Sail Handling as Skipper

Prerequisites

• The Day Skipper level Sail Handling lesson: parts of the sail, winches, hoisting and lowering, roller furling and slab reefing. This lesson assumes you can do all of that yourself and moves on to choosing, trimming and directing.
• Heavy Weather Sailing and Heavy Weather Tactics, which cover storm sails, heaving to and running off. They are cross-referenced here, not repeated.
• At least a season of mileage as crew or Day Skipper, so that terms such as luff, leech, foot, clew, kicker and cunningham are second nature.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this lesson you will be able to (RYA Coastal Skipper practical syllabus, Sailing and boat handling: sail trim, use of sails in all conditions, and the Skippering items on crew briefing and management):

• Choose a sail plan for the wind, sea state and crew strength, and decide when to change it (RYA syllabus: sail plan appropriate to conditions).
• Trim main and headsail for speed, pointing and helm balance, using telltales, twist, traveller, backstay, outhaul and cunningham (RYA syllabus: sail trim).
• Hoist, gybe and drop an asymmetric spinnaker or cruising chute, with and without a snuffer.
• Rig a poled-out headsail safely for downwind passages, with a preventer on the main.
• Brief the crew and run a reefing drill that works in the dark and in a building wind (RYA syllabus: skippering, briefing and crew management).
• Adapt every manoeuvre for short-handed sailing.

RYA Syllabus Map

What the examiner expects. At Coastal Skipper level the instructor is no longer watching whether you can tail a winch. They watch whether you anticipate: reefing before the squall arrives, setting the chute only when the crew is ready, briefing every job before it starts, and keeping the boat upright, balanced and moving. A skipper who calls "ease the main" while the helm is already fighting weather helm is behind the boat.

The Skipper's Job with Sails

On a Day Skipper course you learn to do each sail job. As a Coastal Skipper you decide which jobs need doing, when, by whom and in what order, and you keep your own hands free enough to watch the whole boat. Three questions run through every decision:

1. Is the boat comfortable? Heel under about 20 degrees on most cruising yachts, a light helm and no slamming. A comfortable crew makes fewer mistakes.
2. Is the boat safe for the next hour, not just now? Look at the forecast, the sky to windward and the time to darkness.
3. Can this crew do the next change? A tired or seasick crew of three cannot do what a fresh crew of six can.

Choosing the Sail Plan

Wind strength and sail area

Every boat is different, so read the owner's notes or the class polars, but a typical 10 to 12 m cruising yacht with a masthead or fractional rig and a roller genoa of about 130 per cent follows something like this when sailing to windward:

Off the wind the boat feels far less wind, so you can carry more sail. The trap is that the apparent wind drops by roughly twice the boat speed when you bear away from close-hauled to a run: at 6 knots of boat speed, 20 knots true feels like about 25 close-hauled and 14 on a run. Before you round up, or turn back towards a harbour you have just run away from, look at the true wind on the instruments and reef for that.

Sea state and crew

Waves matter as much as wind. A short, steep sea against the tide stops a heavily reefed boat dead, so you sometimes need a little more power, not less, to drive through it. Conversely, a long ocean swell with 20 knots is easier than the same wind in a wind-against-tide race. Reduce sail earlier with a small or inexperienced crew, at night, when you are tired, and when you will be on one tack for many hours.

The old rule still works

If you are wondering whether to reef, reef. Shaking a reef out in a lull is easy and safe; putting one in once the boat is overpressed, heeled at 30 degrees and the crew is on the coachroof in the dark is neither.

Trimming for Speed and Balance

Telltales and the slot

On the headsail, use the luff telltales about a third of the way back from the luff at three heights. When close-hauled:

• Windward telltale lifting: you are too close to the wind or the sheet is too tight. Bear away or ease.
• Leeward telltale lifting or stalling: you are too far off the wind or the sheet is too loose. Head up or trim in.
• All three streaming together: the sheet lead and twist are right. If the top breaks first, the lead is too far aft (too much twist); move the car forward. If the bottom breaks first, move it aft.

