Self Tacking Jibs Can They Be Reefed?

[dewent]

I know the issues with self tacking jibs not giving much drive when not close hauled. My question is in strong winds going to windward can a self tacking sail area be reduced by furling some away? Or is it all or nothing as there is no way to move the sheet forward hence the leech will always be too slack whist the foot is too tight and at risk of being ripped if excessive force is used to try and tighten the jib?

 

[knuterikt]

I know the issues with self tacking jibs not giving much drive when not close hauled. My question is in strong winds going to windward can a self tacking sail area be reduced by furling some away? Or is it all or nothing as there is no way to move the sheet forward hence the leech will always be too slack whist the foot is too tight and at risk of being ripped if excessive force is used to try and tighten the jib?

No problem if the sail is designed right.
Mine can be reefed without any problem - the clew moves up and forward without any problem.

I have no picture of a reefed sail, but in this picture you can see that the sheet is close to 90 degrees to the head stay when the sail have been furled

 

[lpdsn]

I know the issues with self tacking jibs not giving much drive when not close hauled. My question is in strong winds going to windward can a self tacking sail area be reduced by furling some away? Or is it all or nothing as there is no way to move the sheet forward hence the leech will always be too slack whist the foot is too tight and at risk of being ripped if excessive force is used to try and tighten the jib?

If you have a furler they can be furled like an ordinary cruising headsail. Obviously a self-tacking jib is usually a fair bit less than 100% so it is easier to cut it to allow a reasonable shape when part furled. I've often seen a board on the clew with several alternative holes to tie the bowline through, but changing that when you need to shorten sail might well be cumbersome.

 

[Daydream believer]

Mine will reef ok but because it is smaller than a genoa & because the main is proportionally bigger it is not necessary to reef it until it is gusting near F8. In 10 years i have reefed about 5 times. It is often better to just furl it completely unless hard on the wind
Reefing the main is all that is needed

 

[blackbeard]

I know the issues with self tacking jibs not giving much drive when not close hauled. My question is in strong winds going to windward can a self tacking sail area be reduced by furling some away? Or is it all or nothing as there is no way to move the sheet forward hence the leech will always be too slack whist the foot is too tight and at risk of being ripped if excessive force is used to try and tighten the jib?

Much depends on how well the system is designed.
We are not talking about the absolute ultimate in efficiency, as we are not racing and are more concerned with ease of handling.
Problem is not so much when close hauled as when reaching in light airs, when the loss of sail area becomes serious; and when running when the sail goes from side to side too easily and is even more a nuisance than a conventional headsail.

Reefing, with a decent set up, is no problem and the sail keeps its shape better so is more use; less sail needs to be rolled away since there is less sail to begin with. Generally you will find yourself reefing the main before the jib.

Much of the benefit of a self-tacking headsail is not so much the self-tacking aspect as the smaller sail being much easier to handle, also you can see where you are going (!).

Not being able to heave to properly is a nuisance; can be solved with additional string but this defeats the object of having something that's simple.

 

[knuterikt]

Much depends on how well the system is designed.
We are not talking about the absolute ultimate in efficiency, as we are not racing and are more concerned with ease of handling.
Problem is not so much when close hauled as when reaching in light airs, when the loss of sail area becomes serious; and when running when the sail goes from side to side too easily and is even more a nuisance than a conventional headsail.

Reefing, with a decent set up, is no problem and the sail keeps its shape better so is more use; less sail needs to be rolled away since there is less sail to begin with. Generally you will find yourself reefing the main before the jib.

Much of the benefit of a self-tacking headsail is not so much the self-tacking aspect as the smaller sail being much easier to handle, also you can see where you are going (!).

Not being able to heave to properly is a nuisance; can be solved with additional string but this defeats the object of having something that's simple.

I agree with most of what you write..
But the
"Problem is not so much when close hauled as when reaching in light airs, when the loss of sail area becomes serious; and when running when the sail goes from side to side too easily and is even more a nuisance than a conventional headsail."
and
"Not being able to heave to properly is a nuisance; can be solved with additional string but this defeats the object of having something that's simple"


Can be solved, OK I have two "strings" that solves all of these problems
easy to operate from the cockpit and permanently rigged.

