I have wondered what the limiting factor would be when carrying too much sail area, and had a chance to test it out over a 5 hour sail. Part of the reason is I do sail and race solo so knowing what to expect is an advantage, and also Lake Ontario does get variable weather and sometimes poor forecasting.
The day in question started in the high teens and ended in 30+ kts. I flew a full main and North 3Di 155% double handed. As expected simple trim worked well to where we normally fly this combination, the 17 - 18 kt true range. With more twist and halyard tension things stayed OK up to 22 kts true and in combination with pointing up ( feathering ) we could go well to wind and stay upright to about 24 kts. Surprisingly the VMG was good ( about 28 degrees AWA ) and leeway was minimal. I could sense the limit arriving at 27 kts true. Windburn was feathered pretty tight and sail area was depowered so the equilibrium between over the bow wind drag and force generated in the sails was getting close. The limiting effect was wave height though. When we got hit by the random "significant" swell it depowered us too much going up into it and then falling off the back side forced a tack. We were ready for the tack so that was fine but recovering from full canvas sideways in 27+ knots doesn't work well. My take is that there is no way to power up into the wind so falling way off and building hull speed downwind is required first. I could not tack normally so had to time rounding up with a wave to get over, and then head down wind again before trimming back up into the wind. Hopefully a skill set never required. Michael Brown Windburn C&C 30-1 Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2016 10:12:11 -0800 From: Russ & Melody <russ...@telus.net> To: cnc-list@cnc-list.com Subject: Re: Stus-List When to reef C&C 33-2 Message-ID: <mailman.136.1455406433.2560.cnc-list_cnc-list....@cnc-list.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; Format="flowed" Dwight's content should not be missed. Crew weight is as important as apparent wind speed & angle and maybe even include time to destination or course change for deciding "when to reef". For me, a simple observation "is the toe-rail getting buried" is the tell-tale. If she can't be put back on 'er feet by dropping the traveller, flattening the main or easing the vang & sheet to twist off the head, changing course a bit, getting some "wellies to weather" then it's time to reef. Let the toe-rail be your guide. This goes for any size of our boats, they are not initially tender so it is not fast or comfortable to sail "on yur ear". Cheers, Russ Sweet 35 mk-1 Vancouver Island
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