Tacking and Jibing

[Greg]

One friend that I used to take out on my first sailboat always said,
"Ready to jibe... ready .... OK Jip Joe!"
so many times it became the standard call!
Greg

[Catigale]

I used to do calling in the beginning when I just had the Mac and took the wife out on the first run.
I don't know Kevin, there is something about that combination 'calling and wifes' that does not go together well

My flash of brilliance on this last year was to have HER call out the commands...

there is something about commands and wives that go together well

[ronacarme]

.
Greg...

On going into irons when tacking.

1. If bow swings into the wind, stalls weather-cocked there, boat speed drops to zero, and boat starts backing up.....I try moving CLR aft by pulling in CB line an inch or two at a time or CE forward by adding or sheeting foresail or by loosing mainsail sheet or reefing main; or

2. If bow won't swing into the wind (starts to and then falls off)......I try the reverse of the steps in 1. above.

Make CB adjustments with no side force on the CB. e.g. when running, or maybe at that moment in 1. above with the boat weather-cocked bow to wind.

Boat's narrow foils stall easilly and need some boat speed to develop lift, so one always needs boat speed going into a tack.

Good luck.

Ron

[waternwaves]

As KMclemore wrote.......


"Oh, S**t... the line's caught round my foot...."
"............DUCK!"
**BANG!!**

you have nice crew and calling..............

When I take foks out......I rarely get the prewarning if I am not helmsman...... Seems some are just hard to train unless they have been thumped.........

it's more like:

"Oh, S**t... the line's caught round my foot...."
**BANG!!**
"uhhhhh "............DUCK!" lol

[Tony D-26X_SusieQ]

Deck Bunnies. Don't ya just love 'em?

[Mark Prouty]

Definitions:

-Boom-
1). Laterally mounted pole to which a sail is fastened. Often used during jibing, to shift crew members to a fixed, horizontal position.
2). Called boom for sound that's made, when hitting the heads of crew, while tacking.

Crew-
Stationary objects onboard that take up valuable space, anchor cushions and dampen sudden movements of the boom.

-Tack-
A maneuver the skipper uses when telling the crew that they screwed up, without getting them mad.

MAC GREGOR

Man
A lot of
Costs
Go
Regularly and
Endlessly into this
Gol Darn
Old
Revenue sucker

[Mark Prouty]

.
On going into irons when tacking.

Where did the term "going into irons" come from. I could make up a good pirate story if a kid asked:

Well, in the old pirate days. There was this swashbuckling, sword-wielding, ruffian type guy who just loved his boat and thought it was specially designed to do everything. Why, he even thought it was specially designed to not move or sail slowly backwards when tacking so he could spend the time ironing his fine shirts. One day he took on a crew of foul-mouthed drunken pirates who thought otherwise about his boat...

...and from then on instead of hollering "Da*n, we aint moving" or "Da*n, we're going backwards" those foul mouth pirates would cuss and call out we're "going into irons."

[Frank C]

When sailors were mutineers, malcontents (beyond just drunkards), they were thrown "into irons" to immobilize them, pending a fitting sentence or consequence. The sailing ship that failed its tacking maneuver accomplished a similar result for the entire ship's company - akin to going "into irons."

[Sloop John B]

Keep it simple for the kids. When tacking, you announce: Let's prepare to come about. Okay, then watch what they're doing, they should really snap to what is expected.

You turn the wheel into the wind and say, "The helm is to lee."

Actually, you are pointing the boat into the wind. The best I imagine where this expression came from is that in doing so, you would normally swing the 'tiller/helm' to lee to accomplish this.

The boom swings over the cabin, you duck and say, "Tacking, tacking, tacking. Release!" On the last syllable your sheet tender lets go the back winding foresail and winches tight on the lee side.

A gybe is for later. You announce: let's prepare to gybe. Really watch their little asses on this one. Crank in the main and slowly turn the helm to wind. Everybody ducked down you tell them: we're gybing, we're gybing...as the boom flashes over and lashes out, you shout: Gybe ho! And it's over.

When you get into racing, "Ready about" is a little quicker than, "Let's see, guys, what do you say we get prepared to come about."

And when you thrust out the tiller, it's "Helm's a lee." And those little dingbats better tend the jib correctly.

[Andy26M]

Since jibing has been well-covered above, I'll talk about tacking. A lot of people think of tacking as simply spinning the wheel one way, letting go the sheets, and praying there is enough momentum to swing the boat round far enough to sheet the sails in on the opposite side. In fact, there is a lot more to it and you can do a lot to make it go well:

First off, with the Mac, which most would agree is not a very fast boat, and has significant freeboard, your entering argument should be to start the tacking maneuver with as much momentum as you reasonably can.

- Hence, if you are close-hauled beating to windward, thereby having fairly slow hull-speed, you want to bear off a bit (to a close reach if necessary) and gain some speed and heel before swinging up into the tack.
- Yes, I said gain heel - you prefer to enter the tack with some heel on the boat, I'll explain in a moment. You may want your crew to switch sides before the tack for this reason.

