Who said "Gentlemen don't sail to windward"? And why?

Birdseye

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I wonder why boats which sail fast to windward offend the sensibilities of some. Yet few raise an eyebrow at the sight of a bilge keeler out in a shallow harbour; both boats are simply doing what they are designed to do.

There are many people, neither retired nor gentlemen of leisure, who love sailing but find it hard to get away for more than a w/e plus Friday. Thousands of Solent sailors fit this category. Faced with a SW prevailing wind, any trip in a direction from St Vaast to Dartmoth usually requires a chunk of close hauled sailing; just exiting the Western Solent requires windward work.

Like the bilge keeler these sailors naturally gravitate towards boats designed to fulfil this function, they may for example choose an Xc45 over say a Southerly. Some of them spend a good bit of money on sails, others scrounge the discards in Cowes. Many will possess sail select chart like North’s “Sailect” and have the necessary gear to handily switch multiple headsails.

These folk are not unaware that as the waves build it becomes progressively more comfortable to sail off the wind and that is always wet on deck above 20kts TWS. And of course one must be careful moving around down below in a bumpy sea.

Most of these people are perfectly happy to sail like this for one day; they can look forward to the sleigh ride home the next! And it’s not only the fast boats; each summer w/e all sorts of UK vessels tip up in Alderney, having bashed into headwinds all the way. Most wear big smiles on their faces. I’ve no idea why it winds some peeps up so much.

What on earth has this disussion got to do with bilge keelers? And it seems to me that the only person to get wound up here is you. Well maybe not the only one since Dan seems a bit excised.

That you are happy to spend 24 hours or so bashing to windward on the (easy) trip from the solent to france suggests to me that you are a younger sailor. I wouldnt be surprised if you had come to yachting in the last 10 years or so. Excellent - I remember well the days when I was relativley new to sailing and young enough to ignore the discomfort. But now I have gained wisdom. I dont pee into the wind. I reef rather than sail on my ear. I use the autohelm rather than spend boring hours holding the wheel. And I dont sail to windward on a long trip if waiting a day or so will give me a nice beam reach.

Maybe I have become a gentleman! :D
 

JumbleDuck

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It doesn't, it supports it; and consequently contradicts the contention that those that claim to do it are de facto liars.

A claim which I haven't seen anyone make. There has perhaps been a certain scepticism about those ho claim to beat to windward for extended periods for fun, but since these extended periods seem to be a few hours at most, I think all bets are off there.
 

dancrane

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Dan seems a bit excised.

Good gracious...surely Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs isn't involved in whether I go to windward??? :confused:

As the OP here, I reserve the right to appear eccentric, befuddled and infuriated...although I'm not really any of those. Well, eccentric perhaps.

Maybe the original flippant phrase (which, as has been noticed, I do not like) is a little spike of insincere defence, used against chaps who are seen as over-valuing performance?

I can easily side with chaps who would prefer to wait for a favourable wind...so would I...except that, in years of sailing, it almost invariably seems to be mostly on the nose...

...so I'm forced to sail as less of a gentleman than I flatter myself I am! Oh, well.
 

johnalison

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Mr Wilson makes exactly that claim in post #23.

True to some extent. I'm not claiming that it is not possible to sail to windward, only that many of the tales I have heard over the years leads me to think that sailors and anglers may have something in common. When I hear that someone has "had the wind on the nose" but crossed in one tack, I draw my own conclusions.
 
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Well, my understanding is that the original phrase was, "Gentlemen don't go to windward", and that it was coined in Victorian times when the only way of going anywhere in a yacht was to sail her. Basically yachting was a cruising pastime indulged in by gentlemen of means (both money and time), and was designed to take one from a home port to somewhere else, and then eventually back again, in holiday mode. If you were anything of a seaman, then you would work your winds as you worked your tides, to take advantage of both in making the voyage more enjoyable -- which is to say, with as little windward work as possible.

