I need Tips from the Pros

[DBthal]

Just got in from a very nice sail.

However, sailing solo, I manage to get the jib sheets hung up on the tabernacle, horn cleats, blocks on the mast, cam cleats, etc, etc, etc; about 30% of the times I tack. And I need to tack a LOT in my little bay.

Are there any techniques to reduce the jib sheet snags?

Thanks!

Dan

[Brian N.]

You cannot view this attachment.

Not the best picture, but you can see the jib sheet runs to the jib car on the cabin top then to the cam cleat. Does not seem to hang up or get snagged.
 BTW - I'm the old skinny guy in the back

[Riggerdood]

Dan, I'm no pro, but the best thing I've found to prevent that is management of the lazy sheet. During a tack, keep tension on both sheets until you have the new working sheet trimmed. Only keep enough tension on the new lazy sheet to keep it from flogging around, as that's usually what causes snags. Then take as much slack out of the new lazy sheet as possible without it pulling on the jib clew, give it a couple of wraps around the winch, and cleat it off ready for the next tack.

Hope this helps, and glad you had a nice sail!

[Shesaidno]

Dan, on my P165 singlehanded, I get hang-ups too. I'm no pro either, but similar to Tim's suggestion, you could go one step further and hold the lazy sheet tight as you tack, keep it tight for a second after the main comes across. Basically the jib is backwinded for a quick moment, and when you loosen it, it should come across quickly and cleanly. For some tough hang-up spots, I use Dollar Tree athletic tape, not paper tape, pulled tight. Amazingly the tape stays on for a full season, but is easy to remove if you need to get to a fitting. 

[DBthal]

Brian, Tim, & Ron,

Thanks for the good suggestions!  I'll give them a try next time I sail.

You three are Pros to me!

Dan

[Quantico Frank]

Dan, I'm the Gilligan to everybody else's Skipper on this forum, but I, like Brian, never have snags with my sheets feeding through the blocks on my cars. I don't know if it makes any difference for this, but I have oversized cam cleats installed by a previous owner that give my jib sheets more vertical maneuvering room as they enter the cockpit. Trying to figure out how to post a photo these days....

[DBthal]

Frank,

Maybe I get more snags because I move the jib cars almost all the way aft towards the cockpit when sailing upwind.   It's the part of the lazy jib sheet between the jib clew and the jib car that gets snagged. I'll follow the good advice to keep some tension on both jib sheets when tacking.

I also added a Harken pivoting cam block to the starboard base of the mast for my mainsail halyard last year. It's been the primary line grabber.

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Dan

[talbot]

Hadn't considered that. Was thinking of adding those to mast base for solo-managing secondary lines (reefing, topping lift, lazy jacks, etc.). Will hold off and think about it. Thanks.

[Quantico Frank]

I also added a Harken pivoting cam block to the starboard base of the mast for my mainsail halyard last year. It's been the primary line grabber.

I have them too, Dan, and love them. I wonder if it is the position of the cars? I don't move mine, and as I think about it, they're about 2/3 of the way aft.

Frank

[Brian S]

Maybe I get more snags because I move the jib cars almost all the way aft towards the cockpit when sailing upwind.

I don't think this would change the lay of the sheets so much that you'd necessarily get more snags.

But a note on jib fairlead position: They are usually moved according to wind speed. If you move the fairlead forward on the track, the sheet pulls down more than aft, so the leech gets more tension, removing twist from the sail and the top of the sail is effectively sheeted more (closed off) and the bottom of the sail tends to have more draft. Overall, more power.

When fairleads are moved aft, the pull is more aft, and not down, so there's less leech tension and the top of the jib twists off more, and the bottom of the jib is pulled flatter with less draft. Typically you would do this in higher wind to depower, but I have found the top of my jib can be too twisted off, and will flutter. There's also a case that this setup is good for very light wind, so the top can twist off to trim for wind higher up from the boat, and the flatter bottom can allow the very light wind to stay attached.

Often in light to medium wind we want more draft in a sail for power, and in higher wind we want flatter sails for less power and more speed.

In very strong wind, sometimes adjusting sail controls to allow sails to twist off, while counter-intuitive, can allow the tops of the sails to spill wind for less heeling, but obviously they wouldn't be trimmed optimally.

[Brian N.]

Not to hijack the thread but just to pick up from Brian S. I learned while crewing on an Ensign that one of the biggest mistakes was trimming too hard. Often it was faster to ease the sheets a small bit, or reposition the jib leads for a deeper draft without changing  the boat's bearing to the wind.

As far as snags, as Tim mentioned, I tend to tack and tension the lazy sheet as he described.

[DBthal]

Good insights from the two Brians. This is my first sailboat with a jib.