On the mainsail, watch the leech telltales near the batten pockets. The top one should stream most of the time and hide behind the sail perhaps a third of the time. If it never streams, the leech is too tight; if it always streams, there is too much twist.

Helm balance

A well balanced yacht carries 3 to 5 degrees of weather helm in moderate air: it gently tries to round up if you let go, and the rudder adds a little lift. More than about 8 to 10 degrees means drag, a tiring helm and a broach waiting to happen. The causes are almost always too much heel and too much power in the main. In order of what to try:

1. Drop the traveller to leeward.
2. Flatten the main: more backstay, more outhaul, more cunningham.
3. Ease the mainsheet to open the leech.
4. Reef the main.

Lee helm (the boat bears away when you let go) is rare and usually means too little main or too much headsail in light air. Trim the main harder or bring the traveller up.

Depth of sail: outhaul and cunningham

A deep sail gives power for light air and for punching through waves. A flat sail gives less drag and less heel when the wind is strong. The outhaul controls the lower third of the main: ease it for power, tighten it as the wind builds and when reaching in a breeze. The cunningham (or halyard tension) pulls the draft forward; as the wind rises the draft drifts aft, so add cunningham until the small horizontal creases from the luff just disappear.

Twist

Twist is the difference in angle between the bottom and the top of the sail. Because the wind is stronger and comes from further aft higher up (the wind gradient), the top of the sail needs to be set a little more open than the bottom.

• More twist: in light air, in very strong air (to spill power from the top), and in waves when you need a wider groove.
• Less twist: in moderate air on flat water, for pointing.

You control mainsail twist with the mainsheet when close-hauled and with the kicker (boom vang) when reaching and running, because once the sheet is eased the sheet no longer holds the boom down. A common fault on a beam reach is a slack kicker: the boom rises, the top of the sail falls off to leeward and the boat heels and slows. Tension the kicker until the top batten is roughly parallel to the boom.

Headsail twist is controlled by the fore and aft position of the sheet lead. Moving the lead aft opens the top of the sail; moving it forward closes it.

Traveller and Backstay

Traveller

The traveller moves the boom across the boat without changing leech tension. That makes it the best tool for handling gusts.

• In light air, bring the traveller to windward so the boom sits near the centreline while the sheet stays eased for twist.
• In moderate air, centre it.
• In a breeze, drop it 20 to 50 cm to leeward and play it in the gusts: down as the gust hits, back up as it passes. The leech shape stays the same and the boat stays on its feet.

Many cruising yachts have the mainsheet on a short coachroof traveller or none at all. Then you have to play the mainsheet itself, and the kicker and backstay become more important.

Backstay

On a fractional rig an adjustable backstay bends the mast, flattening the main and opening the leech, and also tightens the forestay, reducing headsail sag. On a masthead rig it mainly tightens the forestay. As a rule: off in light air and choppy water for power, on progressively as the wind builds. Never tension it beyond the mark the rigger or owner gives, and ease it before you go downwind, before you reef and when the boat is left at the berth. Some boats with swept-back spreaders have no adjustable backstay at all; tension and bend are set by the shrouds.

Cruising Chute and Asymmetric Spinnaker

What it is

A cruising chute (also called an asymmetric, gennaker or cruising spinnaker; names vary by sailmaker) is a large, light sail tacked to the bow or a short bowsprit, with no spinnaker pole. It works best from a close reach of about 60 degrees apparent to a broad reach of about 150 degrees apparent. It is not designed for dead downwind, where it collapses behind the main, and most cruising chutes are rated to about 15 to 18 knots apparent. Check the sailmaker's limit and set your own lower limit for your crew.