If you were a wage slave though (that is, not a gentleman of means) then you were time-bound, and were much more likely to have to deal with headwinds in order to keep to a deadline that would get you back to work on time. The alternative, sometimes used, was to leave your vessel wherever you'd got to with enough time in hand to get yourself back home by train for the working week, hoping to pick up the following weekend where you left off with a better wind this time to get you home again.

Gentlemen would occasionally enjoy racing each other on a reach or downwind justto prove whose boat was 'better', but all the 'bashing to windward' only really started when go-fast enthusiasts wanted to race each other around short courses that started and finished in the same location -- a totally different activity to 'yachting', which was to cruise between different locations.

But it's because of the racing man's therefore-compulsory long windward leg that, for instance, the cruising man now usually chooses a bermudan rig over a gaffer. And there are plenty of other modifications to cruising rigs that came about because of the racing man's perennial quest for speed over comfort.

Myself, I prefer cruising....

Mike
 

dom

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I wouldnt be surprised if you had come to yachting in the last 10 years or so.

Maybe I have become a gentleman! :D

Goodness no, I first stepped into an Optimist in 1972 with spindly little legs, an orange foam life jacket and a crinkly slightly mouldy Peter Storm smock! I've won a couple or so nationals in my time, make no claim to being a great sailor, but can occassionaly contribute something to folk wishing to push through some perceived barrier to their sailing enjoyment.

But perhaps it's time for me to consider joining you in the gentleman's club. ...problem is that might be the hardest windward bash of all for me!
 
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Uricanejack

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Its a bit of lighthearted irony. Not worth getting knickers in a knot over it.

Dunno what all the fuss about going to windward is anyway. If you want to get somewhere quick, get a plane.

+1

If it was about getting there I would have bought a motor boat.
I enjoy both.
My boat is fun to sail to windward. A reach or fetch is great but beating is fun. If it wasn't why sail.
I don't claim to have sailed the wrong way round the horn.

Beating is better than becalmed:)
 

lw395

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Well, my understanding is that the original phrase was, "Gentlemen don't go to windward", and that it was coined in Victorian times when the only way of going anywhere in a yacht was to sail her. Basically yachting was a cruising pastime indulged in by gentlemen of means (both money and time), and was designed to take one from a home port to somewhere else, and then eventually back again, in holiday mode. ......

I don't think that's really the case, most gentleman's yachts were really day-sailing racers..
Hired hands sailed them to the next regatta on the circuit.
 

Colvic Watson

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My aim is to make the Kipper as near perfect at 60 degrees plus. That nasty little bit toward the wind is what the following were invented for:
1. A rest day
2. Beer and newspapers
3. An alternative destination
4. In extremis, the engine

All this talk of being amazing to windward is interesting considering how **** the Bermudan rig is. If people really wished to zoom along close winded they'd fit a different rig; Bermudan is the Microsoft Windows of yachting, it sort of works on most machines but isn't brilliant on any of them, and it's your fault if it goes wrong.
 

Colvic Watson

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Wingsail, see the Americas cup boats, they sail permanently close to the wind because their speed brings the apparent wind so far round, even on a true wind broad reach. Not possible on a displacement yacht but the Bermudan rig is a one-size-fits-all and like any cheap suit it only fits where it touches. There has been almost no design time spent on production rigs in the last 40 years because Bermudan works just about well enough not to be bad. Meanwhile we've seen huge changes in hull and foil design. As usual the charter market is holding back innovation, fat bottoms, slamming bows and an outdated rig.
 

dom

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There has been almost no design time spent on production rigs in the last 40 years because Bermudan works just about well enough not to be bad. Meanwhile we've seen huge changes in hull and foil design.

You're right, a double sided airfoil can operate with an angle of attack about 15-20 degrees tighter than a regular sail. Their use will no doubt become more widespread at the point composite material characteristics, fabrication processes, foil design and the associate operational systems can conspire to produce a foil, which can be set, stowed and reefed as necessary (feathering only works to a point).