When I had the cars further forward and I was close on the wind, with the jib set so the telltales flew properly, the jib would back wind the mainsail. The wind off the jib would cause the front of the mainsail to collapse a bit (hope I'm explaining that well).   

Dan

[Brian S]

the jib would back wind the mainsail. The wind off the jib would cause the front of the mainsail to collapse a bit (hope I'm explaining that well). 

Yup, this is something that can happen. It puts a "bubble" at the luff of the main. From my understanding of high end sails and racing, this is actually not bad as you think.

One reason for this is that both sails actually set up as more of 1 aerodynamic entity. We used to think that the jib funneled wind through the slot onto the main for increased speed. Nowadays, high end research I've read from North Sails in their book "The Art and Science of Sails Revised Edition" by Tom Whidden and Michael Levitt (2016) suggests that the wind doesn't flow through the slot, that it flows over both sails more as one unit. This is why we see fewer performance boats sailing to windward with an overlapping jib, and more with just a "blade" jib.

It seems that sailing to telltales such that your windward jib luff telltale occasionally flicks up, and the top leech telltale of the main flicks to leeward about every 3 or so seconds, while all other telltales fly freely, is the fastest sailing. If the top telltale of the main leech and windward telltale of jib luff fly freely all the time apparently it isn't quite as fast due to a little bit more induced drag. So, all in all, a little bit of main luff bubble can be fast.

Now, as far as all that goes, I'm sailing a non-performance day sailing boat with stub ballast keel and centerboard. There's no traveler, and I only added jib track this season, so still messing about with that vs. my new jib. And my sails are plain old polyester, not some fancy carbon laminate laid up on a formable platform with individually laid down strands of carbon fiber by a CNC gantry (this is top end North technology.) As far as I can tell, in general due to my obsession with watching telltales and pulling strings, I sail my O'day 192 faster than the occasional other 192s I sail around. But as has been proven to me yet again recently, when I sail my Force 5 in one of my 2 annual races, I tend to do stupid things with regards to reading shifts and finding wind on the race course, and thus get my butt handed to me. So, I tend to sail the O'day as fast as I think I can in general, which is more than most other non-racing skippers on my lake.

But I also know that when it comes to racing, if I would do it more regularly than twice a year, I would improve a lot.

Another thing that would help would be to systematically keep track of wind speed, sail control data, and boat speed - or better yet, if I could have another of same boat rigged similarly to sail with tack for tack and compare speeds, that's when you really start to learn what's fast or slow for your boat. I say sail with rather than against, because you're working together to see what's really fast and sharing notes, rather than competing.

Note I've also seen another thing about sailing fast. We have a guy with a Flying Scot who seems pretty enthusiastic about racing his boat. (Not necessarily enthusiastic about racing in general, I think.) I see him out periodically sailing his boat (not in a race) "practicing," and he spends a lot of time flying the spinnaker. But when I ran race committee recently, I saw him losing race after race, not because of poor spinnaker handling, but because he was absolutely HORRIBLE sailing to windward. He just couldn't point worth a darn. He'd fall off too much on tacks, losing ground. He'd sail somewhere between beam reaches and close reaches instead of really close hauled driving to windward. Or he's appear to be more or less sailing a close hauled course, but he'd unsheet the mainsail. My partner for RC that day was experienced crew on a variety of boats, who often crewed for this guy. We talked about a lot of these things, to the point where he was like "Yeah, I just can't... I'm not going to be able to crew for him anymore... It's too frustrating!" I hope the rest of the FS fleet really takes him aside and under their wing and helps him through these issues.

[Brian N.]

I think the "Art and Science of Sails" should be required reading. Just so full of useful information that can improve your sailing and quench curiosity. The move in newer boats is the smaller jib and larger main, and as mentioned, trimming them as a unit.

[Brian S]

I think the "Art and Science of Sails" should be required reading. Just so full of useful information that can improve your sailing and quench curiosity. The move in newer boats is the smaller jib and larger main, and as mentioned, trimming them as a unit.

Another book that is extremely helpful is the "Sail Trim User Guide" by Don Guillette: https://shop.sailboatowners.com/prod.php?51998/Sail+Trim+Users+Guide

In this book, Don says he doesn't have top level racers in mind, but more the average sailor to get you maybe a 70% improvement in your sail trim. I can say that it really boiled down basic sail trim, and taught me how to read and respond to telltales. Note that for boats like my O'day and Precisions which do not have travelers, the idea of using vang and adjustable topping lift to decouple main twist (leech tension) from mainsheet, and allow just angle of attack from the main sheet, is a key concept to replace the idea of mainsheet controlling twist, and traveler controlling angle of attack.