Tag Archives: Short-handed sailing

Easy upgrades for short handed sailing

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The link below goes to Wind Check magazine. You may know I write a monthly column for them. For this winter, they wanted me to write about some simple easy things owners might do over the winter to improve their lot when sailing, as most boats are, Short Handed.

Well I started out to do the 2 x the regular column (which is about 1,000 words) that they asked for, so about 2,000 words. At about 5,000 words I hove to and thought about the subject for a bit. In order to get in all the simple cheap(ish) easy things AND do justice to the two most important aspects of any sailing, this whole idea needed to be bigger. I think that in any sailing but short handed in particular, one must be really comfortable with handling the sails. This includes, for the mainsail, hoisting, lowering, reefing, shaking out the reef, and putting the sail away and cover on. Then there is the issue of roller furling headsails and their part in the big picture, then smaller sails for use when the breeze is over about 15  knots, down wind sails, and well you see where this was going. Each sail and method of handling it might be its own stand alone piece in one edition of the magazine.

I sent Chris Gill, the Editor at WindCheck a note suggesting he/we make this into a 3 or 4 part series so we can really get into the meat of the matter. We volleyed emails back and forth for half an hour and ended up with at least three and maybe four part series on the subject.

So this first part is some of the simple things one can do.  The other pieces will come along further into the winter, but early enough that you can still get a good deal on stuff at the boat shop if you find something you like.

I invite you to read it and study it. It is all from long experience, learned, often at 0230 on a cold raining dark and stormy night somewhere in the middle of nowhere blowing the blazes with something or another broke or looking to break.

Full Length Battens-3: Square Head mainsails

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The Square Head Mainsail–on to advantage side of the equation:

The Square Head mainsail is the default style for the Class 40 short handed offshore race boats.

The Square Head mainsail is the default style for the Class 40 short handed offshore race boats. Don Miller Photography image

The previous few essays have focused on the limiting issues surrounding full length battens including, for the vast majority of the normal boats that most of us sail, the backstay.

Briefly I have proposed that:

  • There is not really solid empirical evidence that one sail with FLB is faster than the SAME sail with leech battens on the same class of boat and assuming that both boats are prepared to be as identical as possible.
  • The Cost of FLB may outweigh the Value a lot of the time
  • I will get to the “sail handling” aspect of FLB further along in the series. This area is in fact one of the areas that does offer increased value for the owner via ease of handling the sail: Hoisting lowering reefing.

For now I am going to concentrate on the most obvious advantage and a much lesser known aspect of full battens in general and the Square Top mainsail in particular.

In my experience virtually all discussions with sailors regarding sail shape is one sided, in that it revolves around the sail’s shape and so the implied concept is aerodynamic lift. I cannot immediately recall any discussion where the other side of the lift equation is even mentioned let alone discussed: DRAG.

Drag is everywhere on a sail boat:

Someone with more time on their hands than me could calculate the amount of drag on this boat

Someone with more time on their hands than me could calculate the amount of drag on this boat

The actual hull topsides

Cabin profile

Rigging

The sail’s surface

The width of the roller furler or furled headsail when sailing with a staysail

The furling drum

The anchor

Rails, life lines stanchions

The dinghy stowed on the bow or in Davits

Cruising boats carry lots of kit and it is all drag.

Cruising boats carry lots of kit and it is all drag.

Halyards

Dodger

Life raft on the cabin top

Bimini

People standing up- This is why most good race boats have the guys all sitting together in breeze or laying low in light air.

Radar either tower astern or on mast

Radar reflectors…..You get the picture.

What is missing from this list?

It is one of the reasons why the square head sail has emerged over the past few years.

We have discussed the usual limiting factor for the size of the roach on most boats is the backstay, closely followed by adherence to a handicap racing rule.

Enter the “open” class boats, in particular the solo offshore race boats. This cohort encompasses the Mini 650 class, the older open 40’s and the much more successful, as a class, Class 40’s, the open 50 and 60 foot mono-hulls and their multi-hulled cousins and in some parts of the world open class skiffs like the Aussie 18 footers.

None of these classes (I am not 100% certain about the 18’s) have any restrictions of sail size or shape, only number and type depending on the individual class and the race.

If Bigger (more area) is Better, so the square top sail is born.

The one element missing in this discussion so far is the mast.

