Knockdowns

[Rolf]

Another excellent day of sailing here in LA, with 15-20 mph afternoon winds. After a fast upwind power along the Palos Verdes peninsula, we ate lunch and began a lengthy, casual downwind sightseeing sail of 3-5 knots with genoa only, finally turning back into Angels Gate (LA Harbor) with a series of beam reach tacks back upwind averaging 5-6 knots.

What a blast! Our casual beer drinking cruise turned into a seat of your pants, heavily heeled thrill cruise where we "dug a rail" two or three times, all still under genoa only. This may be old hat for most of you, but is still relatively new territory for this greenhorn.

I was curious how far the Mac could be pushed safely, and if anybody here has some good knockdown, be careful or else this will happen to you stories. The x continues to surprise me with its versatility, and in a good wind can sail with most of the best of them in her class.

Rolf-albatross-2002x

[Jeff S]

Wow, The Mac has a pretty significant freeboard- putting the gunwale in the water is a pretty significant heel! I have only been to 30 degrees and with my experience at sailing, especially with the Mac that was a little uncomfortable. What angles did you see? On the Speedy Rigger videos it says at 50 degrees you are going over- not sure. I am curious as well from those who have gone over.

Jeff S

[Tom Spohn]

At 20 knots you should consider a double reefed main and the genny furled to about 50%. On an X the boat handles better with both sails up whereas the M will do OK on just the mainsail.

[Rolf]

It was definitely a case of "ignorance is bliss". Since I was using a genoa only with no furler, my only real option was to loosen up the sail, take it down, or "pump" it by going into and then quickly away from the wind. I realize this is probably not the smartest solution given the Macs light rigging. My seasoned sailing buddy commented the forestay wasn't as taut as most sailboat's are. He is always the picture of calm but even he had a concerned look on his face and questioned the Mac's limits.

I was riding the helm with one foot on the back port seat and the other almost horizontal next to the starboard aft gas tank. The boat was definitely close to 70 degrees perpindicular to the water, but still felt "solid". This is probably way too dangerous a heel but was a hull of a blast " balancing" on the edge. We also pointed into the wind better than I ever have before, only needing two tacks to cover the one mile distance back up to Cabrillo Marina.
Rolf

[Tom Spohn]

Hmmmmm The X actually loses performance when heeled much beyond 25 degrees, so it is best to chose a strategy to keep the heeling angle below that. Best way in winds over 15 or 20 knots is reefing the main (or double reefing depending on the wind and gustiness) and keeping the jib small. The X definitely balances better if both sails are up. For speed the sails should be kept flat with some vang on the main and the jib leads forward on the track. However; when I am sailing with the Admiral (wife Jean) I put some twist in the sails by reducing the vang and moving the jib car back. This allows some of the high-speed air at the top of the sails to spill and reduces the lean. Sometimes I let out the sails further than the telltales and streamers are telling me to, but I can always keep the heel less than 20 degrees which is the point the Admiral gets really cranky. Sailing like this at 6 1/2 knots is a blast!

[Rolf]

Tom you are definitely correct. At 6 knots with such a heavy heel it felt like we were doing 10 knots, or at least should've been. Super fun, but also super scary.
Rolf

[Tony D-26X_SusieQ]

Speedy Rigger says
"On the Speedy Rigger videos it says at 50 degrees you are going over- not sure. "

However Jeff also sails without ballast most of the time too. From my experiances as long as you keep the sails out of the water she will come right back up. You do loose signifigant speed and control as well as gaining a lot of grief from the Admiral but you can have a lot of fun if you can stand the flack.

[Doug Faigel]

I have an inclinometer on my X. Above 30-35 degrees the boat reliably rounds up into the wind. This happens with just Genoa up, too (no main). It's a hard boat to knock down so that it stays down!

Most inclinometers only go to 45 degrees. So when people say they are healing at 50 or 70 degrees, while it might feel like that much, it is probably closer to 35 or 40.

Doug

[Scott]

During the regatta this week we were layed over flat 2 or 3 times before I realized we had not refilled the ballast after towing the tube last weekend.

Made for a disheartening last place in both heats.

[Zoran]

Scott, and you recover after that, what you did. I was told that if you are laid over with no ballast then you turtle.

Zoran

[Scott]

Sorry Zoran, Figure of speech. We did dip the rail though.

The wind was only 9-12 and we were burying the rail. Odd. A little too much going on jockying for the start for me to remember the ballast. Realized it when we got passed by the 3 boats we normally beat.

[Dimitri-2000X-Tampa]

Scott, are you saying you got knocked down flat with no ballast? If so, how did you recover? Did you have to stand on the CB and pull on the jib halyard?

And secondly, why do you suppose you were going slower than if you had ballast in?

[GBroga]

Last year I went to marathon and rented a nice house on the water. We had a blast with the boat every day. One day I took the nanny and my oldest daughter or 3 yrs out to go lobstering and swimming. We were staying on the ocean side and fast motored all the way over to the gulf side. After playing for most of the day we decided to head back. I noticed a big storm in the distance but paid no real attention to it. I started sailing downwind and things were great with the roller furled 150 and main hanging out there. The speed slowly started to pick up till I was really impressed that we were nearly on plane! I looked at the balast valve and to my horror it was open and while I looked back the sky was black with some cumulonimbus mamma racing towards me. I thought if I could go into irons I would drop the sails start the motor and just let the ballast fill again. I tried to bring in the main before the turn but it was just getting faster. I decided to make my move and turn I released the sails and I turned to port and slowly. Immediatly it went over slowly. My passengers were now laying on the stbd side at the dining table. The motor was out of the water and useless. I tried to pull in the furler but the strain on the rig had popped the furler up a bit and locked it. I had managed to get the CB all the way down and was looking at it. The water never came over the cockpit but were right there. I just tied a line off to the mast and tied a loop in it and crawled up over the port side and hung off like the old days and hobie cats. It went on for 8 mins but it seemed like hours.. The boat finally weather vained into irons and uprighted. I was terrified but learned a valuable lesson about balast and wx. I know the boat wont go all the way over now but wont be testing that theory anytime soon...learn from others mistakes......

[Scott]

No my apologies to everyone. I did not lay my boat over flat. I layed it over far enough that the rub rail was at the waterline.

Yes I was ignorant enough to sail competetivly sans ballast.

To recover I just pop the sheets. A good indication of this necessity is my wife yelling at me.

I was going slower for 2 reasons:
1. The boat was heeling hard enough that it was spilling wind hard.
2. Every time the boat would pop over hard (It happened quickly) My wife would point up and stall us.

I was getting frustrated she was getting mad at me, turns out she was right. Ballast is my job.