Next, you want to maintain power as long as possible through the tacking maneuver.

- Keep your sails trimmed continuously as you round up into the wind, i.e. keep them producing lift as long as possible. This means sheeting in steadily as the boat rounds up. Unless you have to turn very tightly due to an obstruction, this encourages you not to spin the rudder all the way to the stops - give your trimmer time to keep the sails producing power. Plus, as mentioned above, using full rudder on the Mac is SLOW.
- Remember the comment about heel above? Think about relative wind: as you round up into the wind, the boat is going to level out until at the point where both sails are luffing you have zero heel. For the period where the boat is losing heel, the mast is rotating laterally from heeled to upright, which pulls your relative wind towards your beam and helps you keep power coming out of the sails as long as possible. If you ever watch dinghy sailors racing in light winds, you'll see them induce significant heel prior to tacks on purpose for just the reason above - it's called "roll tacking".

Third, you want a smooth transition as the sails cross the boat.

- Mainsail: You've been trimming it in steadily through the first half of the tack, so that when it finally luffs it is close-hauled. If it is not eased while it luffs, then it is going to be sheeted way too tight as the boat continues to turn and the sail fills from the other side, and you are going to find the boat hard to steer and heeling too much - which is going to cause you to want to pop the mainsheet completely and allow the sail to run out losing all the power and control that it should be providing. Instead, what you want is to ease the mainsheet a few feet while it is luffing, setting it up for a close reach and then steering the boat to fill the sail. You may want to put a mark on the mainsheet to show where you want the sail trimmed on the tack so that you can steer right into a close reach.
- Mainsail: The center of effort of the mainsail is aft of the center of effort of the boat, hence you never want to try and backwind the main (assuming you have a traveler and could do so). Backwinding the main is going to try and hold your bow into the wind and prevent the tack, i.e. increase your tendency to go into irons.
- Foresail: Again, you've been trimming it in through the first half of the maneuver. When it luffs, you want the trimmer to pop the sheet and immediately pull in the other sheet - so the other sheet should already be on the winch and ready to go. You know your going to initially steer to a close reach and the main is being trimmed that way, so the foresail should not be trimmed any tighter than a close reach either. If it is overtrimmed, it is going to give excess lee helm which you do not want - it'll cause you to use a lot of rudder just at a time when you're trying to rebuild speed - so it's best to err on the side of leaving the foresail a little loose at first.
- Foresail: If you are going to backwind a sail, this is the one to use. All you do is have the trimmer slightly delay popping the sheet loose until the sail fills from the opposite side for a few seconds. The center of effort will be forward of the mast so will be helping to spin the bow further through the tack. Note, though, that you don't want to do this very long because it slows you down and if the wind is up, the forces on the cleat can easily and quickly get strong enough to make it very hard for the trimmer to uncleat the sheet. Just hold it long enough to give the bow swing a boost and then switch it to the other side. In ni case should you be backwinding the foresail past the point at which it could be trimmed to fill on the "correct" side.
- Foresail: In light winds with a big genny, a little bit of backwinding may also help speed the sail's travel across the foc's'le.
- If you have to be "lubberly" with a sail during a tack, then let it be the foresail. As you come out of the tack the Main is more important, because trimming it is helping you get some initial weather helm to stop the boat's swing without using max rudder.

Finally, you complete the maeuver:

- steady on the close reach, finish trimming the sails, and build boat speed back up for a few secs - then gently trim and adjust course to wherever you want to go.

Practice: On a day with good wind, take down the foresail, and practice your tacking with main only until you are good at rolling right out of the tack onto a comfortable close reach, with good control and no wild rudder gyrations. Then, add the foresail to the mix.

Observation: A great way to get a good view of tacking is to find a local fleet of one-design dinghies with jibs having a race. Follow them around the course at a non-intrusive distance and watch them maneuver. This way you can pick out a certain element like "when do they uncleat their jibs" and then watch a dozen or mor of them do that several times each - very quickly you'll be able to recognize when one of them screws it up, or who has the better technique. Seeing things done is always worth thousands of words!!

- AndyS

- AndyS

[MAC26X]

Greg
On going into irons when tacking:

The previous explanation was very thorough and accurate. Being a simple, sometimes lazy sailor, I've found the easy way to tack the Mac 26X, especially if the wind is light, and/or waves are killing the momentum:

1. If you are close-reached ease the helm a little away from the wind but not the mainsheet. This should increase speed and heel- both will add momentum.

2. Smoothly turn the wheel about 1 1/4 turns toward the tack - much more and you'll get more braking action than turning action. If you are not sheeted all the way in on both main and head sheets do it now.

3. As the bow passes through the wind don't do anything with the sheets right away. Let the headsail backwind. This will finish pulling the bow across. When the main fills the headsail can be released and reset on the other winch.


If the wind is too light for this to work smoothly, I jibe.

When jibing in lighter winds from a beam reach I don't even bother sheeting in the main. As I turn downwind I grab the mainsheet lines (all of them) just under the boom and manually swing the boom across, easing it out on the other side as it fills. I wouldn't recommended this in strong winds.