Sailing in a Storm

During storm conditions, you set and fly storm sails; this sounds logical, but which storm sails should you set and why?

Most people think of the storm trysail as the storm sail. When heavy weather approaches, sailors will lower all their sails and set only the trysail. Then these boats find it incredibly difficult to continue sailing during the storm, attributing it to the storm and not to the fact that they have their sails set incorrectly.

When sailing on a brisk day, would you raise only your mainsail, leaving your jib furled up or on the deck? Never! Sailing bald headed will make the boat horribly unbalanced and hard to control. You need some sail forward of the mast to move the center of effort closer to the center of lateral resistance. This will balance the helm and allow the boat to sail under more control and more comfortably through the water.

The same holds true during a storm, raising only a small scrap of sail, also known as a trysail will set the center of effort well aft of the center of lateral resistance. This small sail will provide some control during the storm, but not very much. As irrational as it may seem, you actually want more sail during the storm to balance out the sailplan and afford you more control during the storm. This additional sail is known as a storm jib.

The storm jib works in synchronous with the storm trysail to balance out the sailplan and allow you to continue sailing under control and comfort during wicked blows. Storm jibs come in a variety of styles, due to the varied nature of headsails. The most common styles of storm jibs are those for:

• Sloops with roller furling headsails
• Sloops with hank on headsails
• Cutters

Sloops with roller furling headsails are not able to take their headsail off during a blow and raise the small storm jib. Instead these storm jibs hook over the rolled up headsail. This offers an easy way to set a storm jib while also insuring against the headsail un-furling during the storm. The downside to this system is the headsail can chafe on the UV cover of the furled headsail. 

Sloops with hank on headsails simply lower their headsail and raise a dedicated storm jib. This is the cleanest way to set a storm jib as there is minimal resistance from the bare stay as compared to the massive wind resistance of a furled headsail. 

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trysail#/media/File:Sturmbesegelung_2010.JPG

While both of these options provide a suitable headsail for storm conditions to balance out the storm trysail, they are not in the best of locations. Setting a storm jib on the headstay means that the center of effort has been moved very far forward. This will make control and comfort less than ideal, but still better than flying only a storm trysail.

Cutters have the advantage of having an inner forestay. This stay usually flies a staysail, which looks like a small jib. The ideal is to remove the staysail and a storm jib set on the inner forestay. This would place a small storm jib ahead of the storm trysail to balance the boat, but still keeping the sails low and centered to the hull, improving control and comfort during the storm. With a balanced sailplan during the storm, you will be able to sail in extremely high winds in a similar fashion to when you are sailing in lesser conditions.

While the staysail is small, it is usually too large to function as a storm jib when paired with a storm trysail. Our staysail produces too much lee helm and overpowers the trysail, making it impossible for us to sail to windward during strong storms. For this reason, we had our staysail made out of very heavy sailcloth, allowing it to serve as our storm jib when we tuck in a reef. 

Not the prettiest of reefs, but the storm was approaching and I had other matters to attend to.

A reefed staysail made out of very heavy sailcloth (storm sail grade) will serve as an easy to set storm jib that will balance the storm sailplan and without needing to take the staysail off the stay, bag it, pull out the storm jib, and hank it on. A mousing was tied on the snap shackle to avoid accidental openings during the storm. 

With this sailplan, we were able to claw our way off a lee shore during sustained 40 knot winds. Once further from the shore with enough water to drift through, we lowered the reefed staysail and hove to under the trysail alone.

With the staysail raised, we were able to sail comfortably, but had some difficulty heaving to. With the staysail lowered, our forward motion slowed and we hove to easily; the boat drifted sideways through the water and kept the bow towards the weather. This made weathering the rest of the storm very easy for us!

The difference between the storm jib and trysail, vs trysail alone was dramatic! If you plan to make headway off a lee shore under only a trysail, you will find yourself facing an impossible task. You will need the balance and drive provided by the storm jib and trysail to work your way to windward in an emergency.

Trysail Setup

The trysail is a very small sail set in place of the main for storm conditions. It is considered one of the two sails that are never used on a sailboat, the other being the spinnaker. This is probably because people like to turn into powerboats during a storm by dropping all the sails and cranking up the engine.

