Help on my Sailing 101 class

[Captain Pre-Capsize]

I am building the Sanddollar by Arch Davis (a terrific and quite helpful fellow, by the way) and have perhaps the most basic of all questions:

If you reef the sail during heavy winds does that have the same effect as simply easing the sail out?

The rub is that the Sanddollar has three possible sail plans, none of which have reef points. Each of the sails is approximately 50 square feet. The boat is eleven feet long, four feet wide and weighs around 125 pounds.

I am going to install the sprit rig but it seems like I need to have Arch increase the sail footage to around sixty square feet for a little more horsepower. Should I put in reef points too? Is sixty s.f. enough?

Seems like I've read too many times about sailors being sooo thankful they were able to reef in the sail when struck unexpectedly with high winds. I've always thought, "Hey, just let out the sail - same difference (uh, I think...)"

You guys/gals have no idea how helpful this forum is to a beginner like me - thanks in advance for all your help and insight!

[Art Read]

Not exactly. You "can" feather the sail in high winds or gusts to depower the rig, but that only goes so far. First of all, it only works going upwind. Secondly, you're still carrying the weight of the sail up high where you don't want it. And finally, it requires a sensitive touch to trim it "just so" that it doesn't flog your rig to pieces or suddenly, unexpectedly fill and "dump" you.

Reef early, reef often.

That being said, almost all dingies or smallish "one designs" like Sunfish or Lasers don't have reefing capabilities. Perhaps that's why they make such good "learning platforms"? And why they're rarely used in waters you'd never want to capsize in?

[Todd Bradshaw]

Though I'm sure somebody has figured out some means of jury-rigging a reef on a spritsail, the configuration of the spars, the sail and it's means of attachment to the spars and that of the spars to each other don't lend themselves to any kind of simple, quick reefing that I am aware of. A better bet is usually a "Land-Reef" (if it's windy enough that you need to reef, you stay on land). An eleven foot open boat is usually not the kind of craft that one goes out to challenge Mother Nature in.

I'm also curious as to why someone who hasn't sailed is second-guessing the designer's sailplan and upping the sail area on what is essentially a very small boat? Fifty square feet sounds about right to me on that hull, which is substantially smaller than that of a Sunfish. It's never going to be a high-performance screamer and was not intended to be. It's a nice little combo row and sail boat and a moderate spritsail should be simple to operate and manage, yet allow you to sail reasonably well.

This is a lug, not a sprit, but the shape is very similar. I'm 6'4" tall and the sail is right around ten square feet. Do you really want to try to put six times this amount of sail area on an eleven foot boat?
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid58/p711c98c8f5e70608dba2d6b3939a3435/fc653480.jpg

[ 04-04-2003, 05:19 AM: Message edited by: Todd Bradshaw ]

[Bruce Taylor]

Don't be mesmerized by the raw numbers -- square footage / LOA, etc. The amount of sail that is appropriate to a particular design will depend on dozens of factors, some of which are unquantifiable.

The cute little sail Todd is holding up there is the mizzen for my Piccolo, which is nearly two feet longer than the boat you're building. Piccolo carries a little over 32 sq. ft. of sail, in all. And yet it really scoots along. There's enough sail there to give you a scare in a gust, because Piccolo (an open sailing canoe) is designed in a way that makes hiking out impractical. The sail area is miniscule, but perfectly appropriate for this skinny little ketch.

Obviously, a beamier dinghy like yours can, and should, carry more sail. How much more it can carry is a decision best left up to the designer, I think. He knows how easily driven the bottom will be, what the heeled waterlines look like, how much flam or flare it has, how the bouyancy is distributed, etc.

[Todd Bradshaw]

If you compare this boat to a Sunfish, for example, this is how it shapes up. The Sunfish is almost 3' longer (13' 10") with a similar beam (48.5") and carries a 75 sq. ft. lateen sail. It weighs about 130 lbs. It's a sealed box with a self-draining footwell. It can be stood almost on edge while sailing, to the point where the clew corner of the sail is skimming along on the surface of the water. Other than the fact that it's a pretty inefficient way to sail a boat that wants to be sailed flat, it's not generally a problem. The sailor can hook his toes under the deck in the footwell area and sail with everything above his upper thighs hanging off in space on the windward side of the boat, which provides a tremendous amount of leverage to counteract the heeling force of the sail and bring the hull back down, closer to level. Should it go over, it's fairly easy to climb back aboard, start sailing again and pop the bailer open, which soon drains the footwell.

The Sanddollar, by comparison is smaller, open, not self-bailing and unless you are blessed with very steady winds, you'll probably do most of your sailing sitting on the boat's bottom where your body weight has less ability to counter the heeling force. It's in the size range where if you're trying to sit on the gunwale or trying to hike in a blow, you may find yourself prone to falling over backwards (to windward) every time there is a lull. This usually happens much faster than a typical capsize to leeward and you generally need to think and move very fast to prevent it.

This doesn't mean that you won't have a great time sailing your Sanddollar, but it's a different kind of animal from boats like Sunfish, Lasers and most of the dinghy-sized boats intended specifically for sailing. That's why it raises an eyebrow when, right off the bat, somebody decides it needs more sail area.

[Bruce Taylor]

The sailor can hook his toes under the deck in the footwell area and sail with everything above his upper thighs hanging off in space on the windward side of the boatWhen I was a skinny kid, I used to stand on the weather rail of my Sunfish with my toes curled around the pop-riveted aluminum gunwales, hauling on the mainsheet to keep myself out of the lake.

They're great boats to learn bad habits on smile.gif .

[Ron Williamson]

I've tried surfing a Laser,on a reach,wind steady,the sun on your face,standing way aft,on the windward rail,main in one hand,tiller in the other. :cool:
It makes for a pretty spectacular trainwreck,when that first gust hits... :D
R

[Ken Hutchins]

I learned on a sailing surfboard I build from plays in Boy's Life back in the 50's. It is similar to the early sailfish. 12' long. Reef it, hell no, my best sails were when conditions were so wild I probably shouldn't have been out, but being young and foolish I went anyways. Nothing like surfing down the face of a wave on a reach and learning first hand the meaning of maximum hull speed. :eek: SOUND THE KLAXON, :eek: DIVE, DIVE!!!, GLUB, GLUB. Bent the mast obout 20 degrees one day.
But I tell ya that was on the good salt water in RI, I then moved to NH and rapidly found out that lake sailing ain't the same, wind constantly changing direction and speed. Hate it. :(

[JimD]

I am a novice sailor with a 15 foot sloop with a total 129 sq feet of sail. I only had to take the boat out a couple times to realize I probably had more sail than I knew what to do with due to my limited experience. And this boat has a steel plate keel for ballast. I added a generous reef. Also, judging when to reef when the wind is building gradually is one thing but if the wind picks up unexpectedly (as in gusting) its probably already too late to reef easily, you may have to quickly point into the wind, and reef a badly luffing sail, not easy in a small light boat when where you place your body weight may make the difference between going over or not. I sure wouldn't add extra sail to something like a sand dollar.

[Captain Pre-Capsize]

Hey Guys:

Thanks so much for your collective insight on the Sanddollar - I'm grateful. Guess I'll keep the sprit sail area the same as the designer recommends and that way it won't get in the way of the jib and spinnaker out front.

Just kidding...