• There has been a recent cluster of spammers accessing BARFer accounts and posting spam. To safeguard your account, please consider changing your password. It would be even better to take the additional step of enabling 2 Factor Authentication (2FA) on your BARF account. Read more here.

The sailing nerd-out thread

latindane

latindane

Learner. EuroPW, NaPS
Joined
Aug 19, 2009
Location
Denmark
Moto(s)
02 RSV Mille street, 07 GSX-R750 track
Name
K
As spin-off from the animated gifs thread.

May be worth keeping it alive! I'll be sailing my 49er (finally) later this year; got a partner willing to teach me the ropes.

latindane said:
greener said:
uPITxjd.gif
Click to expand...

f=ma said:
Looks like an accidental Jibe. This is why you rig a preventer. :laughing
Click to expand...

I don't even know what a preventer is, but it sounds like a great way to snap a mast.

And yeah, that was me at the helm and my instructor sitting on the boom flying (not literally, just the same situation). To port side as well. I learned to be aware of changing wind and chop conditions--and I guess so did she :twofinger

greener said:
My question is, is it ever ok to be SITTING ON the boom?!
Click to expand...
That's not uncommon cruising when the wind is mild. Very common when racing (again, in mild wind and of course not on a big boat); I think the sail deforming from the boom going slightly back and forth costs speed.

The guy sitting on the boom just got an impromptu swim. But the guys in the cockpit are the ones that may pay dearly for such a gybe. Concussions are the order of the day if, say, the bald guy didn't manage to duck in time. And a concussion is just if he's lucky. Those things have a lot of inertia with an accidental gybe.
Click to expand...

Hawaiirider said:
Breaking masts - not so much, snapping BOOMS - yeah - you have to put a mechanical "fuse" or weak link into the system* or when you or the autopilot fucks up due to a sudden windshift or freak wave and you wander beyond dead downwind onto the other gybe ( what happened here) or you just stuff the end of the boom into a big ol' wave then you can easily snap the boom ( the spar at the bottom of mainsail that the guy is sitting against)

Is it okay to sit/stand against the boom ?

Sure, we often put a crew man there (hand holding out the boom on small boats, body on it on larger ones) in SOME conditions (moderate to lighter wind and some lumpy swell that has the main pumping unproductively) - the person on boom duty just has to know that if the helmsman wanders off course ( in relation to the boat angle to the wind ) then it's GONNA gybe the boom and you have to get clear, quick.

The remedy here is to 'heat it up' a little bit - or, to sail an angle a bit closer to the wind. For instance: If sailing directly before the wind is referred to as sailing 180 degrees from true wind ( a point of sail called a dead run, or DDW for dead-downwind) then you would actually be very well advised to sail at 165-170 degrees to keep this from happening.

Problem with THAT is the angle-to-the-wind thing gets rather subtle as you sail those deep angles because your own speed away from the wind makes feeling the direction harder and the skipper can easily get 'caught out' by a even a minute shift in wind direction if he gets a bit off course...and...BLAMMO !

See - when you TACK ( bow passes through the eye of the wind ) the sails all shake ( luff ) and make noise but they hinge on the attached LEADING edges (at the mast and forestay) and when you GYBE ( inadvertently or otherwise ) the STERN of the boat crosses the wind's axis - and the trailing edge now has to also pass through the direction of the wind and it ISN'T the pivot-point so you can get a big door-slamming effect ( high yield of potential energy) - than can injure or flick a man overboard.

In the 'olden days' of conscripting crews out of bars and Shangai'ing them into service this was referred to as "paying them off with the boom" - a well-timed gybe can really cut down of crew salary expenses.


* the System I'm referring to here is a Preventer system - essentially a line running from the boom led forward, pulling the boom forward against the pull of the main-sheet ( line that trims or pulls the mainsail in to control its angle to the boat ) - these are used most commonly on boats sailing for long periods (hours or days or even weeks sometimes) downwind in steady winds on passages - useful for maintaining speed and keeping the boom and mainsail from bouncing around in swells, but a bit of lighter line should be put into the thing somewhere to allow it to break before something more expensive and harder to fix does in case of an unplanned gybe - which CAN happen, even to very good sailors in some conditions.

Sorry. Yeah, I sail a bit...
Click to expand...
 
:thumbup

I really have nothing to add, other than my wife (g/f at the time) and I used to take sailing classes at UCSC. We had Coronado 15s for beginner and intermediate. At the end of interm. we got to take turns at a keelboat. It was a blast! Kind of miss it.
 

Attachments

  • dinghyclassbanner.jpg
    dinghyclassbanner.jpg
    31 KB · Views: 40
I like hobbies where people in the know thing you'll die when you buy the thing and then spend an hour reading and think that's good enough to go out and try it by yourself, does sailing fit into this category?
 
Great thread. I use to crew a 22' Etchells. Great fun racing on the Bay. :thumbup

SKEtchells_0206-jr.jpg
 
byke said:
I like hobbies where people in the know thing you'll die when you buy the thing and then spend an hour reading and think that's good enough to go out and try it by yourself, does sailing fit into this category?
Click to expand...

I guess that depends on which boat and the wind conditions (re: die)

Usually you'd end up swimming (or rescued by the coast guard) rather than dead, though
 
I grew up sailing on local lakes and Puget Sound on a 19' Lightning, and my dad and I crewed for a race team campaigning a 34' Hunter out of Tacoma Yacht Club. I miss it occasionally, such as in threads like this, but I've never been strongly tempted to return to the hobby. Probably a money pit I don't need at this point.
 
latindane said:
I guess that depends on which boat and the wind conditions (re: die)

Usually you'd end up swimming (or rescued by the coast guard) rather than dead, though
Click to expand...

