainsheet quite a lot. The mainsail filled backwards and the boat was content, staying put. Now my movement over the ground was again at 2 knots but my leeward loss was less and I was now moving about 125º off the wind or 35º backward. The mainsail was filled backwards and the drift (not draft) was toward the lee side of the boat.

Next I stepped up onto the boom and this forced the sail to invert to a normal fill, to cradle me, where the convex side (draft) is on the lee side of the boat. My drift angle increased back to 45º backward, but my speed reduced to 1 knot.

There is some potential error or exaggeration to my speed readings as I am taking average speeds over periods of 30 seconds to a few minutes and my GPS program is rounding to the nearest full knot.

Now moving on to another of Mary's comments:


Well I won't say that you won't capsize. This is a cat, she'll always find a way! But I have not had that happen yet. I don't get major wind shifts, thank God! And yes, you need space to do this maneuver because you'll drift DDW. Or at least I did but, I must attribute much of my drift to sea currents (25 miles off shore) and waves (10-12 footers at the time). The waves are the exact reason to use the "planted in irons" technique. If I had been on a typical hove-to position, my bows would have been averaging about 45º off the wind. This places the cat in jeopardy of being tumbled sideways over its beam by a large wave. While planted in irons, the bows average 0º to the wind.

Now check this out. No exaggeration here and Bill Mattson is my witness, crew to authenticate the following:

In a wind funnel portion of the Santa Barbara Channel the channel , known as Windy Lane, we had been sailing for about 7 hours without a biology break; no nourishment, no potty break. For the past 3 hours we had been beating up windy lane, 25 miles off shore, in seas that had become 10' with the occasional 12 footers for the past 3 hours. The wind was blowing 25+ and we wanted to continue beating for another couple of hours. To use the head, we would have to strip off our pfd's, trap harnesses, spray suits. Bill also had a wet suit on under the spray suit.

We stopped the boat long enough to do this and to grab a bit of nourishment and a bottle of juice. We drifted downwind 1/4 mile but our bows launched squarely over each wave. The boat was stable enough to stand on it, as long as you held on to a shroud for dear life.

Watching a tight mainsail invert in 25 knots winds with 10' seas while planted in irons makes you pucker. I get butterflies in my stomach just remembering it. But it works!

GARY

From what I have read by the experts, in heaving to, the idea is to set everything so the boat sails slowly upwind, won’t tack, won’t fall off downwind, and basically sails itself. You sheet the jib to the wrong side (or tack the boat without releasing the jib), lash the helm to center and set the main (including traveler and sheet), so that the boat makes slow forward progress to windward on a close reach angle toward the wind and waves.

Theoretically, you should be able to balance the sails to accomplish this even if you don’t have a rudder at all. That's a good project for your next test.

Thank you for sharing the results of your experimentation. It is very interesting.
However, heaving to is not the same thing as "parking," so we have to be careful not to get people confused about the two.

What you are doing with your tests is sort of a combination of the two -- heaving to and parking. Maybe you will come up with a combination that works better for multihulls even though it is different from what is used by monohulls and taught in all the seamanship books.

I'm very serious!

Gary,
I should mention that Rick disagrees with me and my theory.

He says to heave to in a cat, you DO put the tiller all the way over to leeward. The jib is backed as in the other theories, and set the main according to how high you want the boat to ride in relation to the wind and waves.

I still think that having the tiller hard over is going to keep you from progressing forward and will result in too much leeway.

We don't have a boat to experiment with right now, so I guess it's up to you to do the testing and puckering.

Please explain the definitions of each of "heave to," and "park."

GARY

In my mind, when you "park" you hold the tiller and adjust the rudders to keep the boat "parked" - its Rick's technique, main out, travelor out, etc. The point being that the tillers not lashed, its free to be adjusted. It might be under your leg, but you can move it.

Its something you do right before a race or after a race, or while you are waiting and dont want to move. You are "parked"

Heave to is different. Heave to, is tiller lashed, riding out the storm, kind of thing.