The mast, the square top sail and full length battens are all interconnected.

 The Twitter version:

The mast is drag

The square top sail minimizes that drag

The ST cannot work without full length battens

ESPECIALLY in this case, the FLB need a low friction track because of the great compression generated by the ST sail.

The NPR version:

Because it is sticking up in the air, the mast is 100% drag, at least for the purposes of this essay-Ignore the wing masts and wing sails please.

Over the span (the fore and aft width of the sail-the girth.) the drag from the mast is reduced because the air is smoothed out by flowing across the sail.

As the sail ascends into the air on 99% of boats it gets narrower, again almost universally due to tradition as manifest in the backstay.

This image gives a good visual of the issue at hand-Namely the top 3-4 feet of mainisail-on a 40 footer-is not contributing to reducing the drag from the mast.

This image gives a good visual of the issue at hand-Namely the top 3-4 feet of mainsail-on a 40 footer-is not contributing to reducing the drag from the mast.

At a point that varies for all sorts of reasons this reduction in drag is reduced. The drag from the mast starts to increase.

The point is that usually within a few feet of the top of the spar and for a rule of thumb it can be where the girth of the sail is less than about 4 or 5 times the local for and aft length of the mast, the amount of drag over comes the amount of lift generated by the sail.

For instance, let’s say the mast is 6 inches fore and aft. 4 or 5 times 6 inches is 24-30 inches. So in this example the drag starts to increase, dramatically, at that point on the sail where the girth is less than 24-30 inches wide fore and aft because there is not enough girth in the sail to smooth out the turbulence created by the wind hitting the mast.

This image shows the ration of the mast for and aft length to the width (girth) of the sail as the sail approaches the mast head. 4 or 5 to 1 puts the equal girth n this main at a little lower than half the distance between the mail head and the top batten. I enlarged the image and used a metric rule against the screen to determine this.

This beam on image shows the ratio of the mast’s fore and aft length to the width (girth) of the sail. This is obviously a conventional mainsail and was built to comply with local racing handicaps. As on almost all conventional yachts, as the sail approaches the mast head the position of the girth on the sail diminishes. On this Sabre’s main the girth equal to 4-5 times the masts span is a little lower than half the distance between the mainsail head and the top batten. Functionally then the (mast) drag starts to increase dramatically somewhere above the top batten is. I enlarged the image and used a metric rule against the screen to determine this.

Enter the Square Head sail. This sail profile minimizes the drag from the spar as well as being much more sail area.

I do not have many images close up of the relationship between the mast width and the sail girth as for the one of the Sabre above, but I think you get the idea.

I do not have many close up images of the relationship between the mast width and the sail girth as for the one of the Sabre above this image, but I think you get the idea. This image courtesy of Don Miller.

BUT

It is functionally impractical for any boat with a backstay. Unless of course you want to lower the mainsail every time you tack which may sound like a pain but again find out what the customer is trying to do with his boat sail goals plans etc. I did do two offshore cruising boat sails that were exactly that big roach that would not clear the standing backstay. In one case, the image below, it was a bit difficult to get through in light air although he reefed in about 14 knots of wind, so the roach was easier to deal with the first reef in. I did another offshore cruising mainsail where the owner specified that he would sail with the first reef in if lots of tacking was going to be involved. The roach in this sail was even more aggressive than the first one.

This is the roach profile of the first boat I mentioned in the paragraph aobove.

This is the roach profile of the first boat I mentioned in the paragraph above. Many thanks to the owner for providing the image. www.mccubbin.ca/boat

 

This particular boat was built with two configurations-One with this large roach and NO backstay at all for coastal cruising in and around New England. The spar was of course so designed. And a smaller main WITH backstay for going in the ocean. This is one way to do it...

This particular boat that I did the working sails for was built with two configurations-One with this large roach and NO backstay at all for coastal cruising in and around New England. The two light lines you see on the sail are more conventional runners for headstay tension, but are not really required to keep the rig in the boat. The spar was of course so designed. And a smaller main WITH backstay for going in the ocean. This is one way to do it. Boat was a custom Bruce King design.

For boats with such sails, very large roach OR square head, enter the twin topmast running backstays, generally referred to as “the runners”.

As the name implies, they are running backstays that attach to the masthead and are adjusted by a two or three part purchase led to a winch.

