Commodore Mar 09

March is certainly a fickle month Last weekend the weather was beautiful and the wind plentiful Gave us a great start on our pursuit season This weekend it seems we are back to winter But anything under 55 degrees seems like winter to me I have lost all my northern blood As Beverly says ldquoNot one inch further Northrdquo

In April we will be having our premier event The Guntersville Cup It will be our nineteenth year and I would like to encourage everyone to come out and enjoy the lake and the club that weekend There will a dinner on Friday night with some good shop talk around the patio fireplace that evening The race on Satur-day can be fun even if you do not race Come on out and join the spectator fleet for some great picture tak-ing opportunities or maybe even volunteer to help the Race Committee Just being out on your boat with a beautiful sailing event in the back ground can be a thrill

Saturday night we will be having a delicious barbeque dinner and hopefully some ldquomildrdquo entertainment And donrsquot forget the silent auction We have a nice selection of merchandise and gift certificates to bid on The proceeds from the auction are used to support the many activities and events sponsored by the club to make your trip to the lake a little more enjoyable So book April 24-25 for a great weekend at the lake

A number of people donate time and effort to the club and I think we miss opportunities to recognize their efforts and contributions Last year Randy Rathman donated a 27rdquo television set and DVD player to the club The club responded and purchased a TV stand (thanks to proceeds from the silent auction) so we now have a little entertainment center to go along with the fine furniture provided by the new owners We had several enjoyable evenings last year watching both instructional and fictional sailing videos Learned a little and dreamed a lot

Also want to thank Amy Stapleton for donating some art work She gave us a beautiful metal sailing ship sculpture that is mounted above the patio fire place It really helps the club house feel a bit more ldquohomeyrdquo Thanks again Amy

I would also like to thank the many members who do those little unnoticed things that keep the club fun and looking sharp Thanks for keeping the trash emptied the chairs straightened up the kitchen cleaned the floors vacuumed the pictures straight the sinks wiped out and all the other little courteous chores that if we all participate makes life easier for all

CommodoreKeith Kuhlman

March 2009 lakeguntersville-

HEY ITrsquoS MARCH FIRST IN GUNTERSVILLE Thanks to Keith for these photos early Sunday Morning And the other from John Frost Spring is really

almost here

YES SUMMER IS ALMOST HERE

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

Catalina 22 Simplicity trailerability durability and the endearing and enduring qualities of the Catalina 22 helped to launch the trailer sailing market Although many other designs have entered the fray this pocket cruiser re-mains at the top of the mobile sailing heap Designed by Frank Butler in 1969 the center board version of the Catalina 22 went into production in 1970 and has remained in production ever since More than 16000 have been built

1973 the poptop was introduced to give sailors covered standing headroom while moored

1974 Catalina Yachts introduced the fin-keel version with the wing keel following 10 years later

1985 the boat was restyled a bit with the introduction of the Mark II

1995 For the boats 25th anniversary the designers have introduced the Mark III with a new interior

With a user friendly cockpit simple but workable interior simple rigging and low upkeep the boats are a natural for the first time boat buyer or a step between a sailing dinghy and a larger cruising boat In many cases when owners move up to bigger boats they keep their 22s to pass on to family members or to race in the one-design circuit The Catalina 22 National Class Association is one of the strongest in sailing

The Catalina 22 has defined the pocket-cruising trailerable class for the last 25 years With stalwart sailing qualities an exceptional builder fanatic owner support and a strong class association the boats future is assured

Last fall Judith and I saw a Catalina 22 wandering down the river with a boom tent A yellow boat with a Califor-nia Hailing Port We talked to them for a minute They were sailing the length of the Tennessee system and had started out in Knoxville Indeed from California John Frost said he anchored with them in Short Creek and that the gentleman was a retired firefighter Having a blast And I thought about the benefits of having a boat you could so easily explore with Judith had never seen the inside of a C-22 so she didnrsquot realize just how comfortable the boat was below Part of Frank Butlerrsquos success in the boat comes from the very simple and workable interior I have not sailed a lot on the boats but have sailed against them I have been fortunate enough to live in several places