I'm not convinced the heave to that Gary described will work or is safe, or good for your sails.

Bill

It does work on catamarans although I've not been able to get it to drift foreward much - mostly sideways. It does put considerable pressure on the jib and it stays plastered on the mast and diamonds...I wouldn't do it unless I had to. However, the alternative "parking" requires attention to the tiller when in rough seas and heavy wind. Heaving to, does not require your attention on the tiller and could be useful if you have a more serious problem to attend to.

That's what you have crew for Jake. Send them to deal with it while you tell them how to do it right

Gary,

PARKING:
My definition of "parked" is what Bill Vining has just described. The idea is to keep your boat stationary. With a catamaran you normally accomplish this by letting the main way out, having the jib in enough so it does not flog (softset), and having the tiller hard over. If there is no tide or current involved, the boat will just kind of sit in place, oscillating back and forth through about 45 degrees toward the wind and away from the wind. It kind of backs around away from the wind and then moves forward again toward the wind and then backs around away again, etc.

Meanwhile, it is also drifting in a direction that is sort of a combination of downwind and sideways. You can easily see this if you do a drill where you try to park your boat beside a mark. It is very difficult to maintain your position beside the mark even though you are "parked," because the drift will keep taking you away from it. However, when you are "parked," you are not making progress upwind, and you are the mercy of the "drift."

That is why, if you are parked and if your leeward drift is toard a hazard, like rocks, you can do the "dime tack," as described earlier in this thread, to get the boat onto the other tack so it will drift a different direction.

HEAVE TO:
The definition of "heaving to," according to all my research, is that you are NOT trying to park in one place --you are trying to set the sails and the rudder so the boat continues to sail forward, but at a very slow pace, on a close-reach angle into the wind and waves.

That is accomplished by balancing the sails and helm so the boat will continue to slog slowly forward. Normally this is done by having the jib backed and sheeted on the windward side, basically centering the helm, and then setting the main so it properly counteracts the jib and keeps the boat on a close or close-reach course into the weather. Sort of natural autopilot.

Now, having said all that, I think "parking" is something that most sloop-rigged monohulls cannot do. At least they do not seem to do it. If you are at a regatta with monohull sloops (Flying Scots, for instance), you do not see them parking. They just keep sailing back and forth all the time between races.

Maybe the reason they "heave to" in heavy wind conditions is because they are not able to park.

So the question remains for multihulls: If you are caught out in a big storm and big waves, whether a small multihull or a large one, is it preferable to park and drift or to heave to and maintain some forward progress?

Or I may be all wet about all of this. But I'm glad Gary started this particular discussion, because nobody really seems to know the answer as far as the best option for a multihull in severe conditions.

Addendum regarding heaving to:
One of the things I read said that when you heave to, it does not work well with an overlapping jib. I think they probably mean like a genoa. Duh. On monohulls you would have a small storm jib up. So, on a cat with a roller-furling jib, you would furl it to the point where it does not overlap the mast.

Parking in a cat is really not that easy. When bigger wind and waves are present you do need to continue to steer the boat otherwise you could tack and be blown over.

On my H20 I use to park all the time with the jib on the wrong side and the main and traveler all the way out. This worked fine up to about 12 knots. After 12 knots the force on the jib alone was enough to blow you over in a good puff.

The I20 I've found is impossible to park. There is a constant need to be attentive. The boat will tack suddenly and take off if you don't have the tiller in your hand.

The Tiger while easier to park still needs to be watched as it can also take off if it tacks. I'm not sure if this is somewhat due to the self-tacking jibs on these boats?

Anyway in my experience parking is a little tougher on the high performance boats than it use to be.

Mike Hill
www.stlouiscats.com

Maybe "heaving to" is not a good option for beach cats (or even big multihulls) in big winds. Maybe it is just something that works for big, heavy monohulls with keels. Rick says that heaving to with a beach cat only works in light to moderate winds.

