A long keel gives a wide sweet spot around the centre of lateral resistance...
HOW TO HEAVE TO
At the risk of sounding like a tacky infomercial, heaving to is one of those multi-use tools in your sailing skill kit. At one end of the scale, it is an excellent way to stop the boat temporarily without all the fuss and mess of anchoring.
It is great for having lunch, a cup of tea and lie down and is superb when your deck monkeys have made a cockup on the foredeck that needs some time to sort out. Most of all it gives you time to think and if you are at the end of a long voyage without sleep and the leading lights don’t make sense, it might just save your life.
At the other end of the scale heaving to is an effective heavy-weather tactic. There is more advice on surviving storm conditions in a cruising yacht out there than relationship advice. Like relationship advice, it is mostly proffered by those who have no experience.
One thing is certain – most of the time, and for most cruising boats, heaving to will be your best bet. The difference between bashing and crashing along only just in control – and being hove to – is dramatic. Suddenly the boat goes quiet and the conditions lose their sting.
It will take a while playing with the mainsheet, tiller and sail plan to get her to sit comfortably and even then you will sit nervously in the hatch waiting for it to all turn to shit. After a while watching the boat look after herself will fill you with a mix of wonder and gratitude. You will pat the old girl on the cockpit coaming and offer your thanks before slipping below into the quiet sanctuary of the cabin.
Before long you will be baking a batch of scones or reading your way through an impenetrable Tolstoy novel wedged in your bunk while the gale rages on.
When it comes to heaving to, every boat is different. Long keelboats like Whitney Rose heave to well as her heritage is from the nuggetty Bristol Channel pilot cutters. These boats were designed for a pilot and his boy to bash their way out to the Bristol Channel and wait hove to for
a sailing ship to turn up at which point the pilot would step aboard the ship and the boy would sail her home.
It required a boat that could sail well and stop well in any weather. The long keel gives a wide sweet spot around the centre of lateral resistance and conversely, a narrow keel on a lightdisplacement racing hull does the opposite. To heave to on such a hull requires much more finely-tuned efforts and, in some cases, even this is not enough.
If you are heaving to for a toilet break, a cup of tea, or a lie down during pleasant weather you will need a full mainsail and some jib. Simply sail hard on the wind and do a long slow tack without releasing the jib sheet.
Wait until all way is lost and then put the helm down as if you were going to tack back. In theory, the jib will blow the bow off while the mainsail sheeted in and the rudder will try to head her into the wind.
The boat will hunt around a bit while you try different combinations of jib, helm and mainsheet which, when you’ve got them in balance, will have her sitting around 45o off the wind and slowly going sideways. If you have got it right the keel will have stalled and be laying a slick of turbulent water to windward of you. In light conditions this won’t mean much, but in big seas it will take the sting out of the breaking faces.
Oddly enough the lighter the breeze the harder it is to balance the boat in the hove to position. The most likely culprit is too much foresail pushing the nose off the wind and letting the boat forereach out of her slick. On Whitney Rose, we get rid of the jib for heaving to after about 15 knots and rely entirely on the reefed mainsail or trysail if it is breezy.
Some boats will refuse to heave to. They are more than likely light displacement racing boats. In this storm scenario, you will need a good supply of excellent helmspeople on short rotation watches to keep the boat sailing. On a cruising boat you will most likely not have that luxury. You will be shorthanded, so if you can let the boat do the work you are onto a winning strategy.
It has been years since my roguish friend leaned on the rail while his yacht lay hove to beside ours. I have never had the guts to emulate his feat and now see it for what it was – a simple skill masquerading as an act of supreme confidence designed to bludge rum off passing boats.
Some boats will refuse to heave to – more than likely light displacement racing boats.