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

httpwwwcatalina22orgclick on link

NEXT MONTH THE J-24

HEY ITrsquoS MARCH FIRST IN GUNTERSVILLE Thanks to Keith for these photos early Sunday Morning And the other from John Frost Spring is really

almost here

YES SUMMER IS ALMOST HERE

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

Catalina 22 Simplicity trailerability durability and the endearing and enduring qualities of the Catalina 22 helped to launch the trailer sailing market Although many other designs have entered the fray this pocket cruiser re-mains at the top of the mobile sailing heap Designed by Frank Butler in 1969 the center board version of the Catalina 22 went into production in 1970 and has remained in production ever since More than 16000 have been built

1973 the poptop was introduced to give sailors covered standing headroom while moored

1974 Catalina Yachts introduced the fin-keel version with the wing keel following 10 years later

1985 the boat was restyled a bit with the introduction of the Mark II

1995 For the boats 25th anniversary the designers have introduced the Mark III with a new interior

With a user friendly cockpit simple but workable interior simple rigging and low upkeep the boats are a natural for the first time boat buyer or a step between a sailing dinghy and a larger cruising boat In many cases when owners move up to bigger boats they keep their 22s to pass on to family members or to race in the one-design circuit The Catalina 22 National Class Association is one of the strongest in sailing

The Catalina 22 has defined the pocket-cruising trailerable class for the last 25 years With stalwart sailing qualities an exceptional builder fanatic owner support and a strong class association the boats future is assured

Last fall Judith and I saw a Catalina 22 wandering down the river with a boom tent A yellow boat with a Califor-nia Hailing Port We talked to them for a minute They were sailing the length of the Tennessee system and had started out in Knoxville Indeed from California John Frost said he anchored with them in Short Creek and that the gentleman was a retired firefighter Having a blast And I thought about the benefits of having a boat you could so easily explore with Judith had never seen the inside of a C-22 so she didnrsquot realize just how comfortable the boat was below Part of Frank Butlerrsquos success in the boat comes from the very simple and workable interior I have not sailed a lot on the boats but have sailed against them I have been fortunate enough to live in several places

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

httpwwwcatalina22orgclick on link

NEXT MONTH THE J-24

Catalina 22 Simplicity trailerability durability and the endearing and enduring qualities of the Catalina 22 helped to launch the trailer sailing market Although many other designs have entered the fray this pocket cruiser re-mains at the top of the mobile sailing heap Designed by Frank Butler in 1969 the center board version of the Catalina 22 went into production in 1970 and has remained in production ever since More than 16000 have been built

1973 the poptop was introduced to give sailors covered standing headroom while moored

1974 Catalina Yachts introduced the fin-keel version with the wing keel following 10 years later

1985 the boat was restyled a bit with the introduction of the Mark II

1995 For the boats 25th anniversary the designers have introduced the Mark III with a new interior

With a user friendly cockpit simple but workable interior simple rigging and low upkeep the boats are a natural for the first time boat buyer or a step between a sailing dinghy and a larger cruising boat In many cases when owners move up to bigger boats they keep their 22s to pass on to family members or to race in the one-design circuit The Catalina 22 National Class Association is one of the strongest in sailing

The Catalina 22 has defined the pocket-cruising trailerable class for the last 25 years With stalwart sailing qualities an exceptional builder fanatic owner support and a strong class association the boats future is assured

Last fall Judith and I saw a Catalina 22 wandering down the river with a boom tent A yellow boat with a Califor-nia Hailing Port We talked to them for a minute They were sailing the length of the Tennessee system and had started out in Knoxville Indeed from California John Frost said he anchored with them in Short Creek and that the gentleman was a retired firefighter Having a blast And I thought about the benefits of having a boat you could so easily explore with Judith had never seen the inside of a C-22 so she didnrsquot realize just how comfortable the boat was below Part of Frank Butlerrsquos success in the boat comes from the very simple and workable interior I have not sailed a lot on the boats but have sailed against them I have been fortunate enough to live in several places

