Running in a Cold Front

Cold fronts are wonderful if you need to head against the prevailing winds. Their weather pattern will disrupt the normal flow of wind and allow you to make a windward passage on a run! Now, running in front of one of these systems presents an issue when it comes to balancing your sails. 

You want to be heading downwind, so leehelm will be ideal to help you steer. This means that you want to have a more headsail flying and less mainsail flying. This can be achieved by deeply reefing the mainsail and flying a full headsail. While this will work, it does incorporate the boom into the equation. There is another option that will provide you with a small mainsail and no boom: the trysail.

A trysail is a small storm sail that is flown in lieu of the mainsail. It is sheeted directly to the toe rail, so the boom is not involved in its rigging. When on a run, the sheet can be eased to the point where it almost touches the shrouds, allowing the sail to fill up nice and full without chafing on the rigging. 

Running always presents the fear of accidental jibes. With a boom, a lot of stress will be presented to the mainsheet, traveler, and gooseneck. Even a reefed sail will generate a lot of destructive force during an accidental jibe. A trysail will remove all of these fears  and allow you to sail on a run with peace of mind. 

The sheets of a trysail are rigged to the toe rail, giving them a wide lead back to the sail. Having such an angle leading to the tack of the sail will help prevent accidental jibes, as well as help hold the clew of the sail out towards the side of the boat when eased (just like a barber hauler on a headsail). If the sail does jibe accidentally, nothing really happens. 

The sail is eased and will simply flop over to the other side of the boat. If you do nothing, it will probably flop back over to where you had it set originally. As it does this, no stress or damage will occur, allowing you to relax as your precious sails and rigging will be spared from the flip flopping. 

You might feel that a trysail is a bit small to power your boat, but when properly trimmed for power in the face of a cold front, you will find it easy to achieve and maintain hull speed! This means that you will be able to sail along at full speed with a tiny sail and no headaches! 

Sails for Night Sailing

As the sun sets, you need to consider what sails you want to be flying as once it gets dark, sail changes become more complicated!

We like to fly our trysail and staysail overnight because if the weather pipes up, we are already reefed down as far as possible! We also like this sail plan because it is bothed balanced and low stress. Should the winds shift on us and cause us to jibe or luff, the sails are small and will not cause significant strain on the rigging.  

The staysail is easy to manage and can even be setup on a self tacker, allowing it to reside on the side of the bow that it wishes. The trysail does not involve the boom, so a nightime accidental jibe will not result in damage or strain on the traveler. 

These sails work great on beam and broad reaches, even a run (with a barber hauler for the staysail) but are not the best sailplan for beating.  A trysail is very small and low, with the center of effort focused near the mast. The staysail is a small jib and has its center of effort forward of the mast. The sails can be balanced for a windward course, but it will be a slow venture! 

If you are planning an overnight sail, consider planning it for a time when the wind will be at your backs and you can sail downwind with your tiny sails through the night without losing any speed. Otherwise, you will find your night time distance traveled to be miserably pathetic, which will prolong your time at sea as you make your passage. 

Sailing a Cold Front

A cold front, also referred to as a "storm" is a powerful wind that will reverse the prevailing winds. If your destination is upwind of the prevailing winds, a cold front is your ticket to thee fast lane!

A cold front always rotates clockwise with its winds, meaning that you can plan what direction the winds will be flowing by looking at a weather chart.  

Now, the intensity of a cold front will vary and you obviously don't want to head out in the face of a major storm! Looking at the closeness of the isobars will give you a clue as to how intense the winds will be. If the isobars are stacked closer together, you can bet on some pretty extreme wind! If the bars are spaced well, the winds will be lighter.  

As a cold front approaches, you want to plan on leaving as the 1020mb line approaches. This will give you good winds and a nice passage as you make your trek with the winds. 

With your passage planning, it is important to keep in mind the sea state. Waves form because of the winds. The stronger the winds, the taller the seas. Mature waves, however, need a lot of distance and some deep water to form. If the winds are blowing off the shore and onto the water, the fetch wil be less and so will the height of the waves. The other aspect to keep in mind is the water depth. If the water is shallow, waves will crest and break long before they reach their mature height.  

In winds of 30 knots, mature waves can be around 20 feet tall, but if you are in water of 30-60 feet in depth, the waves will top out at around 6-8 feet in height. This will give you the power of the wind without the uncomfortable motion of a tall sea state.  

The duration of a cold front will vary, so it is important to study all available inlets between you and your destination. This way, if the weather becomes something you do not want to endure, you can sneak into the next available inlet and escape. Also, if the winds shift or the cold front passes over you before you get to your destination, you will know where you need to go to wait for the next favorable front to continue your downwind sleigh ride!

Ocean Passage Planning

When you want to go from one place to the next, you might find that the shortest is across the ocean. If you are sailing, the quickest way across will be when the wind is blowing well and in the direction you are going. 

If there is no wind, you will have no power with your sails. If the wind is on your bow, you will have to beat into the wind and waves as you tack towards your desitnation, easily sailing 2 to 3 times the distance between the two points.  

Picking when to go based on the weather will give you the perfect conditions to make your way there quickly and easily.

If you are planning to go in the direction of the prevailing winds, then you will find it easy to choose. Since you are going with the prevailing winds, most of the days will be blowing in the right direction. This means that you will have plenty of times to choose from! Simply picking a day that has fair winds will give you ideal conditions. 

If you are planning to go in the opposite direction of the prevailing winds, then you will have to wait for a cold front to come through and reverse the winds. This will blow you to your destination, but the days are not as frequent. 

Cold fronts come through periodically, and can vary in intensity. Obviously, you don't want to go out in front of a very powerful cold front, but you also don't want to head out on a very weak one that won't be able to push you along. 

It is important to keep in mind that cold fronts are also called "storms" by other people, so be prepared for those kinds of conditions. 

We have sallied from Charelston, SC to Ferdinandina, FL moving along quickly under storm sails, and again from Ferdinandina, FL to Fort Pierce, FL thanks to strong cold fronts. 

There were small craft advisories, and we were only flying the trysail and staysail, yet we were doing 5-6 knots most of the time with periods of 8-10 knots! The ride was rough and intense, but we did manage to cover two days worth of sailing in a single day!  

We worked hard, slept little, and sailed fast. Once we arrived at our next inlet, we were able to pull in and go to sleep for the whole day!  

Blog Browsing

After much request, I have finally created a page that should help you to browse over the blog topics and find areas of interest to you, with improved ease.

Yes, the search button is nice, but you need to know what topic you want to read about in order to type it in and find the blog posts. But what if you don't know what you're looking for and simply want to browse? Well now you can!

All you need to do is visit this page (https://www.riggingdoctor.com/blog-index/) and it will show you the most important tags and categories of the page. You can simply scan the list to see if there are any topics you want to read more about. When you find a topic, a simple click will take you to a long list of posts on that specific topic!