Haven't tried this yet on the 36 so I am hoping someone else will have and can post it. On the 28 when we practiced doing that, we reefed the main as much as possible (1 reef was all it had) and sheeted it in as tight as possible, then reefed the genny to about half and backwinded it, then put the wheel hard over upwind, the boat would keep trying to go upwind then fall off. We made little forward progress and basically seemed to drift more sideways, producing a slick to windward. Must also say we never tried this in anything more than 15 knots, it was just practice to see what would make it work.

There seems to be a misconception about the motion of the boat when hove to, which I've read about on other boards, too. It continues to move forward. Not ONLY sideways. I find with our 110 jib and either a full or reefed main, we're still going 1 3/4 to 2 plus knots. It's kinda a "diagonal" motion, lotsa sideways slip but going ahead.

[QUOTE=stu jackson c34;6348]There seems to be a misconception about the motion of the boat when hove to, which I've read about on other boards, too. It continues to move forward. Not ONLY sideways. I find with our 110 jib and either a full or reefed main, we're still going 1 3/4 to 2 plus knots. It's kinda a "diagonal" motion, lotsa sideways slip but going ahead.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, that.

You need to have some "sea room" since you will have a bit of forward motion, but I've found my MKI's is quite comfortable hove to. I've done it a quite a few times when I wanted to sit down and have lunch rather than try to hit my mouth with a sandwich with one hand while white knuckling the wheel with the other while bashing windward. I"ve found heaving to in our C36 allows for a comfortable ride, whenever a brief break is needed.

I have never reefed the main to heave to, but I do roll up enough genoa to keep it off the spreaders when backwinded. I don't think I've ever seen more than a knot or so of forward speed. Here on the Chesapeake there are only a few places where you'd typically see more than a knot or two of current, but perhaps current was contributing to the speed you saw. You didn't didn't mention if you were giving speed through the water (paddle wheel) or speed over the ground (GPS).

[QUOTE=John Reimann;6356]It was speed both through the water and over ground (as seen by watching nearby land). What I'm thinking is that as the jib is backwinded and the main in effect somewhat pushes the boat forward, maybe next time I'll try furling up half of the main and see what happens. In general, though, it's a very comfortable state of affairs. In reply to Stu: I know that I'm supposed to make a little forward progress, but not too much as if I do I'd be sailing out of the slick the side-slipping creates, thus defeating the purpose as a storm tactic.[/QUOTE]

Have you tried letting the main out all the way and traveller down?

I can't claim any experience heaving to as a storm tactic as I'm a bay sailor and "storms" for me are generally thunderstorms with gust fronts that you don't want any sail up in, so we just roll up, drop the main and motor to open water. We do cross fingers hoping to avoid a lightning strike but generally don't have to worry about breaking waves.

Heaving to as a storm tactic seems more suited to prolonged gale force winds that build up big seas. I'm not sure what conditions would favor heaving to or laying a hull.

[QUOTE=John Reimann;6356]In reply to Stu: I know that I'm supposed to make a little forward progress, but not too much as if I do I'd be sailing out of the slick the side-slipping creates, thus defeating the purpose as a storm tactic.[/QUOTE]

Nope, it doesn't defeat it, 'cuz the diagonal is where the waves would be coming from off your aft quarter. I've done this south of the Potato Patch out the Gate in pretty hefty seas, like a slalom course, with a crew member who got seasick after he left the helm. We bobbed for half an hour quite comfortably until he recovered somewhat, and then sailed back in.

Think about it, John, the very LAST thing you'd want is to have the waves abeam. You just DON'T want to be completely sideways to the wave train. That is NOT what heaving to does.

John, forget about heavy seas and storm tactics for a minute.

Think about the "slick" --- YOU'RE making it and it's always behind you in whatever direction you're going. It's called your wake, regardless of what state of sail or point of sail you are on at the time.

You seem to think the slick will be directly abeam of you, like, 90 degrees.

It's not.

It's more like 45 degrees, off the back of your right shoulder.

Because the slick is ALWAYS directly behind where YOU are heading, whatever waves are there will be flattened somewhat by that very slick.

You have the concept completely right, the only difference is your conception of what your heading is (looking at the bow) or, to put it another way: where your "slick" is.

You are also correct in thinking about balancing your sails by shortening the main, your way of reefing. Same thing.

bboggs got it right, too, about pulling in some jib. If your jib is anything over a 130 or 135 the "standard that Catalina has been selling with its boats for the past 10 years), roll it up to about a 110 with either a full or reefed main, and you're all set.

It's not always what you've read, 'cuz each boat is different, but since we've got essentially the same "bottoms" (huls, keel and rudder) that's simply what happens to "our" boats when they heave to.

You're gettin' there, very well.

[QUOTE=John Reimann;6383]According to what I've read, if you make too much forward progress you sail out of your slick, and it's the slick that is supposed to break down the seas as they approach the boat. That's the thing I'm thinking about. Does this sound right?[/QUOTE]

Stu's comments are good. What can make it confusing is the difference between the HEADING versus the COG (course over the ground) of the hove-to boat. I like to draw diagrams of the wind direction, boat heading and approximated boat motion (both forward and athwartship relative to the boat's heading) to visualize this.

Perhaps some would like to comment on the simple sketch and if it agrees with your observations. I have never had to heave-to in our C36, but have done so on several other boats of similar size.

It is impossible to heave to without some amount of motion. This is because the heaving to is, by definition, a balance between headsail aerodynamic drag and rudder effectiveness. It's a minimum amount of water flow over the rudder, that's true, but that's what balances the boat. No water flow over the rudder, no heave to.

The main is fully luffed (at least on my fin keel boat), so it wouldn't matter whether it was reefed or not.

John,

I purchase a 90% head sail and have not hoisted it yet, I would love to know how you like yours.

I purchased it to contend with our windy summer conditions on San Francisco Bay. Of course since I purchased it we have been blessed with mild conditons this summer. Is it climate change, I do not know but, our normal summers would include consistant north westerly wind at 20 to 25 KTS after about 1:00 PM every day. This year for the last two months it has been south west to 15 kts every day on the bay. We have had no summer conditions to speak of and Near my house in San Jose we have been in the mid seventies for the most part when 85-90 would be more normal.

You MUST be closehauled, before you turn, with the clew as far aft as possible to make it work, especially with a smaller jib. I HT all the time with our 85, high clewed, small jib. Please, do not try it from a beam reach, it just won't work very well because, as Larry said, it is a balance.

John, a partially reefed main is irrelevant. Once you've tacked to the HT position the main ends up completely luffed, just trailing over the lee lifelines, no load on it at all. Therefore, whether it is reefed or not doesn't matter, because the main is not sheeted in...it's just lazy.

Hi. FWIW we have found it difficult to stay less than 70 degrees from the apparent wind when in more than 35 knots or so, even with a triple reefed main and only a storm jib on an inner forestay... After this we have a parachute! I have in mind to try using just a double reefed main, someday. As mentioned above we don't want to be broadside to the seas.

In 25 knots we heave to comfortably with 2 reefs in the main, and about a metre of genoa unrolled. We don't actually STOP even though it looks like it watching the bubbles - we fore reach at about 0.7 knots over the ground. If heaving to overnight, we have gone onto the other tack to keep from moving too far.

Usually we make a small amount of forward progress (which is nice if we have a lee shore less than 10 or 15 miles away) :)