The problem with this is the extreme motion of the boat during a storm is sediment in the fuel tank can become suspended in the fuel and clog the fuel filter. This is why you always hear of sailors complaining that their engine died at the worst time possible during a storm. If you were relying on your engine, then now you are adrift! Laying a hull under bare poles has been proven a horrible storm tactic, leading the boat to lay beam to the seas and usually capsizing or rolling over completely. When your engine dies in the peak of the storm is not the ideal time to raise your trysail, but at that point, you might be willing to "try" anything, even that "sail".

Being how we don't have the luxury of motoring during a storm (our electric motor doesn't have enough charge to power us through a long storm), we rely on our sails and have actually used the trysail a few times! As soon as we see a severe storm on the horizon heading our way, we rig our trysail. This lets us get everything ready and rigged in calm weather so we are ready for the storm as soon as it hits. 

The trysail runs up its own mast track next to the mains track. This allows the trysail to be raised without removing the mainsail. 

The sheets of the trysail are run to a turning block aft, and then forward to a large sheet winch. A simple bowline tied to the clew will hold very well during the harshest of blows. 

It is important to make sure the lazy sheet is run over the boom and not under it. When it is led over the boom, the sail is able to switch to the other side without issue. If the sheet is led under the boom, the boom will interfere with the sails ability to be on the opposite tack.

The trysail has fallen out of favor by most sailors who state that they could more easily tuck in a third or fourth reef into their mainsail than to rig up a trysail. This is a true statement, trysails take some time to rig in fair weather (before the storm) and could be nearly impossible to rig during a strong blow! 

Trysails do have their place though, as they are made out of much heavier sail cloth and are purpose built to weather out a storm. This means that your mainsail is not subjected to all the wear and tear of a storm. If your deeply reefed main were to tear or rip during the storm, you would have no mainsail once the storm has passed. If you tear or rip your trysail during a storm, your main is still untouched and ready to hoist once conditions improve!

The other advantage of a trysail in a heavy blow is it takes the boom out of the equation. Jibing the main can be an eventful occurrence in heavy wind. The boat will heel over greatly and the boom will slam to the other side as it falls past the midship point! Accidental jibes due to wind shifts or purely accident are risky and dangerous during high wind situations. The trysail takes the boom out of the equation and lets you jibe it as easily as you jibe your jib! Simply turn the boat, loosen the windward sheet and tension the leeward sheet; it takes all the fear and noise out of storm sailing. 

On a final note, the storm trysail has less going on than a reefed main, which translated into less to break during the storm. The sheet is tied to the clew, run to a turning block and set on a strong winch. Any snags or problems are easy to identify and straightforward to correct. 

Barber Hauler Setup

The process of setting up a barber haul is very simple, all you need is a snatch block!

On a beam to broad reach, the headsail is eased, causing it to twist and loose efficiency. 

The first step is to ease the headsail until there is slack in the line but not so much that the sail begins to flog. This will reduce the tension on the sheet, allowing you to place it into the snapshackle by hand. Then sheet the sail back in and trim to the apparent wind.

Now the headsail is able to hold a better sail shape, resulting in higher efficiency and more speed through the water. 

With the better sail shape, you can reach your downwind mark in less time and more comfort!

Tanbark Sails on the Horizon

In a world where everyone motors their sailboat (even to downwind destinations), it's nice to see sails raised on the horizon. These weren't your regular "white triangle" off in the distance though. 

These were tanbark sails! Boosts don't come with tanbark sails, so the owner had to make a deliberate choice to go with tanbark. These tend to be people who actually sail their boat! 

When he got closer, we could see that he also has a cutter rig. As quickly as he appeared on the horizon,  he left just as quietly since we were sailing on opposite courses. 

Barber Haul Effectiveness

While on a broad reach, the staysail is eased and the clew hooks back towards the staysail tracks on the deck. At the same time, the leech twists and spills the air out of the top of the sail. This all leads to decreased efficiency in the sail and less speed through the water.

By simply rigging a barber hauler, all of these problems can be corrected.  

The barber hauler pulls the clew out towards the rail, and removes twist from the leech of the sail. Now the sail can be properly set to use the air on a broad reach in the most efficient way possible. 

When the winds are light, this added efficiency means you can continue moving at a reasonable pace instead of seeing the iron genoa! In our case, we were moving at 2.5kn under main and staysail. This may seem way too slow for most, which is what motivated us to rig the barber hauler. Once the barber hauler was set up, we began moving at 3.5kn. Still slow by most standards, but we were still moving under just sail with out the use of a motor.  

When it is blowing harder, we don't set up the barber hauler because we are moving fast enough and we don't feel the need to improve the sails efficiency.