Self-tacking jibs - Yes or no?

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Whiskey Bravo

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Having just returned from a charter in Sweden, which was varied but generally excellent, I wondered what people thought about self-tacking jibs? We were on a Hanse 350 and it was our first experience of said arrangement.

Although it obviously makes tacking a doddle, on the whole we didn't like it much, not easy to get a good angle, sheet kept twisting and in light winds on a run it kept tacking itself when a normally sheeted genoa would have been much more controlled. Apart from that, crew felt redundant and was liable to doze off.
 
Whiskey Bravo said:
Although it obviously makes tacking a doddle, on the whole we didn't like it much, not easy to get a good angle, sheet kept twisting and in light winds on a run it kept tacking itself when a normally sheeted genoa would have been much more controlled. Apart from that, crew felt redundant and was liable to doze off.
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Ahh, seems you need some training to trim it right.
Angle - no problem
sheet should not twist, do it right and there is no twist.
light winds - if it moves back and forth then you do not need it, no pressure in it.

Advantage is in an archipelago, with a lot of tacking. Without a very active crew it can be nearly impossible to sail with a normal foresail in such conditions, motoring being the alternative.
Drawback is the smaller size, a selftacker is about 70-75%, whereas a normal jib is 110% and a genua is 130-150%. On some boats there is a need for more sail than a self-tacker offers.

Redundant crew is an issue of management. :D

At open sea - normal genua.

/Jaramaz
 
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I've sailed a Hunter Pilot 27 with a self-tacker quite a few times and I didn't really like it at all, partly because it makes the boat under-canvassed a lot of the time, which is a real shame as it has a great hull. Mostly though it meant that there wasn't much to do - I quite like the mild panic as you go through the one-armed paper hanger routine whilst tacking single-handed.

I know that the owner spent a long time faffing with both the track and the sheeting arrangements to get it setting well - and this was on a Hunter who normally set their boats up pretty well in the first place. He had a strange sort of three sheets arrangement where could free the sheet off from the track and sheet it back to a block fairly well back. Apart from a tendency to tangle with the mid-ships cleat it worked pretty well but I think I'd buying a screecher or something similar as soon as I could afford it...
 
We bought a boat with a self-tacking jib in the spring. But we have sailed her back from the Baltic, and have done over 1100 miles already, so I think I have enough sea-miles to comment!

It depends where you are. We spend a lot of our time tacking along the river - then it is brilliant! In highish winds, then you'd have a roll or two in a big genny anway, and the small self-tacker sets better than a reefed genoa, so that's fine too. Off the wind, we use a big drifter sail (Code zero) which is huge fun and makes the jib redundant.

That just leaves long reaches in medium winds, when you are under-powered, when a barber hauler (sp?) will help get the set right. We are considering getting a 120% genoa, but it's not a high priority.

The crew dozing off - that's an advantage, isn't it?
 
Don't like them myself. Apart from most cruising boats being underspecced in terms of sail size when they have a self tacker (eg. was on Southerly 32 last weekend and you really did need a force 4 to get moving), they really don't work very well for anything other than upwind.

Would only consider one if I regularly needed to do a lot of short tacking.
 
Hi, we have a cutter with a 130% genoa and a self tacking staysail. It is a heavy long keeler and is slow to tack.The self tacking staysail is great-would not want to be without it as we are normaly sailing two up.
 
Jaramaz said:
Ahh, seems you need some training to trim it right.
Angle - no problem
sheet should not twist, do it right and there is no twist.
light winds - if it moves back and forth then you do not need it, no pressure in it.

Advantage is in an archipelago, with a lot of tacking. Without a very active crew it can be nearly impossible to sail with a normal foresail in such conditions, motoring being the alternative.
Drawback is the smaller size, a selftacker is about 70-75%, whereas a normal jib is 110% and a genua is 130-150%. On some boats there is a need for more sail than a self-tacker offers.

Redundant crew is an issue of management. :D

At open sea - normal genua.