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

httpwwwcatalina22orgclick on link

NEXT MONTH THE J-24

where they raced PHRF in their own fleets And that is the real allure of the boat To have twenty or so boats in their own start and fleet is pretty exciting The Catalina Class Association is by far the best and most active in the world I like the fact that they take the time and effort to get people involved and also have racing programs and regattas for both the dead serious racer and the beginner Regional and local Regattas And the Midwinters and Nationals are really exciting Critics often complain that the boat doesnrsquot measure up to say a J-22 But itrsquos like comparing apples and oranges I just canrsquot think of a better family boat And C-22 owners often keep their boats a long time A great starter boat And Catalina and Frank Butler have a very loyal following Irsquom told that over sixty percent of their customers are previous Catlaina owners So if you are looking for a boat to get started or want to do some serious class racing and donrsquot want to break the bank try out a Cat 22 Keith Khulman tells me that the older boats are much favored for racing So for about two thousand for a boat another two in sails and maybe two in hardware you can go racing big time and be very competitive There is a reason they are still in production and that they have built over 16000 of them

One of the things that Catalina did on the 22 was very excellent They provided handholds the near-ly the length of the house The side decks are narrow so they really help The sport version seen to the

left does not have the handholds But the regular versions do The new Mark III boats have a whole new hull to deck flange and the side decks are just a tad wider Notice the wider side deck on the boats below

Most racers launch the spinnaker from the cabin AKA as j-24 Set Nice pop top arrangement

Fun at the Nationals in Fort Walton Beach Fla Qizz Who has the right of way

httpwwwcatalina22orgclick on link

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

Lake Guntersville Sailing ClubNOTICE OF RACE 19th Annual GUNTERSVILLE CUP REGATTA

NOTICE OF RACE 19th ANNUAL GUNTERSVILLE CUP REGATTA

Lake Guntersville April 24 amp 25 2009 Hosted by Lake Guntersville Sailing Club

The Lake Guntersville Sailing Club (LGSC) is pleased to invite you to participate in the 19th Annual Guntersville Cup Regatta to be held out of the Lake Guntersville Marina Rte 431 north of Guntersville on beautiful Lake Guntersville Alabama

This is a one-day two-or-more races regatta

Schedule of EventsFriday April 24 2009

1800 Italian Diner amp Social LGSC Club House1900 Skippers Meeting LGSC Club House

Saturday April 25 2009

0730 Coffee Juice etc LGSC Club House0955 Warning Signal 1st Race Lake Guntersville1000 Starting Signal 1st Race Lake GuntersvilleASAP Warning Signal 2nd Race Lake GuntersvilleASAP + 5 min Starting Signal 2nd Race Lake GuntersvilleA 3rd Race may be run ASAP after the 2nd Race if time is available1700 Social Hour LGSC Club House1800 Barbeque Dinner LGSC Club House1900 Awards Presentation LGSC Club House

ASAP - As soon as possible after the preceding race

The Regatta is open to all mono-hull sailing boats with an enclosed cabin self right-ing and greater than 20-ft length and will be governed by the 2009-2012 Rules of Racing the prescriptions of the US Sailing Association the Navigation Rules Interna-tionalInland Waterways and the Sailing Instructions

RULES OF THE REGATTA

MARCH 2009 wwwlakeguntersvillesailingcom

Fleets There will be three fleets A-Open Portsmouth with Spinnaker B-Open Ports-mouth without Spinnaker and C-Novice for ownerhelmspersons who have never competed in an organized sailing race before Portsmouth Ratings will be determined by the Race Committee based on the data required to complete registration In the event a fleet is over-subscribed the Race Committee may divide the fleet into two separate classes In the event there are too few boats to constitute a fleet the Race Committee may determine in which of the remaining fleets those boats will compete

Sailing Instructions Will be available on the LGSC web site on-or-about April 1 2009 and also available at the Skippers meeting 1900 Friday April 24 2009 at the LGSC Club House

Course Races will be held in the Tennessee River between the Siebold Light and the Upper Guntersville Light with the start in the vicinity of the Short Creek Light