The ring sits on the sheet - does not interfere with furling/unfurling/reefing of the sail

The "strin" go through a low friction ring inside of the toerail

The low friction ring with its loop

 

[dewent]

The reason behind my original question was that when beating into a f6 in the keyles of bude this summer I took a few rolls in on the self tacker as all was getting a bit lively. Ok self tacking jibs are smaller but our mast is 18.5m so the sail is not that small! Anyway the leech was flapping badly so I tried to sheet in as tightly as I could. Result = an ugly rip in the foot. Am trying to understand the error of my ways after a winter visit to the sailmaker for repairs.

 

[knuterikt]

The reason behind my original question was that when beating into a f6 in the keyles of bude this summer I took a few rolls in on the self tacker as all was getting a bit lively. Ok self tacking jibs are smaller but our mast is 18.5m so the sail is not that small! Anyway the leech was flapping badly so I tried to sheet in as tightly as I could. Result = an ugly rip in the foot. Am trying to understand the error of my ways after a winter visit to the sailmaker for repairs.

Did you adjust the leech line on the sail?

 

[dewent]

This wasn't just the leach motoring a bit it was open a lot and not driving properly, flapping and a poor sail shape.

 

[knuterikt]

This wasn't just the leach motoring a bit it was open a lot and not driving properly, flapping and a poor sail shape.

It's difficult to know exactly what happened.
It can have something to do with the cut of the sail.
Did you use electrical winch?

Could it be caused by a typical Hanse flaw? Most Hanse's come with a sheet to short to furl the sail properly - as result sail without UV cover gets exposed to sunlight...

I can rig conventional sheets if needed - normally not necessary.

 

[blackbeard]

The reason behind my original question was that when beating into a f6 in the keyles of bude this summer I took a few rolls in on the self tacker as all was getting a bit lively. Ok self tacking jibs are smaller but our mast is 18.5m so the sail is not that small! Anyway the leech was flapping badly so I tried to sheet in as tightly as I could. Result = an ugly rip in the foot. ......

Odd, I have never had that problem! it sounds as if there was something wrong with the sail material which left it weak, uv degradation perhaps as already mentioned.
Anyway. On my little boat it was difficult to sheet in hard enough, when going to windward, without excessive sheet tension; the solution was to limit the travel of the car (using plastic water pipe, lots of black mastic and duck tape, to form an end stop!) which helped. Maybe the sail is just going out too far?

 

[Seajet]

So it seems traveller lines to pull the car to either side would help both shape and the heaving to issue.

As for reefing, well there's always the old fashioned now untrendy method with secondary tack & clew cringles higher up + reefing ties to give a reduced sail, this also keeps an efficient luff.

 

[Daydream believer]

So it seems traveller lines to pull the car to either side would help both shape and the heaving to issue.

As for reefing, well there's always the old fashioned now untrendy method with secondary tack & clew cringles higher up + reefing ties to give a reduced sail, this also keeps an efficient luff.

Makes it awkward to furl though!!!!

The problem the O P had seems that as the sail was part reefed the clew moved forward & up.
This meant the sheeting angle needed to be moved forward to pull down on the leech. Instead of doing this the OP oversheeted to get leech tension & this caused a ripped foot
Most ST's have a multiple clew fitting & possibly moving to the upper one would have helped.
However, the other remedy would have been to attach a sheet to the toe rail & apply down ward pressure so that the resulting forces of this sheet & the main sheet pull in the correct angle. This is highlighted in an earlier thread.
To avoid having 2 sheets one sheet could be lead to the bow ( use the cruising chute down haul if you have an adjustable one) the forward pull might help pull the clew downwards & being led to the front would self tack. Unlike the 2 sheet system.