/Jaramaz
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Our self-tacker is 90%.

We do all our windward work with it. Love it.
Downwind we have alternatives for lighter airs.
 
We are also cutter rigged with a self-tacking stays'l and it's very useful. Mainly used on reaches with the genoa but it comes into it's own short-tacking in reasonable amounts of wind. It's tied to a boom so setting it is not a problem and we can sheet it tighter and point a bit higher than with the full (110%) genoa.

In lighter winds though it's arguable whether the convenience and speed through the tacks outweighs the power of the bigger sail. It depends how lazy the crew are feeling - this is a cruising boat after all :)
 
My present boat, a Hunter Channel 31, has a self-tacking jib as did a Hunter Horizon 23 that I owned previously. They are fine when on the wind but less good as one bears away and frees the sheet because the upper leech tends to sag away to leeward and the top of the sail loses drive. Another drawback is their small size as they can't have any overlap, but Hunters have larger than average mainsails to counteract this. You can heave-to by hauling the traveller across to the windward end of its track. The biggest drawback I've found is that you can't really sail under jib only except in windy conditions - there just isn't enough area. I've sometimes envied the owners of masthead rigged boats, lolling in their cockpits and letting those big genoas effortlessly pull their boats downwind. Hunters offer a big light genoa called a scooper which is set flying ahead of the furled self-tacker in light conditions. I may get one some day but for now I'm happy with what I've got. It's certainly a boon when short-tacking up a winding channel or through a crowded anchorage - especially if you're on your own!
 
I have one as part of my strange rig and have used it happily for 10 years.

Firstly it is not a substitute for a genoa. The rig has to be sized to the boat so that you get the required sail area with the jib.

Good things:

Tack by just turning the wheel, no hauling on sheets.

Set & forget: it depends on how yours is set up. Some setups have separate controls for draft and angle, e.g. the Hoyt boom. Others are combined so you can't have a taut leach with the sail eased out for reaching.

Bad things:

Flogging: the noise of the car thrashing back and forth when head to wind can be distracting.

Heaving to is possible but requires special steps e.g. going on deck to adjust track stops or adding extra lines.
 
Converted to self-tacking spring 2010

I fitted a self-tacking jib to my masthead rigged boat last year - don't regret it.

But..
A god selftacking jib is difficult to design, I have seen a terrible "standard" sail on a Hanse 470....
My sailmaker maximized the are of the sail by using a long standing batten to get roach in the sail.
I have also rigged barber hauler's I can use as in/out haulers to adjust the sail.

The most important factor in choosing between self-tacking or not are crusing ground and how You use the boat.
 
I have been sailing a Hunter Channel 32 for the past 20+ years. The self tacker is great when sailing with a young family and, as others have noted, for tacking up narrow channels, as we are always doing.

The downside is that performance noticeably drops when the wind falls below about 10 knots. Off the wind, and when suitably crewed, we have a cruising chute.
 
we have one on our dehler 34 as well as conventional overlapping genoa - agree with many of the comments above - on the wind in a breeze and shorthanded it is great - but- if it is lighter winds and especially offwind prefer genoa - most seasons sail mainly with genoa except in strong wind beat when if short crewed or keen will swap to selftacker - b est solution is to have both (also had hunter 272 with same arrangement and again found ourselves choosing which to use based on wind and mood)
 
I have an E-Boat, and I took an old No 2 genoa and cut it at the 3rd reefing line. The foot was re-sewn, and a boom was made from an old passing place sign-post with my own machined plastic and stainless fittings. A single sheet set up as a lazy-horse (one end tied to the port toe-rail, passing through a pulley block on the end of the boom, and through another block on the starboard toe rail and back to the cockpit) controls it, and it works great in stronger winds (20kts+) when Im single-handing. I also cut an old main on the 3rd reef line too and they set lovely when its really blowing for some fun.
I use the real genoas when the wind allows tho....

It works very well for me.
 
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