Prizes Separate awards will be given for up to three places in each fleet having at least eight boats The Race Committee will award Special Prizes as it sees fit

Registration Forms EntryRegistration Forms are available at the LGSC Club House and on the LGSC website at httpwwwLakeGuntersvilleSailingClubcom

Further Information Contact Dick Potter at 256 837-2537 or by e-mail at dickpotterbellsouthnet

All registered boats are invited to dock overnight on Friday amp Saturday nights April 24 amp 25 2009 at the Lake Guntersville Marina at no chargePlease contact Quill Briggs Dockmaster at 256 652-0916 for reservations

RULES OF THE REGATTA

Lake Guntersville Sailing ClubNOTICE OF RACE 19th Annual GUNTERSVILLE CUP REGATTA

Sailing Vessels under 65 meters must give way to Commercial Traffic on the Tennessee River

MARCH 2009 wwwlakeguntersvillesailingcom

EntryRegistration Form Lake Guntersville Sailing Club at Lake Guntersville Marina

Skipper_________________________________________ Phone____________________

Street__________________________________________ CityZip___________________

E-Mail Address __________________________________

Boat Name __________________________ Manufacturer amp Model ____________________

Sail No___________________________ Length______ft

Classes Classes for this event will include A-Open Portsmouth with Spinnaker B-Portsmouth without Spinnaker and C-Novice Fleets The Novice Fleet for first-time racershelmspersons may be formed if there is sufficient interest

(Mark one) A-Spinnaker __ B-Non- Spinnaker __ C-Novice __

The LGSC Race Chairman will assign a Portsmouth Rating (Leave blank)

The Portsmouth Rating will be based on the boat its outfitting and the wind condition I understand that the assigned rating is for this Regatta only and cannot be appealed

Race Fees (After April 18 2009 $3000) $2500

Additional ItemsFriday Night Italian Dinner amp Social $800each No____ Amt$______Saturday Night Barbeque Dinner $1500each No____ Amt$______Tee Shirts $1200 each No____ Amt$______ Sizes (indicate Number at each size M___ L___ XL___ XZ___

Total Fees enclosed Check No _____ $______

Make checks payable to Lake Guntersville Sailing Club Mail with this entryregistration form to Dick Potter 129 Wilder Drive Harvest Alabama 35749 Tel 256 837-2537 e-mail dickpotterbellsouthnet

In consideration of your accepting my entry into the Sailing Program I agree to be bound by the Racing Rules of Sail-ing 2009-2012 the prescriptions of the US Sailing Association and the Navigational Rules InternationalInland Wa-terways which I have read and understand and the Sailing Instructions dated April 1 2009 My boat will be outfitted equipped and handled in accordance with those instructions and she shall be properly manned I waive for myself my executors and administrators heir(s) and assigns any and all claims as may accrue to me or them against the Lake Gun-tersville Sailing Club and Lake Guntersville Marina their officers directors employees and agents and anyone or more of them arising out of my participation in the 2008 Guntersville Cup Regatta or arising from any related activities

Skipper __________________________ (Signature) Date ____________

WANTED ndash COMMITTEE BOAT AND COMMITTEE BOAT HELPERS

Boats are needed to act as Committee Boat for the upcoming racing including the Weekend Series start-ing in March and the LGSC Guntersville Cup in April

Helpers are also needed to monitor the racing from the committee boat No experience necessary

ndash on-the-job training will be provided Come out and see what sailboat racing is all about and help the

Club

CONTACTDick Potter

129 Wilder Drive Harvest Alabama 35749 Tel 256 837-2537 e-mail dickpotterbellsouthnet

The 2009 Racing Season certainly started with a bang Saturday March 7 saw nine boats beat down to Upper Guntersville Light and back to the Seibold Light in a 10 to 15 mph stiff breeze Line honors went to Bev Kuhlman on ldquoNo Namerdquo who started last under the Pursuit Racing format and overtook the field Bev and her crew Keith were closely followed in by Trish (assisted by her crew George) on ldquoMystic Trdquo and Randy Rathmann on ldquoNo Namerdquo (Come on folks you really need to give these boats a name I mean how do you address them when you are encouraging them to speed up) The finish saw the next five boats finish over a four-minute time spam with Chip Meegan in sixth place leading Rich Mason in by less than a second Special mention goes to John Smith who sailed alone on his Hunter ndash another ldquoNo Namerdquo His sailing and racing experience may be small but his enthusiasm is large Full results are listed below