Here is an anecdote: Rick and his son Dave were racing in the Bay to Ocean Race down at Marathon in the Florida Keys. On the ocean side of the race, within sight of the finish line, they were hit by 65 mph winds (as reported by the local Coast Guard Station).

Rick says all they could do was pinch to weather and get their weight as far forward as possible to keep the wind from getting under the tramp.

I asked if they could have "hove to," and he said, "Absolutely not. If we had sheeted the jib to the windward side, we would have blown right over backwards."

Personally, I would like to hear whether any of the people who have sailed around the world on multihulls have ever hove to while at sea -- and how they did it.

I agree with Mary, on all her points, I dont think you can set a beach cat to self tend in anything but the lightest winds. Even parking gets hairy over 18knts. By the way the HT parks great, it doesnt move, it stays planted in one spot, (under 18knts or so) I wonder if this is a uni-rig thing. It the rig does flop around if its choppy, and the motion isnt comfortable in the chop, but it will park very nicely.

and in re-reading Gary's post he indicated that he did his Heave to in light winds. Its a different deal in storm conditions.

The most intense winds I was in was Sail for Hope and it was like 35knts sustained with higher gusts. The most in control I felt was double trapped, going to weather. Pinching in on the gusts was the only way to control the power. We had every line pulled as tight as possible, with the main as flat as we could get it. Bearing away was not an option, tacking was a micro-second event.

By the way - heave to on a mono hull, in storm conditions requires dragging a drogue to create a slick that waves dont break in, and going mostly downwind, with the boat at an angle to the wind, approx 45 degrees. If done right, its a rather calm, relaxed state as compared to trying to sail upwind in a storm. I've done it and it a great way to ride out a storm when you are at sea. It cant be done with a lee shore, or with any regard to your heading, its kind of like, ok, lets hunker down, and wait, and when the wind backs off, start sailing again.

There was a thing on TV this morning with Sir Robin Knox Johnson(?). The backbone of his ocean racer broke in the middle of the ocean in the middle of a storm. To take stress off the boat and preven it breaking in two, thousands of mile from shore, he "trailed warp".

You put 600' of 2" rope off the stern, attached to each side, giving a 300' loop of "shock absorber".

Now you know what to do with all your old mainsheets.

btw- the old Hobie literature said you could maintain any leeward course under bare pole. . . if the wind was over 50 knots!!!

I'd like to see the video of that!!

Guys:

I can believe you could bear pole in 50 knots. A few week ago it was blowing stink so I turn sterns to wind to raise mast on my H17. I didn't even have to hold the mast for it to stay up. It was scary. I ended up chickening out. First time in 27 yrs i was to scared to go out.

Doug Snell
Hobie 17
www.tcdyc.com

Most monohull dinghies can indeed park. They teach how in learn-to-sail classes (US Sailing's included) and call it the "safety position".

That said, I too do not recall seeing monohulls park between races like cats do. I suspect it may be because (1) monohull sailors don't work as hard while racing and aren't so tired, and maybe (2) monohulls don't take off on you like cats do when you aren't paying attention.

I know the Tanzer 16 certainly doesn't. Then again, it's so slow that you simply don't have much time to wait between races. Maybe that's it.

On second thought, maybe that was Jack Sammons, "Welcome to A fleet".

Seriously, I think I read that BEFORE videos were invented!!! The first Hobie video I recall was Dean Fromme(?) sailing an 18 over those massive waves in Hawaii.

I don't think the monohulls park because it takes so much effort to get them up to speed again.

I remember that! He also shot over a sand bar and towed a guy wake surfing on a daggar board. Dean works for the Oahu Hobie dealer now.

Did it look anything the guys in "Serie 2"

http://www.torsten-hengstmann.de/segeln/download/videos.htm

Why would that matter if they are just waiting around between races?

That was Dean.

