Sail sheeting and control limits

[Maximus]

Wow, that thread title sounds complicated. Anyway, this is a simple question. What would be the upper limits, in terms of sail area, that a sail can be sheeted and hoisted easily without winches?

Would the type if rig make much difference here?

Can you give me some examples (I like pics) of large sails, sheeted without winches.

Thx
Max

[johnw]

um. Yes, the rig would make a difference. Conventional wisdom is that 500 square feet in one sail is the limit most sailors can handle. After that, you have to break it up into smaller sails. On the other hand, a 73-foot ocean racer sailed by Eric Taberly won the race across the Atlantic against the 236-foot single-handed schooner she was racing against, so single-handers have managed larger rigs.

[Maximus]

Yikes, that was more than I was expecting...

[johnw]

Sensible Cruising Designs, L. Francis Herreshoff. Restricted Sail Area Cruiser, page 286. With modern equipment, you can handle bigger sails, especially if you are Eric Taberly. It turns out not even Eric Taberly is Eric Taberly anymore, since he was lost at sea.

[matoi]

without winches?I found these to be my upper limit with respect to sheet tension on sloop rigged small sailboats without winches:

jib: 8.5 m2 with a 2:1 purchase on the sheets; or 4.4 m2 with single/direct sheeting
main: 14.5 m2 (important note - with a 3:1 purchase at the end of a 3m boom with a good bridle, greater purchase would ease that but would be too slow to handle IMHO)
gennaker: 32 m2 (with the sheet running through a ratchet block, an additional ratchet could be added I heard suggested - if one wanted to ease the handling further)

The type of mainsheet system can make huge difference. Systems where most of the purchase is at the back of the boom, with either a bridle or a traveller located high / close to the boom cause least tension.

For cruising, it would perhaps be good to stay with a bit lesser loads.

And I like the direction of your thinking. Winches are a great thing but they do take away a bit of fun. Btw pilot cutters were without winches and had much bigger sails, but they used a lot of blocks and purchases.... they wouldn't tweak the sails all the time I suppose and didn't need to do it being around 20 tons of displacement.

With respect to handling in sense of hoisting, lowering and reefing, my preference for daysailing and cruising on a dinghy like sloop rigged boat would be:

mainsail with a foot little shorter than 3m (so that I can work on it without need to walk around much),
with slugs in the mast track rather than luff rope,
and mast track opening very close to the boom (so that slugs stay threaded in the track most of the time and so the sail cannot get blown out of the boat when lowered, and that it can be hoisted super fast)
furling (but not reefing) jib would always be a high priority for me
gennaker hoisting and lowering from the cockpit rather than those tubes or socks mounted on or under the deck (haven't yet had experience with furling gennakers or ATN socks, that might work nicely)

Best wishes,

Mato

P.S. To find about the boats on which my impressions are based, google Seascape18 and Wayfarer

[Woxbox]

If the 500-sq foot sail has a heavy gaff on top, it would really be pushing the limits. You'd have two halyards to mess with, too. On the other hand, roller furlers allow setting and dousing much bigger sails. A huge spinnaker is easy to manage if you have a sock to help set and drop it. So it's hard to put a fixed number on the limit.

My boat has about 720 square foot of sail, sloop rig, and it's easy to singlehand. The main is full-batten and requires a two-speed winch to crank up, but most anybody can manage it.

[Brian Palmer]

I assume you mean by a single person. If you have enough people, there is not much of a limit. This boat, for example, has no winches (except an anchor windlass and a capstan).

Brian

http://history.vineyard.net/photos/vh2/v21701.jpg

[JimConlin]

I'd contend that the limit of what could be contained singlehanded in furling or reefing is short of 500 ft.

Is Ian in the house?

[Maximus]

I always ask these questions as a solo sailor. A girlfriend if with probably wouldn't be involved in the sailing at this point, so I'm all the muscle that there would be to handle the sails.

You're right, having a gaff rig to deal with would probably lower any limit.

I've seen in the harkin catalog that some beachcats use an 8:1 sheeting system, I think that seems a little high, but I'm not a beachcat kind of guy. Anything higher than 8:1 would just make sheeting use up too much line and take forever to make large sheeting changes.

Max

[Woxbox]

... to add to my post. I took "without winches" to mean powered winches. If not, I'm not sure what you're getting at. The difference between blocks and winches is academic, they both add purchase, and the ratios can be the same. The oldest ships used windlasses and capstans to get the leverage needed for the heavy jobs, and short of that chained together blocks in all sorts of configurations to achieve the ratios needed to raise yards, trim sails, harden up on stays and on and on.

[Peerie Maa]

These boats indicated by the crosses were fished single handed without winches.
http://i408.photobucket.com/albums/pp164/peerie_maa/regeta2.jpg

They are being raced here so have extra hands.
The main sheets were four part purchases on a short horse. The jib set flying had a double ended halyard with a gun tackle on the whip. The topsail tack also had a gun tackle for swigging down.

[Hwyl]

I always ask these questions as a solo sailor. A girlfriend if with probably wouldn't be involved in the sailing at this point, so I'm all the muscle that there would be to handle the sails.

You're right, having a gaff rig to deal with would probably lower any limit.

