gybe safety

[lw395]

One false gybe is a lapse of concentration. Several on one passage is a lapse of something else. Is your boat really that hard to sail down wind? Is there some problem with it perhaps? You might like to check the keel alignment over the winter. If the top speed of a 33 ft boat takes the sting out of the apparent wind, either you are pushing the boat very very hard for a short crew, or it wasn't really windy enough to justify losing control.
I race with same fairly gung-ho people, both in dinghies and various bigger stuff, but I really do find your acceptance of being out of control unacceptable.
And from an engineers' perspective, your proposed band-aid for the problem is likely to do more harm than good.
I'm sorry if my attitude offends you, but I have seen and heard about too many injuries to not speak my mind. And injury, as a Yachtmaster (in the RYA/MCA sense and otherwise) is something I will do a lot to prevent, even to the extent of offending people. People get over being offended, having a bit of your finger missing (gybing example, known to me) is an on-going nuisance that can cause a lot of bitterness over many years.
Arrive alive as we motorcyclists say!
p.s. as a bit of levity, there used to be a good piece about gybing in lots of wind on the Sonata website.

 

[TamarMike]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I have been looking for a good solution to the old but potentially serious problem of accidential gybe injury.






Is the problem really old? Surely its a product of the modern burmudan rig and boats with fin keels that have poor directional stability.

When we gybe our lugger, we go 'oh, we have gybed'. A little helm and we flip it back again. No Boom, no fuss.
Oh, the combined sail area of the main and mizzen is just over 1000 sq ft.

Modern boats? Down-right dangerous !

[/ QUOTE ]

Changed this year from a lugger to a modern mathead sloop and having to worry about accidental gybes takes me back to sailing dinghies but with a much more serious boom. On the other hand I did worry a bit about INTENTIONAL gybes with the lugger in any sort of a sea, a lot more can go wrong with shifting the tack when gybing than when tacking through the wind (on a Cornish boat the sail goes round the front of the mast a Scots lugger may well be different).

 

[Seanick]

Manx Nobby rig-standing lug. Once there up, there up.

Mind you, when tacking, the mainsheet blocks do fly around.....all are warned to keep well clear or die. I think they were known as 'widow makers'...
Could do with some runners to keep the forestay tighter, which may make gybes a bit messy.

 

[TamarMike]

Ah, standing lug I see, gybes very easily and calmly, my lugger had that when I first had her.

 

[Sgeir]

We have no experience of boom brakes but use a preventer when appropriate. Setting up a preventer is straightforward and may be done quickly.

We are cruisers, not racers, so cannot fully respond to Mark Johnson, but I would make the point that the preventer does not have to be re-rigged after each controlled gybe, provided that one line is run from the end of the boom, outside of the shrouds, through a block at the mast (side entry block is quick), back outside the other shroud and tied off again at the boom;

After making a controlled gybe (using the mainsheet etc), the boom preventer is simply turned around a winch and tied off on the opposite side of the cockpit. This method is simple enough to use when single-handed, although we usually sail as a couple.

 

[johnphilip]

Yes it probably is worse now than before, deep fin keel and spade rudder are directionally less stable, but they do give exciting performance to yachts. You pay for advances Two steps on ... needs another control to deal with the sideffect .
Going back to the start of the thread where the helm and victim on Buccanneer were caught out by the speed of the boat spinning from broach round to gybe, this was a side effect of the Elan's fin keel form, but she is like many modern boats

In the end do you play it safe or is a bit of adrenelin still allowed in our lives? Sailing can be many types of pastime, sometimes I relish a bit of excitement, sometimes I love drifting up the river on a sunny afternoon.

 

[flaming]

A few years back my dad put a scott boomlock on the boom to counter this threat.
Had to rethink it slightly when an intentional (though hardly RYA method it has to be admitted) gybe snapped the boom.
Being an engineer he redesigned the attachment point to the boom to spread the load over a much larger area. We left it on the boat when we sold it and didn't buy another one, now use a dual preventer through block on foredeck system, which is very belt and braces although he did report that he had discovered ball bearing blocks to be insufficiently strong and has replaced both (only one of which actually required removing!) with the sort of solid blocks that racing sailors point and laugh at. In fact I did point and laugh, then he showed me the twisted remains of the Harken ballbearing block that had exploded.

The thing is that they almost certainly wouldn't have been rigged in the situation described though. With wind on the beam the risk of gybing is reduced, to a level that I would term acceptable - certainly with a half competent helm.

I do very much reconise the situation however, and if it's repeatedly happening with the same helm then you need to look at the sail trim. This does not necessarily mean reefing, but trimming. Have you eased the kicker to reduce the risk of the broach in the first place? Have you moved the jib cars back to help avoid it? Or should you be reefing? If that's done, and you still have issues, you need to address the the helm.
Have you told the helm not to fight the broach beyond the point of stalling the rudder? Have you explained the idea of centring the rudder in a broach and only applying a small amount until the boat is back on its feet?
If this has no effect, then suggest they try helming later on when its easier. And if you're the helm, erm, motor?

