When do you drop or hoist?

[Peppermint]

Talking of misbehaving in narrow channels.

I am constantly amazed at the numbers of yotties who, having missed several opportunities to hoist the main while motoring into a headwind in the harbour channel, get to the harbour mouth where it's narrow and rough and then tart about in everyones way. They then do the opposite on entering harbour.

This must drive the MoBo's mad.

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[StugeronSteve]

All depends upon the location concerned. I tend to get the main up at the first, quiet, head to wind opportunity and then run the jib out once clear of the harbour mouth. Coming in I usually do the opposite, get rid of the jib in open water, then drop the main once inside and sheltered. There are loads of other factors involved though, ie. Portsmouth, in most wind directions I would lose the jib in the small boat channel and motor sail in, dropping the main in Haslar Basin or somewhere off "Mary Mouse", as we usually park ourselves on the Gosport side. However, if the wind is going to be up the jacksie in the entrance, the main will have gone long ago. I treat Sandbanks in a similar manner, I do not like approaching the chain ferry down wind with the main up and in these conditions I will have dropped the main early.


<hr width=100% size=1>Think I'll draw some little rabbits on my head, from a distance they might be mistaken for hairs.

 

[Robin]

If possible the main goes up when motoring between our marina and the harbour entrance, usually one of the channel direction changes will allow this, if not we wait until we have a clear space to turn head to wind in. We are in Poole and as Stugeron Steve said we too prefer not to barrel down the Swash downwind and probably downtide with the main up and with the potential for the Sandbanks Ferry to jump out and block the channel in front of us as he does. Our usual routine is therefore to drop the main outside the Swash, usually just go closehauled and do it in the genoa backwind, then we sail in under roller genoa alone if the wind direction allows and motor if it doesn't. We do have a boat that sails well with just the genoa and as we are just 2 on a biggish boat, with a big fully battened main in lazy jacks, we prefer to have some space where we don't need to worry about others, if we had a full crew it might be different. That doesn't mean we don't sail in as we usually do so(roller genoa, instant starting engine) but we like to have total control.



<hr width=100% size=1><font size=1>Sermons from my pulpit are with tongue firmly in cheek and come with no warranty!</font size=1>

 

[snowleopard]

when sailing with a big boat and a small crew it can be dangerous to be hoisting sail while dodging other boats in the harbour. it takes me 5-10 mins to get the main up while swmbo steers. unfortunately it usually means you are hoisting just when it starts to get choppy. it's a pain for us even though we can hoist without rounding up.

 

[Robin]

Ours goes up easily enough even off the wind but we still need to be head to wind to clear the lazyjacks, although it is about 400sq ft and fully battened it is on roller bearing batten cars. I pull it up by hand from the cockpit and then tension it on the coachroof winch and make final adjustments on the cunningham, and by pulling it up by hand I can detect if something snags somewhere. Hoisting and dropping inside Poole is often rougher than outside with the constant wash from our mobo friends!

<hr width=100% size=1><font size=1>Sermons from my pulpit are with tongue firmly in cheek and come with no warranty!</font size=1>

 

[TheBoatman]

<<<<<< and then tart about in everyones way >>>>>>.

A more perfect description of this manoeuvre I have yet to hear<s>.

What I'd like to know is why when I find a nice quiet bit of water to start "tarting about" as soon as I pull on the first 3 feet of string I'm suddenly surrounded by other boats all under engine or carrying full sail, it's like when you throw a piece of bread over the side in mid channel sea gulls suddenly appear from nowhere.

Why/how do they do that?

signed
Peter
Semi-professional tarter abouter!

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[kingfisher]

Hoisting/dropping the sail IN the harbour has several advantages:

1) You are keeping both options open: what if the engine fails on approach.
2) It is safer for the deck crew to work in sheltered waters. The water in front of the port entrance is choppy due to eddies.

The fact that this hampers outgoing boats cannot be considered a serious issue. Safety first.

<hr width=100% size=1>Group of people on the pontoon: skipper is the one with the toolbox.
http://sirocco31.tripod.com

 

[jonjo]

> it is about 400sq ft and fully battened it is on roller bearing batten cars

These are on my SBS shopping list and for a similar sized main. What make do you recommend?

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[Robin]

We inherited ours with the boat, they are Selden and work very well though I have no experience of other makes to compare them with. The track fits to the mast groove with sliders that the track screws into, flush to the mast face. In our case also inherited is a second track for the trysail (which also takes the slide attachments for our webbing mast ladder, albeit only as far as the 2nd spreaders).

My friendly local sailmaker, Crusader, are at SBS and are agents for pretty well all the sail handling systems headsail and mainsail, it might be worth a chat with them for some unbiased comment.

<hr width=100% size=1><font size=1>Sermons from my pulpit are with tongue firmly in cheek and come with no warranty!</font size=1>

 

[jonjo]

I was hoping my new Bavaria would arrive with a Seldon mast and hence allow me to fit this internal flush track design, it sounds neat. For some reason however Bavaria have switched to Sparcraft for the Match models.

Glad to hear it all works so well for you, as I will be sailing with a small crew and also keeping a lookout for the Wightlink ferries.

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[Robin]

Sorry I might have misled you by a poor description, we have a Francespar mast fitted with a Selden batten car system. It consists of an x-section track which sits on the aft face of the mast and is screwed into slides which are fed inside the original Francespar mast groove, the cars run on this x-track and the sail batten ends must have the Selden fittings (a sort of slide attached with webbing but which fits the batten car and is held locked to the car by a sort of hair grip thingy).

<hr width=100% size=1><font size=1>Sermons from my pulpit are with tongue firmly in cheek and come with no warranty!</font size=1>