Going to windward

[Wakatere]

Please rescue me from my folly and ignorance ...

Well the folly may be inbuilt, but the ignorance might just be moderated by education.

Since my winter in the yard various things about Wakatere are much better - such as no longer having the feeling that the tiller might come off in my hand - but she doesn't seem to point up the way I think she should. The cockpit was a bit busy on Sunday and I couldn't always see the compass, but in our brief foray into the Solent she seemed to tack through about 120degrees, which sounds to me to be too much.

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong? Sail trim? Rig tension (the mast was down for the winter)? Hopeless optimism?
What can I try to improve things?

We had the #1 jib on and full main, and I'd estimate the wind at F4.

Thanks in advance

Charles

 

[TQA]

Blown out baggy sails maybe?

See if you can flatten them a bit by tightening the halyards and the main sail outhaul.

Better still get a knowledgeable racer type to have a look at the way they set.

 

[Robin]

I owned an Elizabethan 30, same as the 9M minus the trim tab on the keel, for 5 years and they were designed by Peter Thomas (Sigma 33 amongst others) to win the Half Ton Cup in expected strong wind conditions where upwind performance was paramount. You might reasonably conclude that they were very good upwind performers of their time! I can't remember the tacking angles now as it was 25 years ago, but it was certainly under 90 and nearer 80 degs. Tuning and sails will affect things quite a bit but you would need to be seriously out to tack though 120 degrees, are you sure you haven't got a Moody hull with a Liz rig and sail insignia?

 

[bobgoode]

I think I would start by looking at the rig. You had it down for the winter but boatyards will just slap the mast on and tighten the screws enough to hold it up when re-rigging. Do you have the same rake as before?
Is the mast truly vertical?
How about prebend?

All these can seriuously affect the upwind performance.

 

[Danny Jo]

Tacking angle is affected by the tide

If wind and tide are from the same direction, the apparent wind angle moves forward and your tacking angle increases. The reverse effect when wind is against tide decreases the tacking angle, an effect known as lee bowing.

 

[Little Five]

I had the same problem when i first bought my sabre. She would tack through 135 degrees!
The rig was fine so I replaced the furling genoa for one which was flatter and AN ENORMOUS difference it made. The old one was 21 years old and a rubbish shape in the first place I think. Get what you pay for I guess.

 

[doug748]

90 degrees should be do-able, as long as your foresail is not very well used.

Do you have tell tales on the genoa? If not, I would suggest you fit them, maybe four, 9in or so back form the luff of the sail, dark knotted wool is fine. You will then be in a better position to experiment with sheet leads and tension.
Hard on the wind get someone to winch in so the leach of the sail is just off the spreaders (this should be very hard work in a breeze - hence getting someone else to do it) and check if you can get all your telltales to fly steadily aft. At this point check your angles again.
.........Sorry if all this stuff is elementary to you.

 

[Wakatere]

TQA,

The sails are in good condition. I hadn't thought to check the outhaul though - it could have got disturbed when handling the reefing lines.

Regards
Charles

 

[Wakatere]

... boatyards will just slap the mast on and tighten the screws enough to hold it up when re-rigging...

I think that probably is what's happened.

Do you have the same rake as before?
Is the mast truly vertical?
How about prebend?

I don't have the "before" condition to compare against, I'm afraid.

Regards
Charles

 

[Wakatere]

If wind and tide are from the same direction, the apparent wind angle moves forward and your tacking angle increases. The reverse effect when wind is against tide decreases the tacking angle, an effect known as lee bowing.

We did have the tide against us, so I think this will have been part of the problem. I'll see if I can get a better idea of the performance in slack water.

Regards
Charles

 

[Wakatere]

90 degrees should be do-able, as long as your foresail is not very well used.

That's what I was hoping for.

Do you have tell tales on the genoa? If not, I would suggest you fit them, maybe four, 9in or so back form the luff of the sail, dark knotted wool is fine. You will then be in a better position to experiment with sheet leads and tension.

Yes (but I need to pay them more attention).

Hard on the wind get someone to winch in so the leach of the sail is just off the spreaders (this should be very hard work in a breeze - hence getting someone else to do it) and check if you can get all your telltales to fly steadily aft. At this point check your angles again.

Will try paying this more attention.

.........Sorry if all this stuff is elementary to you.

All elementary stuff welcome.


