Helm balance - Pearson Wanderer

[svMira]

I'm finally getting a chance to sail my boat more this year and I'm having trouble balancing the sail rig. I don't know when I should be using the main, as the boat wants to head up in the wind so badly that putting more sail up further aft just makes it worse. I'm sure it is just an education thing. <grin>

My boat is a 30' Pearson Wanderer. This is my second season with it on lake Winnipeg in Manitoba. Last year was a very short season, just getting it in for a few weeks before the end of the summer and then having a string of fall weekends with terrible weather. This year, I got it launched later than I had hoped and am doing more project work than sailing, but that's fine.

I have a 150 on a furler up front and a main with the factory rolling boom furling. I serviced the boom before launch and it rotates smoothly now. Both sails are older and plenty soft. No other sails came with the boat.

Prior to this, I had a Tanzer 22 for four years that had a good compliment of hank-on sails and got to know reasonably well when the boat was out of balance and needed a change to get the helm light and straight for the course I wanted. I had found a handy guide online that gave me a good idea what sails someone with experience would use. (http://members.tanzer22.com/Home/new-le ... april-1974 - The section below "Beating") I've been looking online for something like that for the Alberg 30, (No point in looking for Wanderer info, there's only 177 of those built) presuming it was a similar boat to my Wanderer, and I could adapt the info, but I'm finding nothing.

I'm looking for someone to tell me what is 'normal' sail to carry in different conditions and what it is that I'm either doing wrong or not understanding about sail trim that my boat would want to point up so badly.

[atomvoyager]

If you are fighting excess weather helm you handle that by reefing the main more than the jib until you have less weather helm.

There are many variables that go into a reefing schedule (sea state, displacement, stiffness of boat, direction of travel
relative to wind, size of furling jib, full batten main or partial or battenless, etc). Sail combos are something you work out
individually. But as a rough guide this is how I sail my Triton, the Alberg 30 and similar boats:

If upwind the boat is heeling to where the rail is under or speed is above 6kts downwind and the boat seems hard pressed (rolling, rounding up, hard to steer) I reef the main first. As wind increases more I put at least three rolls in the furling jib, then 2nd reef, then several more rolls in jib, then more rolls until about 60% furled then 3rd reef, then more rolls in jib, then jib only if downwind. Going upwind I may switch from deep furled jib to storm jib if I need more efficiency. If you use roller reefing on the boom then you may want to switch to slab reefing for better sail set and less handling problems, Meanwhile, you can make a guess as to the number of rolls to equal the 3 reef points mentioned above.

Here's an old thread on sail trim which has some good info:

viewtopic.php?f=24&t=5826

[CapnK]

Hi Mira - In addition to James excellent advice, I'd suggest you make a quick check of your rig to see that it is in tune. It's unlikely, but possible that this could be a contributing factor.

You have a built in rig tune detector: your good old Mark 1 Eyeballs. Put one up against the mast and sight up it along the sail track. You'll be able to easily see any curve or bend that way. If all appears straight, then:

Hang a weight on your main halyard.
If it comes right down along the mast, then you know you don't have much (if any) mast rake.
If instead the weight hangs some inches out along your boom, then the mast is raked, and you may need to straighten up the rig. Do this by easing the backstay and tightening the forestay just a bit at a time to remove the rake. On our GOB's, generally the spar should be pretty much straight up and down.

If instead of plain rake you see that the top of your mast curves aft and the middle part forward, then some hotshot has put 'prebend' into your rig. You can get rid of this by loosening the forward lower shrouds while taking up on the afters. You may need to adjust the fore and aft stays a bit as well during the process. Again, a little at a time, and checking progress with each adjustment.

Hopefully all is straight in your rig and you just need to play with the sails more.

[svMira]

Managed to take some measurements at a calm anchorage. Turns out I have about 4 1/2" mast rake aft, measured 6' off the deck. So that's 4 1/2" on 29'. Works out to about 0.74 degrees of rake. That has to be negligible. I don't have any thing to take out at the bottom/top of my furler to make the head stay shorter.

Embarrassingly, I found that my topping lift wasn't long enough to let me tension the mainsail all the way. I was getting good resistance sheeting in and though I had the sail tight, and when sailing by myself I hadn't look at it in quite the right way to see what was going on. I had some crew on board this last week and that allowed me to get a different perspective and I saw right away that something was up, so now I'm able to flatten the main better. That'll help.

I do need some kind of better heavy weather sail set up. I was out in 25 knot gusts with just a few rolls of the jib out, but the shape was so terrible that the leading edge was flogging while the aft was loaded up tight. I'm up for recommendations on heavy air sails. I'm reluctant to coll them storm sails, as I understand that's a whole level of serious that I'm not meaning at the moment. I'm interested by a solent stay and a hank on jib. I can well imagine the deck fitting, but I'd like to know where/how to attach it to the mast. And, what size should the sail be? I picked up a brand new UK sail that I used on my Tanzer 22 and it was quite a delight. Quite a narrow thing, but it so manageable. I could see that getting quite a bit of use where I am on Lake Winnipeg.

[atomvoyager]

My first choice would be to replace the old genoa with a new one around 135-145% (depending on what other light air headsail options you have) with foam luff and that might be all you need, especially for lake sailing. If you don't want to do that there are lots of examples online of how to set up a solent stay. About 12-18" below the masthead you can thru-bolt a stainless strap or mast bail. You might get one from a rigging supply or make your own by bending the strap to fit the curve of the mast. You either need to install an internal halyard with sheave box and exit plate or hang another halyard from the stay tang assembly. Or for lake sailing you could probably get by using the spinnaker halyard. I'm assuming you're not going to be able to drop the furling genoa when the wind gets up and you decide to deploy the jib. Take care not to wrap your halyard in the furler. You can see it gets complicated and add to that even with the best intentions few people want to go forward in dirty weather to wrestle with headsails so a new genoa with foam luff is a good compromise.

Here's a link to some photos o fthe mast fitting for the solent stay. This one is not thru-bolted but apparently good enough:

http://old-matelot.blogspot.com/2012/11 ... -stay.html

You could use a 90-100% jib on it if that's the point where your furled genoa starts to lose a useful shape upwind. And a smaller storm jib. By the way, a jib of say 60 sq ft or even larger is commonly referred to as a storm jib on 30 foot boat but that is too much sail for a true storm on a light small boat in big seas. Something around 45 sq ft might work better at 30kts plus but you just have to sail with various size jibs in heavy weather and work out your boat's best size.