This image gives a bit of an idea on the twin running backstays idea. Yes, this is a race boat, a single handed forty footer from the 2009 O.S.T.A.R

This image gives a bit of an idea on the twin running backstays idea. Yes, this is a race boat, a single handed forty footer from the 2009 O.S.T.A.R. The two padeyes with blocks on the transom are part of the three part purchase this boat has. The blue cordage crossing forward of the starboard stern rail is the last fall prior going to the winch through a clutch at the very edge of the image. The pair of blocks adjacent to the base of radar plinth are for the mainsheet.

Upon contemplation it will be seen that this is not something to be undertaken lightly. Many things need to be contemplated, not the least of which, in no particular order are:

Boat & Deck hardware lay out

Mast strength

Standing rigging configuration

The degree of sweep of the spreaders

The skill of the operators and

Their willingness to put up with this added task when tacking

All these factors contribute to the reason why most “cruising” boats do not have square head sails.

Next up running backstays, batten compression and hardware for the battens.

Our first sail late in the afternoon. Scott Bradford assisting and checking the spar.

This is my mini-650 on her first sail late in the afternoon in August 1995. Scott Bradford assisting and checking the spar. This was the first 5 minutes of sailing after her launch. At the time this roach profile was considered to be huge. If you look at the luff you will see the luff sliders I used-NOT ball-bearing at all, but the best available option on the day. I was more interested in keeping the sail on the boat during handling.

 

Full Length Battens-2c: To FB, or not to FB

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With apologies to you know who.

I have received another question and a related comment  from some readers on the LinkedIn forum “Sailing Network”. This  forum requires authorization but the  access is free once registered.

The question comes from Pippa who appears to be either the principal or a partner and is a RYA Yachtmaster Instructor (Sail) with Miramar Sailing School, Antigua

“I’ve been reading your comments and blog about Fully Battened Mainsails – I have a Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 40 which has sails that are probably the originals from 1996. The main is starting to look ‘tired’ and we have been considering getting a new sail with only leech battens – do you think this would be a retrograde step, or not make a significant difference to her performance? Obviously the current main being a bit out of shape won’t help, but will we regret not getting a replacement that is fully battened? Interested in your opinions!”

This is the comment from the same forum from a reader in San Francisco, DG Tilton-

“Get the full battens. I got about half a knot better in low winds. Most importantly, for students, better control in a jibe. The extra expense of new batten cars/slides for the mast was well worth the investment. The command of out haul for shape also improved performance as well. The difference between old and new is always an increase in speed. But the performance of my sail in 12 years is like new. I teach heavy weather sailing in SF Bay. Our typical winds of 25 kts to 35kt present dynamic conditions due to micro cells of wind vortex. Your lighter winds in Antigua make sail shape even more important. The difference is like releasing more energy for speed instead of drag.”

This is interesting because both correspondents seem to be in the sailing instruction business and both seem to sail in conditions of more than enough wind, most of the time.

I will point out here I am not writing to advocate for or against full battens. Each boat, owner, situation, skill and experience level, sailing plans and a sea-bag full of other factors influence any decision on a boat and the decision on FLB’s is no different.

These essays are to share what I have learned over a more than 15 years as a sailmaker sales rep. that is incorporated into over 50 years of sailing including roughly 40 in the marine trade.

As I read through the question and comment i received, I have the following questions for Pippa centered on her basic question to me:

Would getting a sail with FLB be a retrograde step OR make a significant difference to her performance?

Then the first thing is to go back to the first essay and review the discussion there in particular the part about performance increases after either:

Adding FLB to an old sail. Second is getting a NEW sail with FLB.

My question at the beginning of the first essay is:

Can the “increased performance” be attributed to the Full Battens, on the new sail

OR

Does the “increased performance” stem from the fact that the sail is new and so has all the advantages of a new sail?

These include of course a new(er) shape, perhaps “better” (more stretch resistant-even Dacron) materials than the old one, perhaps larger area via more roach, I note that OEM sails are notoriously “small” with regard to roach and the materials used in such sails are not so great, a superior shape design if from a different sailmakeing firm and or designer or simply what has been learned over the intervening years since that sail was designed.

I am not aware of truly empirical evidence that full length battens on THE SAME SAIL, ON THE SAME (class of) BOAT improve the PERFORMANCE of the boat. And how are we defining performance? Faster, higher or both?