Regards
Charles

 

[Evadne]

Hello Charles,

Sorry we didn't see you out on Sunday, we were returning from the Solent at about 3pm, it was quite windy with 2-3 feet of chop which would have knocked you off the wind a bit if you tried to pinch. We usually tack through about 100 degrees, on the compass, with our saggy forestay and baggy genoa but were bearing away a bit more last weekend to keep her going through the waves and reduce leeway. I would expect you to better that, based on other Liz 30's performances, probably a matter of genoa and other sail tweaking to get the slot just right.
Was your tacking angle measured on the compass or GPS track? In other words were you including leeway? I had a quick look through the pictures from our last meeting but don't have any of Wakatere under full sail, unfortunately.
Sounds like you're getting to know her much better, though.
Yours,
David

Wakatere earlier this year:


View attachment 6921

 

[flaming]

If wind and tide are from the same direction, the apparent wind angle moves forward and your tacking angle increases. The reverse effect when wind is against tide decreases the tacking angle, an effect known as lee bowing.

Ah, the great myth of the Lee Bow surfaces again...

When measuring tacking angles through the water with a compass, the tide has absolutely zero effect on the angle. Only if you were daft enough to measure tacking angles with your GPS would the tide have an effect, and then it is nothing to do with apparent wind angles, just good old fasioned tidal drift being a significant part of your course vector.

 

[Robin]

Sorry, my earlier reply was a bit flippant so I'll add a few comments that are maybe more constructive.

The rig needs to be set up properly. The mast is keel stepped so has to be positioned within the deck 'hole' and then held in position using rubber blocks so that any subsequent adjustments of tensions in effect are as for a deck stepped mast. I always favour a little aft rake, few inches maybe and an amount of fore/aft pre-bend put in as a static feature. Set the mast centrally by adjusting the cap (top) shrouds and check with the main halyard both sides are same length, then tighten the bottle screws evenly. Tighten the fore and aft lowers evenly by hand, make sure the mast stays straight. With the rake set as required, tighten the forestay and backstay hard, by hand or maybe with help from a small spanner. screwdriver as a lever. Now go sailing in flat water with a reasonable full sail breeze, hard on the wind. Adjust the windward lowers to straighten any sag in the mast, then tack and repeat the other side. Remember the forward lowers are like a single babystay on other boats and control the fore/aft bend. The idea is to get the mast to be straight in the athwartships direction when under load. This will give you a basic setting, don't forget to lock the bottle screws and wire them up.

Ist reef in the Liz is to reduce the headsail, down from No1 to No2 genoa or several rolls if roller headsail. The Liz goes best upwind and points highest with a good size slot between headsail and mainsail, choke this slot and it will be slow. Get the sheeting angles right for the sail or sail size in use so that all the windward telltales lift together as you luff, if the top goes first then move the lead forward and vice versa if the bottom goes first. Sheet the headsail to be just off the spreaders, too close and you choke the slot, too far and you lose pointing. The halyard tension should be enough to make the camber of the headsail fullest between 1/3rd and 1/2 way back, too far forward and you cannot point, too far back and you will heel more and lose speed. Once rolled a R/R genoa halyard tension is irrelevant as there is no 'pull' on the rolled cloth. In a sloppy sea you will sail better on one tack than the other probably, so be prepared to free off a few degs for more speed less stop.

Old sails are no good even if they look sound they will be stretched and the difference with a good new suit will be amazing.

The Liz should tack through around 85 degs in normal conditions, +/- 5 degs to allow for seastate. In heavier seas go off a tad more for power to punch though the waves, but no more than is necessary.

The Liz is a super boat, enjoy it! I still have a half model of ours mounted in our lounge and two pictures of her on my office wall, and we sold her 25 years ago!

 

[Wakatere]

Hello David,

Hello Charles,

Sorry we didn't see you out on Sunday, we were returning from the Solent at about 3pm, it was quite windy with 2-3 feet of chop which would have knocked you off the wind a bit if you tried to pinch.

We'd given up by then - the Grandchildren were aboard and they weren't enjoying it. I think the chop had something to do with that and the performance.

We usually tack through about 100 degrees, on the compass, with our saggy forestay and baggy genoa but were bearing away a bit more last weekend to keep her going through the waves and reduce leeway. I would expect you to better that, based on other Liz 30's performances, probably a matter of genoa and other sail tweaking to get the slot just right.

That's what I expected.

Was your tacking angle measured on the compass or GPS track? In other words were you including leeway?