Rigging

You need: the halyard (usually the spinnaker halyard, outside everything), a tack line to the stemhead fitting or bowsprit, two sheets led outside the forestay and the shrouds to blocks well aft, and ideally a snuffer (a sock that slides down over the sail). Before the hoist:

1. Bag the sail on the leeward side forward of the shrouds, tied on.
2. Clip on the halyard, check it is clear of the forestay and spreaders by looking up.
3. Attach the tack line, set so the tack is about a metre above the pulpit (shorter for close reaching, longer for broad reaching).
4. Attach both sheets. The lazy sheet goes around the front of the forestay, outside everything.
5. Roll away the genoa, or the chute will wrap around it.

Hoist

Bear away to a broad reach so the main blankets the foredeck. Hoist the snuffer to the top quickly, make the halyard fast, then pull the snuffer up while the trimmer sheets on. If there is no snuffer, hoist fast in the lee of the main and sheet on only when the halyard is fully up. Then come up to your course. One trimmer on the sheet, one person on the helm, and one forward is the minimum crew for a comfortable hoist; see Short-Handed Sailing for a two-person method.

Trimming

Ease the sheet until the luff just starts to curl about a third of the way down, then trim in a little. Keep playing it. If the boat heels hard and rounds up in a gust, ease the sheet hard and bear away. In a building breeze, take it down before you need to, not when the boat starts broaching.

Gybing

The asymmetric gybes outside the forestay (an outside gybe) on most cruising boats:

1. Brief: helm, new sheet trimmer, old sheet trimmer, mainsheet.
2. Bear away to a very broad reach; the main blankets the chute.
3. Gybe the main under control, centring it as the stern passes through the wind.
4. As the main crosses, the old trimmer lets the old sheet run while the new trimmer pulls the clew around the front of the forestay.
5. Come up onto the new course and trim.

In anything above about 12 knots, or with a new crew, the simpler and safer method is to snuff the chute, gybe the main, move the sheets across and rehoist. Many skippers gybe this way as a rule when cruising.

Drop

1. Bear away to a broad reach to hide the chute behind the main.
2. Ease the sheet until the sail flags.
3. Pull the snuffer down, or, without a snuffer, release the tack line first so the sail flies like a flag from the halyard and the clew, then gather it under the main and onto the foredeck or down the main hatch, lowering the halyard at the speed the crew can gather.
4. Never let the halyard run free: the sail goes in the water, gets under the boat and may wrap the propeller.

Clear and stow the sheets and halyard before you start the engine.

The Poled-Out Headsail

For long downwind passages, especially in a swell, a headsail goosewinged on a pole is far more controllable than a chute. Rig it as follows:

1. Rig a preventer on the main first. Lead a line from the boom end (not the middle of the boom, which can break the boom in a crash gybe) forward to a block at the bow and back to a cockpit winch, so it can be released under load.
2. Set the pole on the windward side with a topping lift, a downhaul (foreguy) and an afterguy so it is held in three directions. The pole end should be about level with the clew.
3. Lead the windward headsail sheet through the pole end, then unroll the headsail to the pole.
4. Trim the afterguy so the pole sits roughly at right angles to the apparent wind.

With a roller genoa you can now reef the headsail without touching the pole. To gybe, the easy and safe method on a cruising yacht is: roll the headsail away, drop the pole, gybe the main (releasing and re-rigging the preventer), and set the pole on the new side. A dip-pole gybe is a racing technique and is not worth the risk with a small crew.

On a dead run in a swell, watch for rolling. Bringing the wind 10 to 15 degrees onto the quarter usually stops it, and gybing downwind in a series of broad reaches is often faster as well as kinder.

Reefing Drills and Briefing the Crew

The Day Skipper Sail Handling lesson describes how to tie a slab reef. At Coastal Skipper level your job is to make reefing a drill that the crew can do quickly, in the dark, without shouting.

Set the boat up for reefing

• Mark each reef point on the halyard with a whipping or a coloured band so the halyard can be eased to the right mark without looking up.
• Pre-feed the reef lines before departure, with stopper knots, and check that the next reef line is not caught around the boom.
• Know whether your boat has single-line reefing (one line per reef) or two-line (separate luff and leech lines), and where every line comes to on deck.
• Agree with the owner whether the boat can be reefed off the wind. In-mast and in-boom furling have their own rules: follow the manufacturer's angle limits and never force the line.

