Mellow Sailing

Mellow Sailing   ...   Monday 4^th February 2013

Today’s sail was vastly different from Friday’s trip from Marsh Harbour to Treasure Cay.  On Friday we started out with a double reef in the mainsail and the staysail (a small sail which flies on the inner forestay).  At some point we shook out one reef and went on with a single reefed main and the same small headsail.  The wind was 20-25 knots and the Sea of Abaco was heaping up into some respectable waves.  I found that sail pretty intimidating, in part, because while in the Bahamas we have mostly had winds around 10-15 kts and fairly flat seas.  A second factor was the strange lack of other sailboats out and about.  This is the kind of observation that makes me think “Are we nuts?”

This morning we set out from Treasure Cay headed for Marsh Harbour.  The wind seemed light in the harbor but we reckoned it would be stronger outside.  The wind was blowing (gently) from the east and we needed to head in an easterly direction.  After two and a half hours we were only 5 miles from our starting point.  That’s not to say that we hadn’t sailed more miles than that.  The problem with needing to tack toward your objective is that only a fraction of the distance travelled is taking you toward your goal.  At that point, we fired up the ‘iron wind’ and motored more northerly, hoping to be able to sail the direct line to Marsh Harbour.  Sadly, that didn’t work out quite as planned.  After five hours we were anchored in the harbor having travelled twelve miles as the crow flies.  I don’t see any racing in our future.

Gloria

We did manage to test our revised reefing system today - albeit not in anger. It seems to work well and for those who are interested we have included a cartoon and a couple of photos to illustrate it.

single line reefing system - in theory, by lowering the mainsail to a pre-defined point on the halyard and pulling in the reefing line the sail area can be reduced quickly and easily from the cockpit. However, our reefing line was previously getting jammed up with the lowered sail and we were't getting much tension on the outside edge. 

by routing the reefing line through the "gooseneck" close to the mast we seem to be able to keep it clear of the sail. This is particularly important for the second reef where there is guaranteed to be a slab of sail from the first reef already hanging on the same side as the second reefing line.

We now have a 2:1 purchase on the outside (clew) part of the sail. It would be better if this came down closer to the end of the reefed sail rather than the end of the boom, but this is where the turning blocks happen to be. So long as the boom is allowed to rise up a little (by releasing the main and the boom-vang) I think we can achieve a pretty good sail shape.