Riding Sail Questions

[shmoo]

When we anchor in any sort of a wind, and not much current, the head on the boat (a Sigma 362) tries to fall away from the wind. This puts the waves on the beam, or just forward of it. Sometimes we even get an uncomfortable yawing from side to side.

Last year I tried an improvised riding sail - actually a Wayfarer foresail from a boat jumble, run up the backstay and sheeted to the binnacle crash bar. This sort of worked. It brought us round a tad more into the wind.

The question(s) is (are) am I on the right track? Would a bigger one really work? How big would it need to be?

 

[EdWingfield]

I too suffer from annoying shearing at anchor in any wind.

My solution is to run out the kedge at 45 degs to the main bower. Allow the kedge to take light loading.

Sanity saved!

 

[Graham_Wright]

This was described in PBO or YM this month. Seems to me a storm jib on the backstay might work and give it a day or two out in the fresh air as a change from the damp below.

 

[shmoo]

Oops. Perhaps I had better go down to local WH Sumg and have a browse.

 

[Niander]

This is interesting

http://www.westboundadventures.co.uk/anchoring2.html

 

[shmoo]

Thanks Niander - its spot on. Westbound Adventures is a 33 rather than a 362 but otherwise very same issues. His riding sail is even smaller than mine but hoisted up there it will catch more wind, and be out of the way. Getting dividers to a screen dump as we speak to get his dims!

Making an angel out of spare chain is a good idea too.

 

[harvey]

Why on earth don't we all have them?
My last yacht, bought in the US, came with a backstay staysail and it was brilliant. The boat was 37 feet. The staysail was 7ft along the backstay, fitted with hanks every couple of feet. The other 2 edges (luff and foot?) were about 5 feet each. It was made of fairly heavy material and cut flat as a pancake. The sail was hauled up the backstay on a spare halliard and I took a single line fwd to the mast foot where there was a suitable fitting and I pulled the thing as tight as I could so that the sail was hard in and flat. It made a huge difference to the swing on the boat and so to the pull on the anchor cable. It was so much quieter at night....
John

 

[shmoo]

How far up did you usually hoist it? The picture on the westernAdventrure site a couple of posts up has it quite high up and sheeted to the middle of the foredeck.

 

[harvey]

Well, I had an SSB isolator just at head height and the foot of the sail sat just above that. Really, the height is determined by the angle of the sheet running fwd since it's very important to get the sail as flat as you can. If the sail is too low then you end up with a slack "luff" which bangs as the boat swings. The aim is to get the sheet to bisect the luff/foot angle which must make it 135 degrees to the foot/luffsail I suppose.
It's well worth the effort
John

 

[Searush]

Searush is a Ketch. Mizzen is MADE for the job! Just get yourself a proper boat with 2 masts!
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