The brief

Before you start, give a brief in three parts:

1. What and why: "We are putting in the second reef because the forecast is for gusts of 28 later."
2. Who does what: "Ann, helm, keep her close-hauled with the main just flogging. Tom, halyard and cunningham hook at the mast. Sam, reef line and sheet in the cockpit."
3. Safety: "Clip on before you leave the cockpit. Shout if anything is caught. Nobody stands in the path of the boom."

The drill (slab reef, close-hauled or close reaching)

1. Helm brings the boat to close-hauled or a close reach; ease the headsail a little if needed to keep the boat sailing.
2. Ease the kicker, tighten the topping lift (or check the rigid vang will hold the boom).
3. Ease the mainsheet until the main is depowered.
4. Lower the halyard to the mark.
5. Hook the reef cringle on the gooseneck horn, or pull down the luff reef line.
6. Re-tension the halyard.
7. Wind in the leech reef line until the cringle is tight down to the boom.
8. Ease the topping lift, re-tension the kicker, trim the mainsheet.
9. Tie in the reef points loosely around the bunched sail only (never around the boom) once the boat is settled, if the boat has them.

On a well drilled boat this takes two to three minutes. Practise it in 12 knots on a sunny afternoon so that the crew already knows it on the night it matters. Time the drill and debrief it.

Heaving to for reefing

If the boat is short-handed or the sea is rough, heave to first: tack without releasing the headsail sheet, ease the main and put the helm down. The boat lies quietly at about 50 degrees to the wind and drifts slowly, giving a stable platform. See Heavy Weather Tactics for the details. Check you have sea room to leeward before you do it.

Short-Handed Sailing

Much coastal cruising is done with two people, one of whom may be inexperienced. Every manoeuvre in this lesson needs adapting.

• Lead everything aft. Halyards, reef lines and furling lines should come to the cockpit. If they do not, plan which jobs need someone at the mast and do them in daylight.
• Use the autopilot or a wind vane as the third crew. Set it to steer while you both work, but stand by to take over; an autopilot cannot see a wave or a gust. Know how to disengage it in one movement.
• Reef early, often by the clock. Many short-handed sailors put in a reef at dusk regardless of the wind, so that no one has to go forward alone at night.
• Simplify downwind. A chute with a snuffer can be set by two, but only in steady winds and daylight. A poled-out headsail or a deep reach under main and genoa is often faster in practice because you keep it up all night.
• Gybe with care. Rig the preventer, centre the main on the sheet before the gybe, and never gybe all standing in a breeze.
• One person on deck at a time at night, clipped on, and the off-watch person woken for any job that needs going forward.
• Plan watch length so that the skipper is rested for the arrival, which is often the most demanding part of the passage.

Worked Example

You are skipper of a 36 ft masthead sloop with a crew of three (one experienced, two novices). It is mid afternoon, 15 knots true from the south west, and you are on a broad reach heading east under full main and full genoa at 6.5 knots. The inshore waters forecast says south west 4 to 5, increasing 6 later, showers. You have 30 miles to go, arriving around 2100, an hour after sunset.

Assessment. The apparent wind on a broad reach is about 10 knots, so the boat feels easy, but the true wind is already 15 and rising. You will be arriving downwind in the dark, rounding up into the harbour entrance. A Force 6 is 22 to 27 knots, which is second reef territory for this boat when you round up.

Decisions.

1. Reject the cruising chute despite the easy sailing: you could not get it down safely with two novices in 20 knots.
2. At 1700, while it is still light and the wind is 18 knots, heave to and put in the first reef. Brief it fully, give one novice the reef line in the cockpit so they learn it, and keep the experienced crew at the mast.
3. Rig a preventer for the long broad reach. Roll a few turns in the genoa as the boat starts to roll.
4. At 1930, with 22 knots true, put in the second reef before dark, on the same drill, timing it. It takes four minutes.
5. Approaching the harbour, roll the genoa away, motor-sail the last mile under the double-reefed main, then drop the main in the lee of the breakwater.