Just having a laugh, it seems like something tough for a n00b to get into solo without disastrous results. Was taking some pics in Tahoe a couple years ago and snapped these guys with some good lean, looked like a really good time...

D7hlcUO.jpg
 
I learned to sail in Denmark, on H-boats, with Aarhus Seljklub's sailing school. I started sailing regattas already during my first season, and after a few years became and instructor and was at the helm during our club's weekly regatta.
I was one of the instructors that participated, together with rather "green" students, in the first "sailing schools cup" organized by the Danish sailing association in 2012
sejlerskole-cup-2015_01_CarouselImage.jpg

Our crew actually won :teeth thanks to the medal race; the other crew from our sailing school got 3rd place. Our school lost the cup the following year, reclaimed in 2014 by a new instructor that sailed the weekly regatta as my "fordækker", lost again last year.

Two toddlers and a sailing partner who gets cold feet make sailing complicated, but as I noted I've finally found a partner to teach me the ropes and get my 49er planing :)

Two young members of our club, Ida and Marie, are right now fighting for the spot in the Danish Olympic team in 49er FX for Brazil later this year. They're in second place and only one regatta left (out of three) to make up 7 points. Good luck to them!
2013PalmaWorldCup_MickAnderson_5111.jpg
 
byke said:
Just having a laugh, it seems like something tough for a n00b to get into solo without disastrous results. Was taking some pics in Tahoe a couple years ago and snapped these guys with some good lean, looked like a really good time...

http://i.imgur.com/D7hlcUO.jpg
Click to expand...

That was bad lean, not good lean ;)

Too much krængning (I really have no clue about the English terms... what's the sailing version of "lean"? "heeling" according to my dictionary) means you are losing a chunk of the wind anyway, your keel is not very effective and you're moving more sideways than forwards.

Those guys should have trimmed their sails to lose more air on top (more twist on the main, slacken if not possible, move the anchor point of the jib aft)

Weeeee are we nerding out yet?
 
Welllll maybe they wanted to clean the hull??
 
I've only been on diesel fired ships, I've never handled sailboat fuel.

But my wife has:

eagle.gif
 
My girlfriend and I spent the last five years cruising this sweetie of a boat, now sold to a good home but we miss her. She is built of Ferro-cement and has no engine.

Now I work as a yacht surveyor so I still get to be around boats all day, but we are hoping we can get our new boat re-built and leave again in about 5 years. Only been 6 months and we already are starting to miss cruising.

IMG_5793.JPG


IMAG0439.jpg


For some strange reason we like sailing in cold places...

IMG_6086.JPG


IMAG0735.jpg


IMAG0838.jpg
 
Last edited:
I was looking for the throwable being tossed, and how close that guy came to a skull buster.
Our Hobie fleet drilled us a lot on man overboard skills. Girlfriends didn't like it when I tossed the throwable over the side and they had to sail back to retrieve it.
 
latindane said:
That was bad lean, not good lean ;)

Too much krængning (I really have no clue about the English terms... what's the sailing version of "lean"? "heeling" according to my dictionary) means you are losing a chunk of the wind anyway, your keel is not very effective and you're moving more sideways than forwards.

Those guys should have trimmed their sails to lose more air on top (more twist on the main, slacken if not possible, move the anchor point of the jib aft)

Weeeee are we nerding out yet?
Click to expand...

the people I sailed with would call that crabbing, the side ways motion more than forward motion.
I would break off and run rather than try to point so high into the wind.

to get more twist in the main would you slacken the clue?
 
Awesome thread.
I grew up sailing/racing El Toros when I was a kid.
I bought my first boat (a Laser) when I was 13 and raced that in the S.B.R.A until I discovered motorcycles a few years later.
Later I spent 7 years (2 race seasons per year, summer and mid-winter) as the foredeckman on a 33' Tarten 10.
I learned more racing with those guys than I ever would in an entire lifetime.
I miss it.
 
tuxumino said:
the people I sailed with would call that crabbing, the side ways motion more than forward motion.
I would break off and run rather than try to point so high into the wind.

to get more twist in the main would you slacken the clue?
Click to expand...

Yes, crabbing rings a bell. So I have no clue what a clue is (remember I've only sailed "in Danish", so take anything regarding sailing terms with a big grain of salt)... wikipedia pointed to a "clew":
Parts_of_a_sail.svg


I am definitely no expert, but if the boat is being overpowered you basically want to "lose" as much wind as necessary.

More twist in the main is one way (think of twist from boom up to the top of the mast); by doing that you lose wind up on top where it's strongest. The main way to do this is to tighten the backstay. This will bend the mast aftward, "loosening" the sail at the top and losing that wind. I would actually TIGHTEN the clew by tightening the outhaul to make the sail flatter down by the boom. The more "baggy" the sail is, the more wind it will catch when sailing close-hauled. Besides that, and with a similar objective in mind, I would use and tighten a cunningham and tighten the halyard if possible (usually not possible on an H-boat, which uses a "hook"). Final thing I can think of right now, is a relatively tight main sheet (again, you don't want it to be "baggy") and the traveller set to leeward (as opposed to a "high" traveller and a slack main).

Better sailors may correct me though :)

A (fb) video of two 49erFX sailors from my club, competing for the olympic spot right now. They managed to finish 6th on that race anyway after breaking their mast! It doesn't look very optimistic right now for them, but I really hope they can pull it off; before the olympic quali regattas they were consistently placing on top. Only a few days left...
https://www.facebook.com/IdaogMarie29erXX/videos/920986811350737/
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top