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

DICK POTTER RACE CHAIRMAN

Saturday was only a preview to the conditions on Sunday when the wind blew 15 to 20 mph from the south Five boats set out over the same course and the finish saw Trish and George Brown on ldquoMystic Trdquo beat out Rich Mason on ldquoEscaperdquo with the Kuhlmans as crew by less than five feet This after nearly nine miles (in a straight line) of racing over approximately one and a half hours Larry and Stacey on ldquoPuffrdquo were the small-est boat and they had some trouble with gusts of up to 25 mph being reported I donrsquot know if the wind got up to that speed as I was hanging on for dear life on Roger Ericksonrsquos ldquoAvikingrdquo as he attempted to cut close to the marks and out-tack the opposition to finish third Full results are also given elsewhere

These two races bode well for the upcoming season So why not come out and join us The next races in the Club Pursuit Calendar are on the Saturdays and Sundays of March 21 and 22 April 4 and 5 and April 11 and 12 Skipperrsquos meeting is at 1100 am on both days There is a Joint Pursuit with Browns Creek on Sunday April 19 with the Skipperrsquos meeting at 1000 am All this is leading up to the Guntersville Cup Regatta on Saturday April 25 No experience is needed for guaranteed fun and the whole process is light-hearted (ex-cept perhaps between any couple of boats that find themselves in close proximity to each other) Handicaps will be allocated based on the boat and the crewrsquos experience See you on the water

Boat Skipper MakeModel Sail No Finishing PositionNo Name Bev Kuhlman Catalina 320 791 1Mystic T Trish Brown Benateau 321 2Providence Randy Rathmann Pearson 31 3Close Encounters Tony Martin Catalina 27T 386 4Breeze Charlie Raines Catalina 28 17 5Kathy II Chip Meegan S2 90 7067 6Escape Rich Mason Hunter 34 764 7Aviking Roger Erickson OrsquoDay 32 37 8No Name John Smith Hunter 255 9

LGSC Race Results

Race Saturday Spring Series 1 March 7 2009 Course Seibold Light-Short Creek Light-Upper Guntersville Light-Short Creek Light-Seibold LightWind South 10-15 mph

Boat Skipper MakeModel Sail No Finishing PositionMystic T Trish Brown Benateau 321 1Escape Rich Mason Hunter 34 764 2Aviking Roger Erickson OrsquoDay 32 37 3Kokamo John Frost Catalina 320 1118 4Puff Larry Bontrager Catalina 25 5013 5

Race Sunday Spring Series 1 March 8 2009 Course Seibold Light-Short Creek Light-Upper Guntersville Light-Short Creek Light-Seibold LightWind South-South West 15-20 mph

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

Comments from the Social Corner

By Trish Brown Chair

On March 21st after the Saturday Series 3 race we will have a raft-up in Town Creek and hopefully spend the night Trish amp George Brown will lead this so look for their Beneteau and come tie up alongside This is contingent on good weather ndash none of us want to stay out if itrsquos cold or wet If the weather is not good as itrsquos likely to be this time of year wersquoll return to the marina and pick a restaurant for all to join in a group dinner

The Board Meeting will be the second Saturday in April on the 11th Afterwards at 6 pm Judy and Barry Bicknell and Amy Stapleton will be hosting a potluck ldquoSpring Dinnerrdquo at the clubhouse Put your best spring dish together and come down and enjoy the fellowship Plans for the Guntersville Cup are coming along great We will have an Italian dinner on Friday evening breakfast on Saturday morning and Bar-B-Q Ribs Chicken and Pulled Pork (slow cooked all afternoon on site) for dinner with Chip and his guitar afterwards for your listening pleasure after the silent auction and awards presentations So if you havenrsquot registered yet for the Guntersville Cup ndash do so to enjoy a fun weekend