Result. The boat never became overpressed, no one went forward in the dark, and the novices did both reefs in daylight.

Common Mistakes

• Judging the wind off the wind. Reefing on the apparent wind of a run and then rounding up into 25 knots with full sail.
• Reefing the headsail only. On most masthead boats this leaves a large main and strong weather helm. Reef the main first unless the boat's notes say otherwise.
• Slack kicker on a reach. The boom lifts, the top of the main twists off, the boat heels and rounds up.
• Preventer to the middle of the boom. In a crash gybe the boom bends or breaks. Lead it from the boom end.
• Hoisting the chute with the genoa unrolled. It wraps around the forestay. Roll the headsail away first.
• Leaving the chute up too long. The breeze builds, the boat broaches and the drop becomes a fight. Take it down at your own limit, not the sail's.
• Skipper on the winch. If you are grinding, nobody is watching the whole boat. Delegate.
• No brief. Crew guess, lines are released in the wrong order, and the boom hits someone.

Summary

• The Coastal Skipper chooses, times and directs sail changes; the crew carries them out.
• Pick the sail plan for the true wind, sea state and crew, and for the next few hours, not for now.
• Balance comes from heel: drop the traveller, flatten the sail, ease the sheet, then reef.
• Twist is controlled by the mainsheet close-hauled, by the kicker off the wind, and by the sheet lead on the headsail.
• The asymmetric is for 60 to 150 degrees apparent in moderate wind; hoist and drop behind the main, and do not hesitate to snuff it to gybe.
• Rig a preventer from the boom end and pole out the headsail for long downwind runs.
• Make reefing a timed drill with a three-part brief, and reef early, especially short-handed and before dark.

Check Your Understanding

1. You are on a run at 6 knots in 20 knots true. Roughly what apparent wind do you feel, and why does it matter before you round up?

Answer: About 14 knots. When you round up to close-hauled it rises to about 25, so you must reef for the true wind before you turn.

1. The helm has 12 degrees of weather helm close-hauled in 18 knots. List, in order, what you would try.

Answer: Drop the traveller, flatten the main with backstay, outhaul and cunningham, ease the mainsheet to open the leech, then reef the main.

1. On a beam reach the top of the main is falling away to leeward and the boat is heeling. Which control is wrong?

Answer: The kicker is too slack. Tension it until the top batten is roughly parallel to the boom.

1. The top headsail telltales break well before the bottom ones. What do you change?

Answer: Move the sheet lead forward to reduce twist so the top of the sail closes.

1. Give the wind angle range in which an asymmetric spinnaker works, and the reason it fails dead downwind.

Answer: About 60 to 150 degrees apparent. Dead downwind it is blanketed by the main and collapses because it has no pole to hold it out to windward.

1. Why should a preventer be led from the boom end rather than the middle of the boom?

Answer: If the boat gybes accidentally, a preventer in the middle of the boom makes the boom act as a lever against it and can bend or break it.

1. What are the three parts of a good reefing brief?

Answer: What and why, who does what, and safety points such as clipping on and keeping clear of the boom.

1. You are two-handed with a building forecast at dusk. What is the safest reefing strategy?

Answer: Reef before dark, by the clock if necessary, heaving to for a stable platform, so nobody has to go forward alone at night.

Further Reading

• RYA Coastal Skipper and Yachtmaster Coastal practical course syllabus (rya.org.uk).
• RYA Sail Trim Handbook and RYA Day Skipper Handbook (Sail).
• Your sailmaker's guide to the boat's sails, including the wind range of the cruising chute.
• On this site: Sail Handling, Heavy Weather Sailing, Heavy Weather Tactics, Night Sailing and Watchkeeping.