 

[Seanick]

Slightly off thread here......I find the old rigs are just as exciting, all that power supplies me with plenty of adreneline!
What the modern yacht is supposed to give is light airs performance, coupled with internal volume. The irony being that in light airs many yachts are seen motoring to keep to schedule.
A long keel is far more forgiving to a distracted helm (me!)

Once we have a breeze we can keep up with most. In fact in a recent race from Chi to the Nab tower and back we finished 15 mins ahead of 27 others, including Benateaus and an Oceanis with similar waterline lengths. Quite excitng!
The price we pay with our old rig is crewing effort for the large sail area. Even so the gybes are NICE, and we don't broach ever (well not yet)!

 

[TamarMike]

Keeping off thread.....

Although my 'new' plastic sloop is slightly lighter with much more sail area and tacks easily under full sail I actually end up using the engine more than I did with the lugger. The ability to ease the 'main' sail halyard at any point of sailing to de-power it and to heave to by sheeting the mizzen tight in meant it was much easier to pick-up or slip mooring, or sail right into a congested anchorage, (even single handed) than it is to get the power off a large roller furling genoa while staying in one spot.

But sadly the need for major repairs and a requirement for more and better accomodation for a growing family meant I had to make a change after 18 years. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

 

[Seanick]

Sound good to me! Tell us more about your lugger?
Sounds like a good size-rather than being too large....

BTW, 01:20 !!!

 

[deep denial]

Is that a jib sheet I see dangling rather untidily in the water, Nick?

 

[tabernacleman]

The Konsort I bought in France was fitted with a boom preventer permanently attached, the block to the lower shroud chainplates lead the 10mm rope to the cleats on the coachroof,, it merely attaches to the boom near the centre, I left the system on board and found it gave some peace of mind especially when running in light airs when concentration can lapse especially when cruising /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif, heavier weather tends to concentrate the mind.

 

[Seanick]

er, sort of. Its a lizard, barber hauler in modern speak. A short length of line permantley attatched for tweeking the leech upwind. When this pic went up on the Classic boat forum the main complaint was the dinghy we were towing! Scuttlebutt forumites must have different standards!!

and yes, it galls every time I look at it! /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif

 

[PhilipH]

I don't know what you mean by failsafe - the boom brake has three settings creating different levels of friction for different wind speeds/sea states. You need to play with it to work out what's best in what conditions. As far as being set up and left alone is concerned, no, it is another control line that needs to be adjusted if you are changing the mainsail setting, so that it is always under tension on both sides. If beating then you don't need to put it on (we do as it keeps the turning blocks from rubbing).
We also have a preventer which is easy to use as each side has lines which are split and then connected using Wichard snap shackles, with the lines to snatchblocks at the toerail and forward round a deck cleat at the bow. We use the preventer for long passages and the boom brake acts as our gybe assistant rather than as an alternative to the preventer.

 

[webcraft]

[ QUOTE ]
In the end do you play it safe or is a bit of adrenelin still allowed in our lives?

[/ QUOTE ] We're quite comfortable sailing downwind in big seas and big winds - but preferably with appropriately reefed sails and always - if the main is up - with a preventer propertly rigged so it can be released from the cockpit. In a seaway we usually rig a preventer with the wind anywhere from a broad reach aft, but if you are not sure of the crew or the boat then rigging one whenever the wind is aft of the beam is a good precaution.

I was a bit mystified by the poster who was worried about the danger of the boom hitting the water - if you are rolling that badly running downwind then maybe you have the wrong sailplan or too much sail up. This sounded like the daftest excuse for not using a preventer that I have heard yet - certainly if we are talking about cruising or even sensible racing.

A well-rigged preventer is very unlikely to damage the boat. When I am teaching I always demonstrate how a preventer functions in the event of an accidental gybe; it is usually pretty untraumatic and very easy to get the boat sailing again. As Sgeir has shown, preventers can be left rigged both sides 'in case' if conditions warrant it. If you know your course once you leave the shelter of the harbour or anchorage is likely to be downwind then you can rig one early to avoid having to go forward in lively conditions.

Preventers allow you to relax a little and enjoy some glorious goosewinged sailing dead downwind or even slightly by the lee when others are 'tacking' downwind because they are too scared of a gybe to sail the course they want. And - if it is a strong enough wind why have the main up at all? Drop it and enjoy total relaxation sailing downwind under genoa alone.

As for the assertion by another poster that some of you motor in strong downwind conditions - I would like to say surely not, but I have seen it - and shame on you.


- W