Heaving to with a Jeanneau

[sycankiz]

Hi All.

Do you heave to in harsh conditions ? How does the boat behave ? Does it heave easily or is it tricky to keep it properly heaved to ? What kind of fore sails/back sails(or how large) do you use when heaving to ?

Or is it not doable with our type of keels and rudders ?

Personally I'd like to have the comfort of knowing that I can heave to with my boat (SO35) when worst comes to worst and have tried practicing the skill a couple times. The results were not satisfactory for me as I could not manage to produce a constant slick of water windward, which was supposed to keep the boat calm and safe. I'll keep trying of course... I did it by motoring though and saw that the slick of water in fact was obtainable.

Would very much like to hear the experiences from other Jeanneau owners out there to help perfect our storm sailing skills.

Cheers.

[On y va]

Good question "sycankiz", I very much like to know the same. I have tried it "just for fun" in a force 4 to 5 on a flat sea, just to see what happens, but didn´t find it that easy. Because our Jeanneau´s are so flat in front of the keel, they blow away pretty quickly. Now I have a cutter stay and a working- and a storm jib, I want to try it again, see if that functions any better.

Hopefully we get some info from other Jeanneau owners who have experience with this 

[jdl01]

Hi Sycankiz,
The acquired knowledge on heaving to was based largely on boats with longer keels and rounder bilges than current jeanneaus. Persistent experimenting is the best route I have found. There are some good videos by Skip Novack on the Yachting World site which may be helpful.

[Zanshin]

My Jeanneau 49DS would heave to very easily and be quite stable and incredibly comfortable in big seas and big wind. I've hove to on my Jeanneau 57 but only in normal conditions to see how I need to balance the sails in order to get a stable hoven-to-condition. It is best to practice this a couple of times before having to do so in tough situations. The fin keel (but large spade rudder) makes it a bit tougher than with full-keel or cut-away boats, but it is still a valid tactic that one should have in one's repertoire.

p.s. I just remembered, that getting my 43DS to heave to required a lot more effort, but I can't recall how much I had to reduce the genoa to achieve a stable balance.

[reverie]

Last summer I heaved to (hove to?) in 25 knots of wind and 1.5 meter waves in my SO35 using a double-reefed main and about one third of my 135% genoa. I was very pleased with the results. Things were very comfortable (but I understand that I was not yet in a full blown gale).

However, I do have one question: The sheet of the back-winded genoa bends around the windward shroud and puts a fair amount of pressure on it. I was concerned about the sheet wearing where it made contact, so jammed a rag between the sheet and the shroud. This protected the sheet nicely. But I'm still concerned about the stress and strain on the shroud. Should I be?

Any thoughts/comments?

Many thanks,

John
Reverie - SO35

[jdl01]

Hi John,
Relative to your total time sailing, heaving to is a short duration issue, so other than chafing I would not worry too much about loads. The best way to reduce load on the shrouds is to back your genoa/jib sheet fairlead as far aft as possible to reduce the angle of contact on the weather shroud.

[ianpowolny]

Mar 1, 2014 23:04:40 GMT jdl01 said:

Hi Sycankiz,
The acquired knowledge on heaving to was based largely on boats with longer keels and rounder bilges than current jeanneaus. Persistent experimenting is the best route I have found. There are some good videos by Skip Novack on the Yachting World site which may be helpful.

Thanks for the advice jdl01. I watch the video and it was really informative. I now understand how I had such trouble trying to get the SO39i to heave to when we rented it in February. I'll give this a go the next time we have our Affinity on the water. Ian

[chrisj]

Hiya

Pretty much all sailboats will heave to but they are all different.
It depends on so many factors that there can be no hard and fast rules.
Experimentation is the key, first in light air and getting increasingly according to your findings and confidence.

Practice makes perfect as they say.

[chuckr]

we made a couple of serious mistakes crossing the atlantic last may -- as a result we got overly tired and hungry -- in probably 2+meter seas and winds in the 20+ k range we heaved to and took a 6 hours sleep and ate a big meal

we had the main cut way back to maybe 1/2 and maybe 100 on the genny -- not sure as i really want to forget the epsiode - but we had to adjust a bit to get it right but it worked and we got the needed rest and food

so it can be done -- we had practiced a bit in nicer weather but always in fair winds and calm seas - glad it worked when we needed it -

now we have a bit more confidence in it but on the other hand hope never have to use it for our stupidity

[zofiasailing]

We found that the key was to have a balance between the amount of sail and the wind strength. The more the wind the less the sail. The reason being that the helm has to hold the boat against the action of the sail. If there is too much sail for the wind strength, the sail will take over and the boat will come off the wind. If you have too little sail, the helm will take over and you'll go into wind.

So to hove-to, select an amount of headsail that is appropriate for the wind strength and then go into a tack. When the boat tacks through the wind leave the sail where it is and fully reverse the helm. In this condition the sail will be trying to complete the tack and the helm will be trying to reverse it. If the balance is correct neither will win and the boat will lay at an angle to the breeze and will drift slowly downwind. 

If you do not want to stand at the helm to hold it's position then you need to secure the helm with rope, a locknut or flexible cord so that it remains in position.

To come out of the hove-to, release the helm and reverse it's position so that it's now working with the sail to complete the tack. When the bow is sufficiently off the wind, release the sail and sheet it in on the opposite side and move off. To practice this manoeuvre you don't need strong winds, just choose a comfortable day and leave more sail up than you would in strong conditions. We can't recommend practicing this enough. We didn't have this skill a few years back and have a 40h trip we barely want to recall.

As an additional modification to this procedure, once hove-to you can deploy a para-archor as this will reduce the amount of downwind drift to 1/2 knot as well as assisting the breakup of the continuity of any oncoming waves (creating a 'slick' effect).

We have been hove-to for up to 13 hours at a time enabling us to get some much needed food and rest since we also sail short handed. We read a John Sanders biography. He circumnavigated the world 3 times non-stop singlehanded and he hove-to whenever the wind strength got to 35kn. 

We have never hove-to with the genoa plus mainsail because by the time the wind is piping we will only have the genoa up anyway and often not much of that either!

[hawaii5o]

Great explanation!

[bigred]

How about in a yacht with self tacking jib? I am sailing a 439 with self tacker, for short handed family sailing with young kids. And a Code-0 for when it gets light.

Anybody have experience heaving to with the self tacker?

I've yet to practice it, but thought I'd need to arrange a preventer to stop the sail tacking.

[jdl01]

Hi Bigred,
you will need a barberhauler or equivalent system. We have barberhaulers to close the upper leech when reaching and they also work for backing the jib.

[so36idavid]

I've hove to my 36i just for fun, but only up to about 20kts of wind and maybe 10' seas. It works just fine. Unfortunately my radar antenna is on the mast and the backwinded jib pulls on it so I wouldn't do it in a real blow. IMHO the mast isn't a great place for a radar antenna, but that's a different discussion. 

David