You know? I do race my Hunter 23 from time to time and we don't ever try to park it. Perhaps I'll try - but the boat is so easy to sail that it's not really a big deal to keep moving about. Secondly, I suspect that it will handle so poorly when it's not moving that it won't be very controllable.

When you are parked, you don't have steerage until you accelerate enough to get some flow over your rudder. A mono hull would take a long time to gain that steerage. Therefore, parking a mono hull would mean giving up control of being able to steer enough to avoid a collision.

Since we are able to power up our rudders so quickly, parking is practical. For a mono hull to give up their steerage in order to relax, would not be a true way to relax since they'd be worried about some numb-skull driving into them while they are comprimised.

GARY

Oh yes you can!





Oh no you don't. See above.



I have heard that said, way too many times. I don't believe that I can't plant an I20. I look forward to proving so.

GARY

I don't think parking an I20 is impossible but the advent of self tacking jibs makes this quite difficult to achieve. It certainly behaves much differently than my F18 and caught us by surprise on several starts last weekend. I found myself several times surprised in irons or with forward speed that we (I) had not accounted for.

If a self tacker is causing a problem, then furl that stinking jib. Cat's without roller furlers on their jibs are dangerous.

Really can't accept a ridiculous statement like that!

It's apples and oranges. Gary is speaking in terms of someone who routinely sails alone offshore in dangerous waters. In that case, a roller-furling jib is probably essential for safety reasons. If you are doing round-the-buoys racing on protected waters with lots of other boats nearby, it is not that big a deal.

Okay, then don't. But I will attempt to add some qualifiers to my statement so that you or others like yourself may find it more palatable. Here is my attempt:

Cat's that have jibs that cause the skipper to be in a situation where the jib is in control of the boat and the skipper is not in control of the boat because of the jib should have roller furlers in place so as to give the skipper the ability to get rid of the sail that is causing him to not be able to control the boat.

I feel your frustration in your view of my remark. It is the same feeling I get when somebody says that they can't stop their boat or that a particular type of boat is unstoppable. Especially when they blame their jib.

I say, if you have a jib arrangement that disallows you to maintain control of your boat at all times, then that jib has no business being on the boat without a way to douse it.

If you can't accept my statements and you find them to be too ridiculous, fine. I'm okay with that as long as you are okay with me having those opinions.

It's a good forum with a few members who might have rediculous opnions.

GARY

Everyone's entitled to an opinion, what is not an entitlement is stating something that is just an opinion as fact. So, yeah, I'm OK with you having opinions....

You're right, it is a good forum and to the most part, good natured.

Certainly the racing trend is to do away with the roller furler. I used to think that I always wanted to have one until I really needed it in a squal. The best we could do was to get it in one nasty knot with the top flapping away relentlessly. The F18 class is moving away from the roller furling requirement as is the Nacra 20 class. The Nacra 20 class even has a jib available now with two full length battens near the top that prevent it from furling all together.

It's kind of like building a bare-bones racer (like how race cars don't usually have sideview mirrors and other non-essentials)..certainly if you are racing in a fleet it's not a big deal to go without the furler.

Well,

The very first time I beat a Nacra 5.2 was solely due to my roller furling jib. The winds were up that day and we both decided to leave the beach on main alone (my jib furled and his on shore). Once we were out on the course, the wind lightened up enough that I was able to unfurl the jib and after that, the other skipper didn't really stand a chance.

It's also very handy to furl the jib when parking between races. So, I'm not about to try taking it off.

Regards,
Eric

Sorry you confused my opiniated outburst as fact. But just in case somebody did think it was fact, then they'd be correct. It can be easily argued that cats, with or without furlers, are dangerous.

GARY

I guess it is the cut, shape of the self tackers that dont' take to furling very well.

GARY

Gary:

I use a 190 square ft Pentex reacher to go with Pentex squaretop when racing Portsmouth in the Wed night races on the lake. I HAVE to furl it in over 12 knots to weather as it is to much to handle solo. I also love to furl it between races. Don't know anything about self tackers. System works great for me. Each his own.