I've seen in the harkin catalog that some beachcats use an 8:1 sheeting system, I think that seems a little high, but I'm not a beachcat kind of guy. Anything higher than 8:1 would just make sheeting use up too much line and take forever to make large sheeting changes.

Max
So a beach cat sail area is probably the answer to your question, say 200 sq feet in main and jib.

[John B]

Max,You haven't identified the most important factor which is expected wind strength/ range. 4 or 40 or everything in between? Or your size of boat.( or is that what you're trying to establish?)

Gaff rig actually extends the sail area limit.
There's more bias towards the main in area and there's nothing much to sheeting it in compared to working a jib. 5:1 is pretty good on that.. 6:1 tends to hang a bit.
The jib(s) is /are smaller generally.
There's two halyards on the main so you can swig one at a time or both in one hand if the purchase is right.
There's much less friction setting a sail on hoops than one with an internal halyard and on slides.

If you were talking say wind nominal average 15 knots or so I'd say jibs with a 2:1 purchase both on halyard and sheets about say 120 to 150ft.
main up to about 500ft. 600 gets a bit tough single handed anyway. 500 ft gaff or 400 ft bermudan.

[bucheron]

I always ask these questions as a solo sailor.

If you can handle your boat alone, you are not dependant on crew. They can be taken away suddenly by injury or sickness.


You're right, having a gaff rig to deal with would probably lower any limit.

I do not agree. See post by JohnB. I agree with all his points.



..... some beachcats use an 8:1 sheeting system...


Catamarans do a lot of sailing on reaches and beats with large loads on the sail. This is less important with monohulls.

I have sailed a 21ft trailer sailer with a 60 sqft jib which was held flat by a wishbone off a sailboard. The sail had no overlap, so it could swing freely across the centreline. The single part sheet went from the clew to a turning block at the base of the mast. The sheet could be handled with ease by my 10 year old kids. I realized that 90% of the tension of a jib sheet goes to flattening the sail, not setting it's position off the centreline.

[Maximus]

John B, all very good points, and many things I hadn't considered. I however don't plan on building anything gaff-rigged in the near future. In fact, this is all just for me to have a better understanding of boat design considerations and limits, and maybe so I sound a little wiser over beers following next summers' Wednesday night races.

What started my head scratching was the size of some sails on a couple sharpies I read about over the weekend and how they were handled. I DO NOT want it to just be about those type of boats though, I very curious about all kinds of craft.

I like the idea of single handed sailing, simplicity in design and utilitarianism. I enjoy the rich history or workboats and seafarers; designers and racers; and of time spent working in my garage. There's wonderful fullfilled sense I get from time around boats and on the water and this forum and all of you help reinforce that. Thx

Max

[Woxbox]

I had a chance to sail on this boat last year. Winches for the mainsheet? Nope. The trimmer noted that he'd developed some pretty good callouses over the summer. It probably didn't hurt his arm strength, either. Oh, and also, that's Bear's small rig.

I agree there's nothing like finding out all you can about boats. I wouldn't have thought one guy could control this sail with his bare hands if I hadn't sat next to him and watched. The sheet was never tied off, either.

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f92/Woxbox/SandbaggerBear-web.jpg

[John B]

What a fantastic experience that would have been Wox.

An interesting 'reversal' in technology is the way that winches( number of particularly) are reduced on modern race boats in the name of weight saving.You see the return to rope strops instead of shackles, strop blocks rather than a mechanical jont, purchases on mainsails and jib so the winch can be lighter.. winches that do many jobs through keyboard jammers. Even bottle screws are going on some boats with exotic rope rigging.. back to deadeyes.
Look at an IOR racer from the late 70's or 80's and there's nice big chrome on bronze winch for nearly every job. Now manufacturers are promoting their new range of lightweight winches and you'll see 5 instead of 10.

So I guess you could have a really nice modern type boat which is full of modern materials being handled and operated in quite old fashioned ways... tried and true ways.
I wouldn't limit myself by saying no winches though.. 2 or 3 would be nice and extend your boat size or ease of handling quite a bit. 2 sheet winches and one for jib / spin halyard with jammers.

For example, I chose to fill up our old Waione with cheap secondhand Murray bottom handle winches rather than try to handle the vast amount of extra line I would have had to have by doubling purchases. eg 2:1 on main halyards rather than 4 . Even so , I could hoist that sail (600ft) right up by myself in light conditions , and use the winch to trim the last say 3 to 6 in of halyard.
Because we liked to sail and one of the most frustrating things is a mainsheet which won't ease in the light due to too much purchase, we had less blocks on that too, but could use the free sheet winch to trim in if it was blowing hard.
So I'd urge a medium kind of approach myself,so your options were wider .

edit. there's another reason gaff rigs have an extended 'range' as it were. Although the sails are typically bigger ( mains that is) they're usually on much longer booms and I guess if you think of the gaff as a kind of big headboard, you can see that ( boom in particular) that you're operating a much bigger lever arm for the job than on a 'modern'.
Our 28 ft boom ( gaff rig)was much easier to trim in than my friends stressed up 12 ft boom on his mid 1970's 32 footer, and if I recall correctly, he had more pulleys than me.

[ahp]

A sprit boom, as on a sharpie should not need as many parts to the sheet. The sprit removes a lot of the twist of the sail.