Issues to consider when trying to answer that question include:

  • Does a FLB mainsail make the boat so equipped sail faster and or higher-compared to the “old” sail with out FLB?.
  • In what wind speed?
  • In what sea conditions,
  • Steered by whom?
  • With or without a prepared and smooth bottom?
  • With the same amount of stuff, in the same place in the interior?
  • With the same headsail, in the same “shape” condition as when the old main was being used?
  • Same rig setting?, rake, backstay, mast prebend cap shroud tension?
  • Same weight on the rail?
  • Same helmsman?

These all play a part in a boat’s “performance” and are some of the particulars that sailmakers want to have in place before even consenting to go on a sail speed trial. Organizing and executing such testing with two boats is a right royal tedious business too,even at the top end of the sport and is full lots of small details that are very hard to uncover. For instance I once did a sail for a fellow with a free standing cat rig spar. After delivery he called to complain that he could not keep up with some of the boats at the rally/rendezvous he was attending. After about 6 hours of sailing, questioning, measuring, reviewing details of the design, I discovered that this fellow had a mast step that was in totally different place than other boats I had measured on the dock adjacent to him and that his spar was, for reasons unknown it was larger in diameter…..He did not even know it was larger.

I can attest from my own experiences that determining if one sail is faster (and or higher) than another is a very long drawn out process. This experience comes from two America’s Cup campaigns and lots of hours sailing along in a straight line with lots of smart and experienced sailors and sailmakers trying to make the boat go as fast as it can, then changing nothing else except the sail in question and repeating.

Thus even with an identical Sun Odyssey prepared as closely as possible to Pippa’s boat in order to be as equal when sailing along side each other; there are still many variables to be incorporated before the “increased performance” of the sail can be attributed to the sail having Full Length Battens.

Read again my remarks in an earlier post as to why,” if FLB are faster”, why then does the J105 class not all have FLB mainsails for instance? The 105’s have no rules regarding batten length. The paragraph is about half way down the post.

The next part of a decision to incorporate FLB into a new sail has to do with, as I wrote in the first essay,  value and encompasses things like:

  • Extra cost for the (addition of the) battens on the sail.
  • Issues of moving FLB around by carrier if necessary. Long, and skinny is expensive to ship even if it light in weight. I am thinking, Spares.
  • What are you going to use for luff hardware, at what cost and thus value? In my going for the cheaper option is not sound. This is especially so on a 40 footer, used (I am assuming) as an instruction boat with the attendant minimal seamanship (as distinct from hours or miles of sailing) experience of the students, one assumes, in an area with more than enough wind most of the time.
  • Considerations of maintenance, specifically chafe: The Sun Odyssey 40 has spreaders with some amount of sweep to them. When running down wind the battens, especially the top couple will bear on the standing rigging and chafe due to the hard spot where battens in the sail cross the standing rigging. The chafe will be harder than a sail with conventional battens.
  • The mechanism for securing the sails into the pockets-Perhaps not a great issue on a boat that may not stray far from home. Regardless reefing any sailing 25-30 knots of wind always flogs the sail and invites battens to spear out the leech end.
  • Stowing the sail on the boom. Here is one area that the FLB are or can be superior and perhaps add the value but only if combined with a slippery track arrangement and some kind of sail containment. The SO 40’s I looked at on the web all have some kind of boom bag and lazy jacks for the sail to be captured by and stowed in. Again more money.
  • The battens and pockets, cars and batten boxes all add weight. I have memories of a mainsail for a 40 footer weighting 50-60 lbs. Add another 15 pounds for all “the stuff” if the sail has a really low friction track and car system.
  • The added weight of the track and the now heavier sail all sticking up in the air will have an effect of some magnitude on the boats stability. Whether or not it is visible to the human eye depends on other variables.

I am not going to recommend or not FLB. As I say above my goal is to lay out what I see as the issues that by experience many folks do not consider in their interest in and experience with FLB.

In sum the question for Pippa to contemplate is:

“Is all this worth the extra capital cost and the maintenance cost compared to the Value you get from them?”

Value being subjective but of course including performance (it will be a new sail after all), possible increase in ease of handling the sail-if appropriate sail capture kit is incorporated into the boat, additional weight to hoist, a less “aggressive” flogging” of the sail when it is not trimmed. This is because the battens slow up the frequency of the individual flaps, to and fro that are the components parts of flogging.

