How to handle 30 knot wind and 3ft chop – 200 miles in Texas
Chuck Pierce is a well known distance sailor and he optimised his Mayfly 14 cruising dinghy lug sail setup and optimised foils to maximise sailing performance to get into the difficult places he needs to get into.
This is built on his report of the event. Real world sailing.
He got into every camp in the tough conditions. Something only a small proportion of the fleet managed in the 5 day Texas 200 mile event.
His small sailing dinghy which he won’t ever carry a motor (on principle and he hates rowing) demonstrating strong wind perfromance (up to mid 30kn) and upwind sailing against a 3ft chop.
And this in a 14ft boat.
30knots, third Reef getting upwind – strong wind performance – only 4/45 boats make scheduled camp sailing.
30 knots really is the high end for dinghy sailing. But when you have to go – then you have to go. Chuck’s setup makes it possible.
Only 4 of 45 boats were able to sail this leg.
From Chuck:
I have included some pics of GPS tracks so that you can gauge the upwind performance of the lug sail, which I think is excellent. I do still have some small wrinkle issues to iron out (haha). These are mainly related to evening up the yard tie tension.
This is the first day, tacking up the Port Mansfield Channel out to the Jetties. This day saw the highest winds of the trip, up to 30 knots.
We (Chuck and me wearing my sailmaking hat – Ed) had envisioned the 3rd reef as a way to simply get off the water in bad conditions, but it turns out that the boat goes upwind pretty well with it.
I tacked the 8 miles up the Channel to the Jetties with no problems. 45 boats started that morning, 13 of us made Camp 1. The others mainly went into Port Mansfield seeking shelter from the very high winds and waves.
I believe that there were maybe 4 of us who sailed the whole way. As opposed to motoring up.
The critical adjustment for Lug Performance upwind in all winds – Downhaul Tension.
Any lug sail, even a small cruising dinghy needs a lot of tension on the downhaul that pulls the boom down beside the mast.
In light winds when it is hard to get speed it can be taut but not tight.
But as soon as there is reliable speed it should be very very tight to keep the luff of the lug sail from sagging and to limit the twist of the sail. Chuck has reassured a lot of people that the high tensions have not damaged his original polytarp sail.
And has zero chance of hurting his dacron sail from our reallysimplesails.com
For strong wind performance the downhaul needs to be outrageously tight.
We find from racing our fleet of 30+ oz goose dinghies in the Philippines that the top sailors almost always have the most tension in the downhaul.
Detailed information about controlling sail twist for performance and handling is here.
Variations in downhaul setup for all balance lug boats
But that is not all. Chuck runs the two vang system for long events. Explanation below.
It is a lot more fiddly. But it allows the balance lug to be swung to be more equally divided between the two sides of the mast as in the mid illustration here.
The downside of this method is that it is fussy even with preset marks in permanent marker on the ropes.
But on distance events it is well worth it for easier steering. A lower concentration level allows contemplating navigation or putting together some lunch. Performance can be defined as covering ground with minimum effort.
For the Oz Goose Fleet racing with their balance lug over short courses we find this method too fussy. So we use the third method here. This allows the downhaul to be adjusted at any time without the boom moving forward. Very quick to adjust and this is the way most lug rigs should go for best performance with minimum hassle.
Controlling Sail Twist article here – emphasis on how with traditional rigs.
Really Simple Sails Expedition Lug for the Mayfly 14 sailing dinghy
The sail we developed in conjunction with Chuck was standard Challenge 4oz cloth but with extra patches and reinforcements and an extra reef.
It is now a stock sail for the Mayfly 14 at a very reasonable price. Request pricing for the Mayfly 14 sail from our ReallySimpleSails.com partner business. You can also request pricing for other sails for other boats based around the same concept.
The balance lug sometimes tends to droop when reefed. Putting the boom back end in the skipper’s lap and generally getting in the way. It was suggested by both Chuck and my friend Anders Bjorklund that angling the reef to prevent this was a good idea so that little else has to be adjusted to keep the boat easy to handle.
We can see from the image above that the sail does set with a slightly cocked up boom – which keeps the boom out of the water downwind if the boat rolls.
We are very very happy with the upwind performance at this rather extreme end of the wind range.
Day 3 – upwind double reefed Padre Island channel to Yacht Club
2 reefs can be comfortable downwind in an easily driven boat, but can often leave the boat a bit underpowered for upwind.