Compass - but I was distracted by the 11-year-old feeling sick and the 15-year-old being frightened - they're used to the Roach and Crouch and found the Solent on Sunday a bit much.

I had a quick look through the pictures from our last meeting but don't have any of Wakatere under full sail, unfortunately.
Sounds like you're getting to know her much better, though.

Yes, getting there. We reached Dartmouth in June so we've been enjoying ourselves.

Regards
Charles

 

[Robin]

Hi Wakatere. Remember Evadne has a Liz 29 which is like a grp long keeled folkboat. The Elizabethan 9M or 30 was a fin keeled half ton cupper and will point way higher than the 29, they are different beasties.

 

[Dockhead]

If it happened suddenly, then it is very likely to be a saggy forestay. If it happened gradually over a couple of years, maybe blown-out sails. A saggy forestay will destroy the shape of your headsail and ruin your ability to sail efficiently upwind. I would tune the rig first of all if I were you.

 

[Danny Jo]

Ah, the great myth of the Lee Bow surfaces again...

When measuring tacking angles through the water with a compass, the tide has absolutely zero effect on the angle. Only if you were daft enough to measure tacking angles with your GPS would the tide have an effect, and then it is nothing to do with apparent wind angles, just good old fasioned tidal drift being a significant part of your course vector.

I wondered whether to mention the effect of tide on your ground track, but decided not to overcomplicate the issue. I acknowledge that the effect of tide may be much greater on the ground track than on the tacking angle, but I don't agree that lee bowing and its reverse effect are myths.

Three knots (say) of tide on your lee beam adds three knots of apparent wind to your weather beam. Add that vector to the other two (boat speed and direction, and actual wind speed and direction) pushes the resultant apparent wind further aft and allows you to sail closer to the true wind.

The effect may not be noticed much by racing sailors because the forward speed of the boat is such a dominant influence on the apparent wind.

And when using instruments mounted on the boat to calculate true wind speed and direction, it is easy to forget that the wind direction being shown by the instruments, whether apparent or calculated by the instrument's processor as "true", is the relevant wind direction with respect to the water, not to the ground, and thus already incorporates the effect of the tide on the apparent wind. So a sailor will not find evidence of the lee bowing effect by reference to the "true wind angle" shown on his instruments.

 

[flaming]

I wondered whether to mention the effect of tide on your ground track, but decided not to overcomplicate the issue. I acknowledge that the effect of tide may be much greater on the ground track than on the tacking angle, but I don't agree that lee bowing and its reverse effect are myths.

Three knots (say) of tide on your lee beam adds three knots of apparent wind to your weather beam. Add that vector to the other two (boat speed and direction, and actual wind speed and direction) pushes the resultant apparent wind further aft and allows you to sail closer to the true wind.

The effect may not be noticed much by racing sailors because the forward speed of the boat is such a dominant influence on the apparent wind.

And when using instruments mounted on the boat to calculate true wind speed and direction, it is easy to forget that the wind direction being shown by the instruments, whether apparent or calculated by the instrument's processor as "true", is the relevant wind direction with respect to the water, not to the ground, and thus already incorporates the effect of the tide on the apparent wind. So a sailor will not find evidence of the lee bowing effect by reference to the "true wind angle" shown on his instruments.

What you are reffering to is the difference between true wind and ground wind. Ground wind is almost irrelavent to sailing, it is the true wind (which as you rightly point out is affected by the tide) which is what the boat sees. I have never heard of anyone referencing tacking angles to ground wind, only ever true wind.

This is an effect we see racing, especially with cross currents. As the current builds (typically as you sail out into deep water) you will see a predictable wind shift. This is however not effecting the performance of the boat.

 

[Bosun Higgs]

Three knots (say) of tide on your lee beam adds three knots of apparent wind to your weather beam. Add that vector to the other two (boat speed and direction, and actual wind speed and direction) pushes the resultant apparent wind further aft and allows you to sail closer to the true wind.

.

I reckon you're mistaken Danny and Flamings first post was correct.. The tacking angle on the compass is the difference between the directions the boat points on both tacks. Now since the tide and wind are constants, so is the resultant wind felt by the boat ie the addition of the tide vector to the wind vector. Adding the boat speed into the equation still leaves the apparent wind identical on both tacks unless the boat is one like mine which naturally for some reason is a bit faster on one tack than on the other

Lee bowing comes into it because of leeway alone, but this isnt seen by the compass.