TWIN HEADSAIL ARRANGEMENTS
When setting up a boat for serious offshore use, there’s a danger that adding equipment for heavy weather will have an unnecessary adverse effect in light airs. Twin headstays with furlers make lots of sense in strong winds, but in lighter airs it can become impossible to tack or gybe the genoa easily.
On boats of less than around 40ft my preference is for a removable Dyneema Solent stay that leaves the foretriangle clear in light airs. On a larger boat, the arrangement adopted by Paul and Sheryl Shard of the Distant Shores TV channel for their new Southerly 480 is ideal: specifically, electric furling for the fore headstay, which enables the genoa to be quickly and effortlessly two-thirds furled for a tack.
small boats with spinnakers, and a dead downwind course is often the best option for a heavy 30- or 35-footer. However, the speed potential of larger modern yachts means their most efficient course remains a series of broad reaches until the true wind speed approaches 20 knots, when a poled-out headsail is usually the best option.
When sailing off the wind try sailing toward wherever there’s breeze, although be aware that gusts, lulls and shifts are rarely uniform in strength and direction. The key signs to look for are dark patches on the water, with wavelets indicating the true wind direction. Lulls, on the other hand, appear as less disturbed areas that are lighter in color. Also watch for big wind holes and/or gusts in the lee of headlands, tall building, or even just a patch of trees. Often a wind line will be seen, signifying the border between a dead inshore zone and the edge of more reliable breeze offshore.
SAIL HANDLING SYSTEMS
So far, we’ve not talked about modifications to a boat or spending money on additional equipment. That’s because often there are many improvements that can be made without buying more kit. However, if sailhandling systems are not slick and effective you won’t be able to readily respond to changes in the wind strength and direction.
In light airs the most common problems are associated with excess friction preventing a line from paying out when eased. This can arise from a number of factors, including under-specified or seized blocks, lines that are too large in diameter for their deck hardware and deck layouts that route lines around too many unnecessary corners.
Unfortunately, all too many cruising yachts either have layouts based on outdated ideas or have low-grade hardware fitted as original equipment for the sake of economy. Paradoxically, the better systems usually fitted to performance cruisers and cruiser-racers tend to make these boats easier to handle, despite the greater power of their larger rigs when compared to most mainstream cruisers.
It might seem strange to discuss mainsail reefing systems in an article about sailing in light airs, but it is relevant. If a boat is set up in such a way that it takes five minutes to reef, you will have a tendency to drop in a precautionary reef as soon as there’s a hint the wind might start increasing. While this may appear to be a prudent measure, it will often leave you floundering along in 8 knots of wind next to a big dark cloud, making little progress, yet afraid to shake the reef out. However, there’s no reason why any boat under 45ft should not be set up so that one person can tuck in or shake out a reef in the mainsail within 60-90 seconds.
LIGHT AIR SAILS
Because a boat’s own forward motion increases the apparent wind when reaching in light airs, any increase in the sail area sets off a beneficial circle of improvement. Bigger sails make the boat faster, which further increases the apparent wind making the boat faster still. With this in mind, sail designs that were first refined on raceboats 20 years ago have now been adapted for cruising yachts and can make a huge difference.
One of the most common of these, the asymmetric spinnaker, represents a huge step forward compared to earlier cruising chutes. In particular, the dramatically curved luff on a modern A-sail means it will not be blanketed by the mainsail until the apparent wind is aft of around
150 degrees. By contrast, many older cruising chutes will collapse at an angle of around 125 degrees.
Asymmetrics can also be cut to be used with a top-down furler, which hugely simplifies sail handling. However, this tends to involve a compromise with the amount of luff curve that can be incorporated into the sail, which means they won’t set as far downwind as a sail with a conventional snuffer.
Another common racing sail now used by cruisers is the Code 0, which maximizes the area available for a reaching sail and can be a hugely powerful tool in light airs. On a race boat, Code 0s typically have to fulfil the requirements to measure as a spinnaker, which means they are cut with excess cloth on the leech. However, this isn’t needed for a cruising Code 0. Two other advantages of Code 0s are that they are super easy to handle thanks to their furling systems, and they can can’t form an hourglass or wrap around the forestay, in the same way as a conventional nylon spinnaker.
Although it’s possible to spend large sums of money on these sails, discarded racing sails will often do the job for budget-conscious cruisers. To be competitive, racers need to use their kites even when it’s blowing hard, but the biggest gains for cruising yachts are in gentle conditions, with the apparent wind under 10 knots. The muchrepaired big asymmetric spinnaker on my 30ft boat, for example, is a castoff from a J/80 sportboat that cost me less than $200 a decade ago. Similarly, an old racing Code 0 with a damaged leech—the part that invariably fails first—can often have the weakened area cut away for use as a cruising sail.
I also have a similarly sized symmetric kite that makes it possible to make good speed dead downwind, with the main boom appropriately secured using a preventer, in apparent wind speeds of only 7-8 knots. These two sails mean that, even in a region with predominantly light airs, I can cover roughly 1,000 miles in a season without using more than around 15 gallons of fuel.
ROUTING SOFTWARE
Routing software can shave a significant amount of time off many passages and also help identify the optimum time to leave port. Note, though, that once your GRIB files start showing significantly less than 8 knots of breeze, the accuracy of their routing can be significantly reduced. This is especially true for boats that sail at the same speed as the true wind on a reach in light airs, but are significantly slower on other points of sail.
That said, there are now many fine-grained models that include the effects of shorelines and islands, making them a valuable resource for a passage that will include areas of light winds. This kind of software is also becoming ever more accessible, with companies such as PredictWind, SailGrib and Fast Seas all offering various low-cost, or even free options. s