In May the Club dinner will be on the 9th It will be a ldquobring your own meat to grill and a dish to sharerdquo hosted by the Melissa and Jean-Marc Zanni There will be another raft-up on May 16th lead by Amy Staple-ton So keep checking the master calendar to make sure you donrsquot miss any of the events Also if you have an idea for an event let one of the Social Committee members know and wersquoll add it to the schedule

Hope to see you at the marina

RAfT UPS

Rear Commodore Trish Brown

Social Committee Chair

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

HOT NEWS We had 29 people for dinner at the Club House March 14th in spite of the hor-rible weather Excellent dinner with a variety of great entres and some dynamite Strawberry Short Cake (Thanks Bev)

Quill arranged to have two members of the USCG auxiliary speak after dinner on boat safety and inspections and some of the duties and charges of the Auxiliary They were fol-lowed by Charlie Rains who talked about the Alabama laws regarding MSDrsquos and his role as an inspector Charlie can inspect your boat and issue the certificate (decal) They were all due JANUARY FIRST

REEFING

I see a lot of boats out on the lake that are overpowered when the wind gets up and with a lot of weather helm In most cases itrsquos because the main hasnrsquot been reefed There are two reasons to reef in heavy air One is sailshape The only alternative to reefing is to continually play out the mainsheet which basically ruins your sail shape particularly to windward When the main is reefed it allows you to keep the twist and power in the sail but lowers the power area and the heeling moment The other reason to reef in heavy air is simply to keep the boat on itrsquos feet and eliminate a lot of the weather helm The real key to reefing is to do it BEFORE YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO and to anticipate Irsquove talked to a lot of people over the years who tell me they donrsquot even know how to reef their boat The simplest way to do it is at the dock Just raise the main in the slip and experiment with your boatrsquos reefing system Over the forty plus years Irsquove been sailing Irsquove found the simpler the system the more likely you will reef Maybe the best advance Irsquove seen over the years is loose footed mains It makes reefing so much easier A lot of the very complicated slab reefing systems donrsquot actually work very well when you are short handed

Irsquom going to discuss three basic forms of mainsail reefing and two forms of headsail reefing MainSail Reefing

1) California Jiffy or Slab Reefing2) Roller Reefing3) In Boom Reefing

Headsail Reefing1) Roller Furlingreefing2) Cringle Reefing

While there are differences in the kinds of mainsail reefing they all require certain procedures in common to actually take in the reef California or Slab Reefing

The drill on slab reefing is as follows First bring the boat up into the wind where the main just starts to luff and try and keep forward momentum with the Jib Loosen the vang preventer and just ease the main sheet some more If you have a mechanical topping lift raise the boom If not hold it up with the rigid vang our your shoulder Some boats will require taking loose the Cunningham Then slack the halyard and fasten the luff reef cringle to the boom or gooseneck (Here is where I differ with a lot of advice I find the ramrsquos horn reef hooks you find on almost every boom to be not only a nuisance but dangerous They tend to come undone at the worst times and they are not that easy to use You have to sort of fold and hook the cringle to the hook I prefer to use a poly strap or rope and simply tie the cringle to the gooseneck Itrsquos faster and easier to do Just Opinion And if you have altered your sail with new reef locations you might have to actually take the sail stop out of the groove to make the connection to the hook) After the reef is tied or hooked at the luff take up your halyard tension Then pull tight on the clew reef line Slack off the topping lift and steer back on course Really it shouldnrsquot take more than five minutes at the most We can do it on our boat in about three If you try to pull the clew reef down first you will end up with a mess Always start with the luff reef and then tension the halyard The single line reefing systems that are often diagramed donrsquot really work very well at all I installed one on our old boat and discarded it On some boats the outhaul will need to be slacked While itrsquos a very neat idea to mark the halyard at the dock for the reef position I find itrsquos a little optimistic I prefer to leave some slop If you are using hooks and you donrsquot have quite enough slack you wonrsquot get them hooked Unless off shore in a real blow I donrsquot bother with the intermediate reef points However if you are putting in a second reef the sail may hang down into the cockpit and you will have to tie them

