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Heavy Weather Gear and Strategies #2—Heaving-To

posted by John & Phyllis Web Site

On “Morgan’s Cloud” heaving-to has been for years, and still is, our first and favorite strategy when the weather gets nasty. It satisfies all of our goals discussed in this post and has the particular benefit of being surprisingly comfortable. In fact we have even enjoyed a sit down dinner at the salon table when heaved–to in a full gale.

We also believe that in most conditions a sailboat properly heaved-to is much less vulnerable to being knocked down or rolled than one running off, at least if the running boat is not using a good drogue system.

In recent years heaving-to has fallen out of fashion. I think this is because of, what I believe to be, the misconception that modern fin keel boats won’t heave-to well. In most cases the actual problem is the limited ability that modern sloops have to appropriately adjust their sail area to lie heaved-to comfortably, rather than a hull form issue.

On “Morgan’s Cloud” we have found that as the wind increases, we need to slowly reduce the ratio of sail area in the fore triangle to that of the mainsail. When heaved-to in 25-30 knots, we need about a third of the roller furling staysail rolled out and backed to keep the boat from tacking through the wind. But once the wind is over 30 knots, this much staysail will cause the boat to lie too far off the wind and forereach ahead. In fact once the wind gets over gale force (34 knots) “Morgan’s Cloud” lies most comfortably with three reefs in the main and both headsails rolled up completely—the windage of the rolled sails is enough to stop her from tacking.

Our heaving-to system on “Morgan’s Cloud” makes use of the following gear:

Cutter Rig
"Morgan's Cloud" is a cutter and so we use the backed staysail when heaved-to, which brings the center of effort much further aft than would be the case if we used the jib. I think that sticking a small storm jib way out on the bow, a long way from the keel and the center of lateral resistance, makes it very difficult to heave-to well. So even if a voyaging boat is rigged as a sloop I think she should have the ability to quickly and easily rig an internal headstay and running backstays to allow a storm staysail to be set.

Staysail on a Roller Furler
Our staysail is on a roller furler, which allows us to easily adjust the fore triangle sail area in the small increments that we have found necessary to achieve a stable heaved-to attitude. I know there are those that will question the wisdom of relying on a roller furling working sail in gale force conditions; however, the loads on our partially rolled staysail are very low because the area we show goes down as the wind speed goes up, till finally we fully roll it up when the wind reaches gale force. (We do carry a storm jib in case the staysail gets damaged but have never had to use it on this boat.)

Easily Adjustable Staysail Sheet Leads
It is vital to be able to adequately flatten the staysail as its area is adjusted. To this end one of the first changes we made to the boat was replacing the original staysail sheet lead tracks and their difficult to adjust pin stop cars with Harken roller bearing cars that are easily adjusted under load using 4:1 tackles. We also lengthened the tracks to make sure that we can get the correct sheet angle, even when the sail is rolled almost all the way in.

Three Reefs in the Mainsail
We have a very deep third reef in the mainsail that reduces the area from its original 600 square feet to about 250 square feet. This coupled with a powerful and easy to use reefing system and roller furling headsails means that we can go from full working sail to heaved-to in minutes with no sail changes. (We do have a storm trysail bagged on its own track ready to go at all times, but have never had to use it on this boat, even when heaved-to in winds in excess of 40 knots.) The subject of three reefs brings me to one of my pet peeves: reefing systems that require the crew to re-reeve the first reef pennant as the third reef pennant after the second reef is taken in, or some such variation. It is already blowing hard and a crew member has to balance on the boom end to reeve the third pennant. Even with a messenger line this is dangerous. If you have three reefs, and I believe you should, then all three pennants should be reeved at all times.

Wide and Easy to Use Mainsheet Traveler
We have quite often been in sea and wind conditions where “Morgan’s Cloud” lies closer to the wind and more comfortably with the boom right on the center line or even a little to weather. This is easy for us to do since we have a massive dual-car low-friction Harken roller bearing traveler system that spans the whole aft cabin roof. Like the staysail, the cars are fitted with 4:1 adjuster tackles. I think many voyagers make the mistake of thinking that such “high tech” deck gear is for racers only. While this stuff is expensive, it pays huge dividends in making a short handed boat easier to handle in fair weather and foul.

So once we have used all of the above gear to get “Morgan’s Cloud” perfectly balanced for the conditions—neither forereaching too fast nor threatening to tack—we retire below and maintain a watch on radar from the warm and dry chart table with a quick peek out every 15 minutes and a security call with our position and status as “limited in our ability to maneuver” broadcast on channel 16 every half hour—beats heck out of epic hero stuff like steering for hours in a spray swept cockpit.

Different boats will require modifications and strategies that are different from ours, but by using these concepts as a starting point and with some thought I’m convinced that most boats can be made to heave-to well.

In the next post we will look at what we do when the conditions are such that no matter how we adjust things, “Morgan’s Cloud” continues to forereach out of the zone of wave strike protection caused by the slick she leaves to windward when properly heaved-to.

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Labels: Seamanship

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