Pippa, you asked for my opinion, well here it is (grins) Mr. Tilton says that  the “extra cost” is worth it but that is a decision you will have to make for yourself and your own circumstances.

Were I consulting with Pippa on this sail in my previous life, these would be the questions I would be putting to her.

 

Full length Battens

Image

 

YES, NO, MAYBE, WHY?

The subject of full length battens and whether or not you and your boat need them is one of the longer discussions sailmakers and their customers have. Like much else around the boat, there are plusses & minuses and maybes’ and what if’s. This series is intended to outline the various issues to be contemplated when you get the idea to have full length battens on your boat or new sail.

Briefly

What they can do:

A Class 40 with a so called Square Head mainsail

A Class 40 with a so called Square Head mainsail

 

a)      Full length battens can support a more pronounced roach than a sail without full length battens.

b)      They can be retrofitted to revive the shape in an older sail

c)       They can make the mainsail “smoother” minimizing bumps, creases or hard spots at the forward end of short battens

d)      Maybe easier to flake and fold

Side rails to attach lazy jacks to.

Side rails to attach lazy jacks to.

e)      They can make capturing the sail as it is lowered less of a dance IF the boat has either a Dutchman OR a dedicated Lazy Jack’s system designed for the sail

f)       Reduce drag at the top of the spar, square head only

g)      They make the sound of the sail flapping less loud which has its own many benefits above the longevity of the sail fabric.

 

Issues to consider:

a)      Make the sail jump into its kennel all by itself–NOT

b)      Rating issues (if you do any kind of racing, an “oversized” mainsail will get a new handicap allowing for the perceived speed gain) with oversize roach, except when purely cruising or sailing open classes.

Kress LJ ears (1)

c)       Are they really faster as some have remarked?

d)      In the case of the large roach/square head sail the compression on the luff from the batten is considerable.

e)      Chafe esp. with aft swept spreaders. Also the batten pocket OR sail will chafe where the batten crosses the lee rigging when sailing down wind. It is perfectly possible to saw a hole through a sail overnight (I have inspected a sail so damaged) if this is not either addressed on the boat or in the construction phase of the sail.

f)       Whether to employ luff loading batten pockets or not. By this device the battens are inserted in the luff end of the sail with the leech end sewn shut thus making it really hard, as in you must really try to shake the batten out of the back of the sail. Much harder but not impossible.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

g)      The larger the boat (mainsail) the more likely the sail needs low friction track and cars.

h)      Additional costs related to the detailing on the sail and the cost of the hardware.

A selection of available batten hardware

A selection of available batten hardware

i)        Value versus regular length battens

j)        Potential for damage when sailing-Like an all standing gybe where the sail lands up against the formerly windward runner usually with a great shock.

k)      The material from which the battens are made, there are mainly three flavors.

l)        Carrying spare (battens and parts) on voyages including the stowage on board, the shipping if necessary, the ease with which a long batten can be removed from the sail if the batten breaks

m)

 

Batten sliding systems

There are two categories:

  1. Those using a dedicated track and

  2. Ronstan track and car system

    Ronstan track and car system

  3. Those that do not have a dedicated track but rather the “cars” run in the mast’s original track/groove.

Within “A”: there are two sub-decisions, ball bearing cars and slider cars without bearings.

Within “B” there is one variation from the almost universal use of simply some kind of slippery plastic and that is a car that has bearings incorporated into the car itself. I am aware of only two products that fit this last description.

 

Components

There are three components to the fully battened system.

  1. The “cars” these may be simply a beefier version of the sail slug/slide the sailmakers might use anyway on a small boat’s mainsail. OR on bigger installations with ball bearing cars they are substantial pieces of engineering.
  2. The “batten box”, aka batten receptacle. The device into which the forward end of the batten is captured. This is in turn attached to the car by:
  3. Toggle”, aka universal. This can be as simple as webbing on a small sail or as complex as an unlimited multi axis universal ball joint on bigger hardware/boats.

There are of course all manner of small parts, screws bolts, nut, balls or slider inserts that are included in the various parts outlined above, but you get the idea

 

Do I want them or not?

Considering all the above the rational human would surely ask him/herself do I really want this headache versus what will I gain from having full length battens?

 

Read on.