Roller Reefing

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

Roller reefing only concerns boats with end boom sheeting There are two types The geared system which requires turning the gooseneck either with a tool or by hand and a few that insert a winch handle in the end of the boom The other system is a double line system that goes to a winch on either side of the boom This is the system you will find on the McGregor 26 power sailor Roller reefing is much the same as slab reefing You have to bring the boat into the wind and then slack the halyard But the difference is that you do not slack off the whole run of the halyard This is why itrsquos a little hard to do with one person One person must lower the halyard while the other person cranks the boom rolling the sail up If you donrsquot have enough tension on the halyard you will end up with a big thick mess Too much and you wonrsquot get it furled A lot of older boats with roller reefing also required you to ease the outhaul On the double line systems you simply ease the halyard and pull on the reefing line To shake out the reef you ease the halyard and pull on the other end of the line One advantage of roller furling is that you can take in exactly the amount of sail you want to On the McGregorrsquos you can also furl the sail on the boom the same way with the soft battens One thing a bit different in a roller furling system is that you need to keep the boom pretty much horizontal And that means most of the time keeping the boom centered in the boat The advantage of slab reefing is you can work the boom over to one side or another Not completely luffed

In Boom Furling

Really for around here most of the in boom furling systems will work a lot like slab reefing The drill is the same Except for one major difference THE BOOM HAS TO BE HORIZONTAL or you will have a devil of a time not jamming the system For most boats that means having the boom more or less centered There are very complicated in boom furlers that use a continuous system that does not require messing with the halyard As far as I know all the boats here in our marina do not have that system If I were offshore I would definitely have reefing cringles in a boom furler just in case it failed So I could tie a reef to the boom The Seldon Hall and Hood systems are closed systems The Schaefer has a lot of open areas to inspect and flush the mechanisms If they are working they are very fast and easy to do

The simplest way to figure it all out is to do it at the dock And if itrsquos blowing twenty at the dock I reef before we go out Itrsquos a whole lot easier to shake the reef out than to put it in The big advantage of Slab or Inboom furling is that one person can do it Roller furling is very hard to do by yourself Irsquove never been good at rubbing my stomach and patting my head at the same time

Headsail Reefing

Most of our boats have roller furlers And by and large thatrsquos what they are Furlers As soon as you start to roll up a headsail you will alter the dynamics of the sail big time Most headsails are designed to have their maximum draft (depth) at about 33 percent aft from the headstay or luff This is optimal and important for your headsail to work properly with your mainsail As soon as a sail is reefed the draft moves to a position where it isnrsquot of much use despite such features as foam luff pads and double swivelsOn mast head rigged boats with big headsails sometimes you just have to reef to maintain control When you are racing with crew you would probably make a head sail change rather than reef But the furlers can really be helpful on a fractional rigged boat in a blow because although the boat will sail beautifully under main alone in a blow the problem is tacking Getting the boat around And if you leave just a tad of jib up it will help you through that tack It wonrsquot do much going up wind There is another system of reefing a headsail that was common back in the fifties and sixties The sailmaker basically designed two sails and ran a series of vertical cringles on the sail You then tied the luff to the cringles and reduced the size of the sail I never understood the value of the system because it requires lowering the sail or in some ingenious systems that were applied messing up airflow with a complicated system of reefing lines The beauty of roller furling is you donrsquot have to go up on the bow when itrsquos blowing

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

So what does reefing do for you Is it worth the effort Well in racing it is critical By having to slack off the main you will loose your ability to point When you reef you can maintain sailshape and then sail closer into the wind There is a tradeoff You might loose some boatspeed But in racing velocity made good is more important Irsquove been on boats with very sophisticated computer programs and itrsquos quite fascinating to see a plot based on boat speed versus velocity made good Letrsquos assume a five mile straight line distance to a mark on a beat A minor two degree change in optimum upwind direction isnrsquot very much But letrsquos say you tack five times When you look at the plot on the computer itrsquos pretty radical because it increased exponentially with each tack And of course the longer the tack the more it affects the velocity made good