One of the tricks is not to flatten off the sail along the boom by pulling the reefing too tight. Unless the wind is blowing the crabs out of the sand.
A reasonable depth in the bottom of the sail gives a bit of extra weather helm on a lug. Which compensates for the possible lee helm tendency when the sail is reefed and the sail centre moves forward.
This is tacking up the channel from the ICW to the Padre Island Yacht Club two days later with 2 reefs in the sail.
Broken mast sawn off and continue going – Corpus Christi Channel
Mast broke at some rot. Chuck cut the mast down (a cruising dinghy carries tools) and continued even though can’t set full sail – car waiting at end of the event a good reason to continue.
Important to set sail up for adequate depth at the foot (an advantage of a loose footed sail) and it will still go nicely upwind. Too flat in the bottom and the boat may develop significant lee helm.
The next track shows our path up the Corpus Christi Ship Channel at Port Aransas. A couple of days before I had broken the mast, cut a couple of feet off it, and restepped the mast.
So the max sail I could carry for the rest of the trip was with one reef in. There was no discernable current.
San Antonio Bay verifying tacking angles out of the current.
Still with the broken mast and a bit undercanvassed
The following day, I tried some tacks in the middle of San Antonio Bay with one reef in.
I wanted to verify the tacking angles I had gotten going up the Corpus Christi Ship Channel the day before, which seemed a bit too good to be true.
I was thinking that there might have been some current involved. No current in the middle of the Bay. This sail is amazing.
Cruising Dinghy Bashing into 3ft waves
This is where sail depth and twist control is critical. Sail depth along the boom stops waves from pushing the nose off the wind
You can see from the track that Chuck’s tacking angle (pointing angles) have dropped off, but a small boat making good progress against large waves
We have also found that a too large first reef can leaves a racing or cruising dinghy underpowered upwind in waves – so we go for three reefs rather than two for finer power graduations.
We know something about the relative sizes of reefs thanks to Joost Engelen’s work on the Goat Island Skiff sail development and our experience with the absurdly stable Oz Geese which reef much later.
This last track is on Friday tacking to Army Hole. The wind had been out of the northeast earlier in the day, and the waves were still from that direction. The wind had gone a bit more southerly. So that we were bashing directly into waves that were 3 feet or so. A wet ride, to be sure.
These conditions quickly reveal if a centreboard or leeboard is too small or a poor shape.
I am very impressed with the sail.
I have Pollock foils on the Mayfly at this point, and have been recommending to people who are building the Mayfly that they purchase your Oz Goose plans and scale the foil templates appropriately if they want better performance than the standard foil shapes in Jim’s plans.
Foils and creating a boat that just wants to go! 10% more performance for one day’s work.
Everyone is inclined to think about sails and rigs and forget that the drive of the sail is balanced by the drag of the hull and foils.
Yes – if nice sails and rig setup are not balanced by good foils then your effort is largely wasted – the wings in the water contribute as much to performance as the sailing rig.
Equal and opposite.
And it just takes a day to make the foils the perfect shape – and thus a lifetime of being able to sail way better than boats with foils shaped by eye. How do we get 10%?
An investment of one day.
In measured racing results over a long period we find that in typical 90 minute races the differenct between templated foils and made by eye ones – regardless of how good the finished on both are – is about 4 minutes.
But that 4 minutes is an advantage that is upwind or about half the race time.
That equates to about 10 percent.
What does that look like on the water?
It is an extra foot every two seconds of upwind sailing. One minute 30 feet ahead. Half hour – 900 feet ahead.
The method we use for foil shaping is from Aerodynamicst Neil Pollock which require the lowest amount of labour for any accurate foil.
There are also programs to print out NACA foils – the old NACA 0010 or 0012 are good all rounders – but hard to taper accurately unlike the Pollock foils
The cheapest way to get the information and how to make nice foils is to buy our $36 Oz Goose plans that show you how to do it step by step including some template shapes that can be blown up or shrunk to match your project.
One day for years of 10 percent more.
Don’t forget to protect the foils with some simple padding in the case.
No – not interested in racing – just getting to where he is going
Chuck’s final word and a universal truth about cruising
As you know, I am not much interested in racing, but there is no motor mount on this boat, and there never will be. I hate rowing, so the boat has to be able to take me where I want to go under sail. The foils were the first step-this sail completes the journey. :)
Thanks!
Chuck Pierce