Doug Snell
Hobie 17
www.tcdyc.com

Jib furling, per se, is not specifically the issue. What is dangerous is the inability to quickly reduce sail, whether by furling or dropping the jib and by dropping or reefing the main when a squall is approaching -- and that can happen with very little notice. Being able to furl the jib is obviously the quickest way to reduce sail on a small cat.

I can drop a main if I need too also. But if it was blowing so hard that I needed to get the main down, then there is a good chance that I wouldn't want a jib up.

My personal choice is to never have a cat with a sail that can not be doused in a reasonable amount of time. I furler on the jib is pretty crucial to my concerns.

I'm still mystified by the apparant acceptance by many of the claims that Inter 20's can't be stoped unless the tiller is constantly tended.

Won't somebody who has hove to an Inter 20 or otherwise parked it with the tiller tied down, step in here and tell us about it?

GARY

Yes this is true; however, this does not back up your original statement - cats w/o furler are dangerous. Could you elucidate on this as to particularly when we should be cautioned?

OK, my "OPINION" on dangerous cats...

I've sailed such a cat (Tornado) all my life. Have I ever been in a difficult spot because of the non-furling jib. No. (...that's a FACT, not an opinion BTW ). Being unable to stop a boat b/c of a non-furling/dousing jib seems odd to me. Ease it and head up, no?

I've also sailed Tornados in gales under jib alone after dropping the mainsail. She sails beautifully and controllably in such config. Ya, tacking/pointing is pretty tough, but you can always "tack" by gybing around the long way.

Mike.
Opinions expressed are those of the author...

Why would you not want your jib if you drop your main in heavy air – how are you going to sail? This is almost rule # 1 when heavy weather hits and you have no reef points. AAMOF this is a drill that I had practiced a few times when I started to venture out single handed, and my Prindle sailed very well.

Mike,

I've also sailed on jib only. And as I *think that* I recall, I was able to sail as high as 75 or 80 degrees off the wind if I really dragged the rudders a lot.

Were you actually able to tack? I definitely just jibed from tack to tack but did not even think that I would be able to tack.

On the same test day, I sailed bare stick only. I forget the exact results, but I was able to sail something higher than DDW in that configuration.

I do remember sailing a keeled mono hull into the wind with stick only. I was in a proteted marina. Had I been outside, the waves and current would surely have overcome the amount of lift I was generating of the mast alone.

I had GPS tracks of these tests but they all got fried when I lost a hard drive.

GARY

It is also my experience that furlers are not required. They are a nice convenience but in no way required.

I love my furler on my Tiger. It's nice to be able to furl prior to beaching to make your approach easier.

I have never been able to successfully furl my jib when the wind was above 20 upwind. The jib gets caught funny toward the top of the sail and ends up flapping like crazy. It's also very hard to furl going downwind in a big breeze for the same reason. It takes a bit of practice to get it to furl properly.

So in my experience a furler is for the most part not required. But it is an added convenience.

Mike Hill
www.stlouiscats.com

Tacking with the jig alone can be done if you get the waves just right and use backwinding to to assist. I've done it only a couple of times...much easier to take the long way around.

Regarding the need for jib furlers for safety/control, doesn't it depend to some degree if you're talking about a boat with vs without a battened jib? Obviously you can't use a furler with a battened jib, but my question is with a battened jib wouldn't you have so much stability in the draft profile that you wouldn't need one? When overpowered, just release the jib sheet, let it luff, and it won't flog much. When sailing a spi boat downwind I thought that many people just release the jib sheet, even in lots of wind, but I don't think that would work well with a non-battened jib.

A related question: many battened jibs I've seen come with three battens, with the foot of the sail frequetly without one. If there is any flogging in higher winds it's at the bottom. So why not use 4 battens?

For those of you with battened jibs, how many battens do you have and how well behaved is your sail? Do you ever wish you could furl it? Do you ever just release the main sheet and is it then depowered, out of the equation, and not flogging?


Jerry