 

[Seajet]

Having one sheet led to the toe rail on one side - so on the other tack either hove to or serious hassle - would be dangerously limiting in my book; I was of course mentioning an alternative to roller reefing, as with all storm jibs sheet leads need to be sorted well before one needs it in anger.

 

[knuterikt]

So it seems traveller lines to pull the car to either side would help both shape and the heaving to issue.

The arrangement I posted a picture of solves that, the downwind auto gybe problem and can also be use to pull the clew out going downwind.

As for reefing, well there's always the old fashioned now untrendy method with secondary tack & clew cringles higher up + reefing ties to give a reduced sail, this also keeps an efficient luff.

Seems unnecessary on 100% headsail on a furler, will not solve a problem with unfair pull.
As others have posted - rigging secondary sheet or moving it on the clew board should fix that problem

 

[Seajet]

I was thinking having an efficient luff rather than a rolled one could be quite important with a storm jib, after all the idea of a separate storm jib is to avoid a baggy rolled genoa, which if given half a chance should be removed from its' foil and stowed below.

 

[Ric]

That's a very interesting system you have there.

I have often thought that an interesting rig for a cruising boat might be a double headsail arrangement with the outer headsail a conventional 110-130% genoa with conventional sheeting arrangement, and an inner headsail as a self-tacking, reefable, solent/staysail/stormjib. For the inner headsail to work as an efficient self-tacking upwind sail it would need to be cut like a solent with a transverse track just ahead of the mast. For it to work as a decent staysail, it would need a barber hauler so that it could be trimmed off wind, and in extremes also backed in order to heave-to. For it to work as a stormjib it would need all the same, plus a forward transverse track (as on Dehler 41DS) so that it could be reefed and still self-tack efficiently.

Such an arrangement would be a compromise as in any other sail-plane, but I would certainly like to experiment with such an arrangement.

I agree with most of what you write..
But the
"Problem is not so much when close hauled as when reaching in light airs, when the loss of sail area becomes serious; and when running when the sail goes from side to side too easily and is even more a nuisance than a conventional headsail."
and
"Not being able to heave to properly is a nuisance; can be solved with additional string but this defeats the object of having something that's simple"


Can be solved, OK I have two "strings" that solves all of these problems
easy to operate from the cockpit and permanently rigged.

The ring sits on the sheet - does not interfere with furling/unfurling/reefing of the sail

The "strin" go through a low friction ring inside of the toerail

The low friction ring with its loop

 

[Daydream believer]

Interesting, may I ask
Why the ring ?
Why not fix the 2 extra lines straight to the clew?
That way the controls adjust the jib leech immediately & with power direct to it
It seems to me that if the ring slid down the jib sheet towards the turning block on the track it would not control it so easily
Or am I missing something

 

[knuterikt]

Interesting, may I ask
Why the ring ?

As you noted the ring will always be close to the traveller/turning block.
The purpose of this setup is
1) adjust the sheeting angle (the horizontal angle) - as barber/inner hauler
2) going downwind i can pull the ring all the way out so the sheet gets pulled down and out getting a better angle for the sheet.
3) prevent the car moving from side to side (autogybe it self as others have noted a problem with ST)

Why not fix the 2 extra lines straight to the clew?

With a partly furled (reefed) sail I will get awkward angles as I want to control the car position not the clew position.
If I only wanted to control the car I could have attached to the car directly, but this give more options with one set of lines.

That way the controls adjust the jib leech immediately & with power direct to it
It seems to me that if the ring slid down the jib sheet towards the turning block on the track it would not control it so easily
Or am I missing something

The vertical angle have not been a problem on my boat, but I have the option of attaching extra (normal) sheets if I need to - have
- one set of sheets originally set up for a solent jib, that is set free flying on a furler (have not used this sail much after we got the ST)
- The genoa sheets

 

[Blueboatman]

Inner temporary staysail, on hanks, uses two sets of old fashioned reef points and a second clew and tack hole and a barber hauler extra sheet to the foot of the mast. The sail can thus be given a high raked foot, or reduced in size, and sheeted very flat. Any help?