Controlled gybe in strong winds

[jimi]

there may be 2 flavours , 1) to wear round 2) to wear ship

I'm no expert but one more erudite than I may be able to explain whether or not there is a difference?

 

[awol]

I'm no expert .........

Good, well that's sorted.

 

[Rob_Webb]

.
To gybe safely in any wind above a zephyr the main needs to be centred before beginning to put the stern through the wind. A gybe should never be a hasty business, and attempting to do it 'on the run' so to speak and synchronising centring the boom with the stern passing through the wind is likely to result in a mistimed gybe (with possible damage/injury) eventually, even with the most experienced crew.

I don't understand the talk of centring the boom on a beam reach - this is not going to be easy, sensible or even always possible. I teach the manoeuvre by getting the helmsman to sail the boat onto a broad reach and to continue to broaden it until the genoa just begins to collapse. He holds that course - generally with the wind about 30 degrees off due aft - and asks the crew to centre the main, then gybes the boat through about sixty degrees onto the opposite (very) broad reach, with the man on the mainsheet letting it out smoothly as the stern goes through the wind.

The only time this manoeuvre might be dangerous would be in a very lumpy, unpredfictable seaway - in which case a broad reach sans preventer would be a risky point of sail and tacking might be a better option.

I also don't understand the talk of the need to keep way on the boat - the genoa will be drawing now the main is centred.

All of course IMHO, and I am sure someone will be along in a minute to shoot me down in flames.

- W

Agree. That is exactly the technique I (try to) use.

 

[chrisedwards]

Yet another argument for free standing masts and rigs - most of this is irrelevant.

 

[johnphilip]

Back where we started.

The original question seemed to be asking why let the main right out to bear away for a run run and through to a gybe. Amongst all the side issues I have only seen a brief mention of the most important reason. Without releasing the main to a wide angle many boats in a stiff breeze with a bit too much mainsail set will simply not bear away. The weather helm increases as you come round with the main pulled in too much and it is quite possible to stall the rudder. The boat may well not broach up into the wind but may steadfastly refuse to bear away to a run until more main is eased.
This may seldom affect cruisers as you only find this occuring when turning around a mark or similar situation.
The earlier squabbles have shown one thing to me, I have also been under the misapprension that when tacking instead of gybing I was Wearing Ship.

 

[Seajet]

Another thing about keeping the main sheeted in and cleated on a beam reach, one may not be able to bear away quickly in close quarters collision avoidance; I was once on a boat where the inexperienced skipper fell into this trap, we very nearly 'T-boned' the other boat...

As I mentioned earlier, the phrase 'wearing about' seems to have migrated from gybing instead of tacking, to tacking instead of gybing !

It seems to get the message across, so as long as one makes intentions clear why not keep and use the phrase.

I suppose 'wearing ship' is now taken as 'avoiding hassle and possible problems with the standard manouvre' ?...

 

[prv]

I suppose 'wearing ship' is now taken as 'avoiding hassle and possible problems with the standard manouvre' ?...

Not by me it's not. Although I'm an occasional square-rig sailor rather than a dinghy racer, so who knows what they're doing to the language?

On Stavros, the term "gybe" doesn't exist. You either tack or you wear.

While you might wear if it's impossible to tack, it's still wearing if you do it to change course downwind, so the supposed new meaning of "doing it the easy way when you can't do it the hard way" doesn't work.

Of course, the one constant thing about sailing terminology is that it changes depending on who and when you ask

Pete

 

[peterb]

The 'Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea' gives:

wear, to: The operation of bringing a sailing vessel on to the other tack by bringing the wind round the stern, as opposed to tacking, when the wind is brought round the bow.

gybe, to: The action when wearing a sailing vessel at the moment when the boom of the mainsail swings across as the wind comes round the stern.​

Both fore-and-aft rigged and square rigged boats can wear, but only fore-and-aft rigs will gybe while doing so.

 

[peterb]

A couple of points that don't seem to have been covered.

The main sheet traveller on our boat runs along the back of the cockpit. If the main sheet isn't pulled in, then big loops of sheet fly across the cockpit during the gybe, and these can form a major hazard. So we pull in the sheet before the gybe

Then, as the boat is swinging round the helmsman will pull the falls of the sheet across so that the sail gybes before the boat is pointing dead downwind. This makes the gybe a lot more gentle.

 

[Seajet]

One of the 'Hot Liquid' or whatever the outfit is / was called's incidents was a relatively inexperienced young lady on the helm being very badly hurt by the mainsheet - not the boom - knocking and crushing her against the cockpit side in an unplanned accidental gybe.

This is all the stuff an experienced helmsman needs to consider.