AFAIK this point is nowhere close at the moment, but one never knows; some company somewhere will inevitably make a game changer discovery/invention and away we will go. Can't wait!!!
 

lw395

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........All this talk of being amazing to windward is interesting considering how **** the Bermudan rig is. If people really wished to zoom along close winded they'd fit a different rig; Bermudan is the Microsoft Windows of yachting, it sort of works on most machines but isn't brilliant on any of them, and it's your fault if it goes wrong.

Frankly, that's nonsense.
The Bermudan rig works pretty well.
Wing rigs are slightly more efficient in a limited number of circumstances, they've been around for 40 years and only made to work well on large fast boats.
Even in classes where the mast can give 'unmeasured' sail area, pure wing rigs struggle.
Una rigs like a windsurfer or ice yacht might be said to be better than Bermudan, but not noted for pointing higher on a displacement yacht.
Lateen rigs have good points, but I don't think anyone's built one in the last 50 years that would get past the similar sized Bermudan?
Ketches and Yawls, generally inefficient up wind.

It is for good reason that Bermudan sloops are the first choice for everything from dinghies through skiffs to ocean racers.
But that does not mean a well designed, well sailed gaff rig cannot be fast or capable to windward.
 

lw395

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You're right, a double sided airfoil can operate with an angle of attack about 15-20 degrees tighter than a regular sail.....QUOTE]

That's pure fiction, a decent modern rig is going upwind at apparent wind angles of that order, the 'angle of attack' of the sail is much less.
 

AndrewfromFal

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Not possible on a displacement yacht but the Bermudan rig is a one-size-fits-all and like any cheap suit it only fits where it touches

To use your cheap suits analogy.....a lot more people can afford a cheap suit than a more well cut and innovative alternative. The Aerorig was a particularly promising development, but rather like so many Savile Row shops, it couldn't wash its face on purely commercial terms and Carbospars went pop as a result.
 

Colvic Watson

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To use your cheap suits analogy.....a lot more people can afford a cheap suit than a more well cut and innovative alternative. The Aerorig was a particularly promising development, but rather like so many Savile Row shops, it couldn't wash its face on purely commercial terms and Carbospars went pop as a result.

I agree. That's one of the main reasons Bermudan has lasted so long as the default option. What's happening now is that yacht makers are realising they may be about to take four or five thousand out of the build cost whilst producing a rig that's easier and faster to sail. Anyone who declares that what we've got now is what we'll have in 25 years time has no appreciation for how yachts have changed in that time. The rig is overdue for a radical change; and when it's all changed we'll see the launch of a consciously retro look with an "old fashioned" Bermudan rig, probably called a Cornish Contessa :)
 

dom

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That's pure fiction, a decent modern rig is going upwind at apparent wind angles of that order, the 'angle of attack' of the sail is much less.

I guess I must be mistaken as I thought the latest airfoils really shone upwind due to a combination of:

1. The foil being able to achieve and retain the optimal shape requires for each given wind speed/angle (modern soft laminate sails cannot come close to this level of adjustability and stability).

2. The normal twist of a white sail to accommodate top to bottom conditions being replaced by a stable fully optimised shape to account for wind speed/angle-of-attack differences between the upper and lower parts of the sail/foil.

3. Airfoils developing better lift characteristics than a traditional soft sail and being more stall resistant due to the fact that computers constantly monitor the loads generated by the foil and are programmed to instantly adjust to maintain the optimal angle of attack and forward/lateral thrust equilibrium.

4. The implementation of all of the above, when fully sorted and cost efficient, will mean that one day we may all sail easy to steer boats, which carry more sail, in full knowledge that the foil will not, either become overpowered or stall if the wind speed or angle of attack suddenly change.

But there’s a downside to everything, I’ll be more than a little jealous if LK sorts the tech out and whizzes cheerily past one day, sailing 5-10 degrees closer to a 25kt wind than me, whilst quaffing a beer and reading his Sunday papers!
 
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