Off the wind is more complicated At that point itrsquos really a matter of boatspeed Without getting ridiculously technical some boats sail at higher angle of heels than others For instance A J-24 or other hard bilged boats need to be sailed flat Older boats built to the CCA rule sail with much greater angle of heels because they pick up water line length Some of those boats sail fastest with the rail in the water But rudder position also has a lot to do with how much weather helm a boat will affect and when you begin to loose rudder control and round up By and large most designers design a boat with a optimum angle of heel You sort of have to figure that out boat by boat and by wind conditions Irsquove noticed that by design the Beneteau boats are harder in the bilge than Catalinas So theoretically a Beneteau 32rsquo should be sailed much more flat than a Catalina 320 In observing the two different boats I think thatrsquos pretty accurate And Irsquove noticed that once heeled the Beneteau boats are more prone to gusts than the Catalina Irsquom guessing itrsquos the flatter bottom and rudder position But the point of all this is that to maintain boat speed and control you need to have a sense of your best angle of heel and then REEF the boat if you need to in order to maintain it

Fractionally Rigged boats have much larger main sails and are therefore much more sensitive to mainsail reefing However they can be controlled in gusts a bit better because the backstay can spill the upper part of the sail without moving the center of effort like on a mast head rigged boat Remember when you crank on the backstay on a masthead rigged boat you are also moving the draft back on the Jib So it changes the mast dynamics in a different way You are actually bending more of the column than on a fractionally rigged boat which is intended to radically bend the upper part of the mast You donrsquot move the draft on the jib at all

I know we live on a lake and usually if we just wait it out the wind changes But reefing the boat can make a big difference in control and comfort on the boat And not wear you out nearly as much Besides it just might make a big difference Three years ago we started out to the Fireworks on Fourth of July I saw a small cell to the South when we left on our old little 21rsquo boat and reefed at the dock I figured it would continue south which it did But WOW When we poked out into the Channel we saw the nasty squall just barreling down the river Very condensed I decided to stay in the river rather than try and deal with tacking in the channel and if we hadnrsquot been reefed we might have been in serious trouble So you definitely should at least know how to reef your boat And if you donrsquot Irsquom sure somebody will help you figure it out

I donrsquot mean for this little article to be any sort of expert compendium on reefing Simply a primer There are millions of articles out there devoted to the subject One of the most concise Irsquod seen is on the following website Just click it for the whole article

Reefed down boats on SF Bay

httpwwwmyboatsgearcomnewsletter2008115asp

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

Fleets There will be three fleets A-Open Portsmouth with Spinnaker B-Open Ports-mouth without Spinnaker and C-Novice for ownerhelmspersons who have never competed in an organized sailing race before Portsmouth Ratings will be determined by the Race Committee based on the data required to complete registration In the event a fleet is over-subscribed the Race Committee may divide the fleet into two separate classes In the event there are too few boats to constitute a fleet the Race Committee may determine in which of the remaining fleets those boats will compete

Sailing Instructions Will be available on the LGSC web site on-or-about April 1 2009 and also available at the Skippers meeting 1900 Friday April 24 2009 at the LGSC Club House

Course Races will be held in the Tennessee River between the Siebold Light and the Upper Guntersville Light with the start in the vicinity of the Short Creek Light

Prizes Separate awards will be given for up to three places in each fleet having at least eight boats The Race Committee will award Special Prizes as it sees fit

Registration Forms EntryRegistration Forms are available at the LGSC Club House and on the LGSC website at httpwwwLakeGuntersvilleSailingClubcom

Further Information Contact Dick Potter at 256 837-2537 or by e-mail at dickpotterbellsouthnet

All registered boats are invited to dock overnight on Friday amp Saturday nights April 24 amp 25 2009 at the Lake Guntersville Marina at no chargePlease contact Quill Briggs Dockmaster at 256 652-0916 for reservations

RULES OF THE REGATTA

Lake Guntersville Sailing ClubNOTICE OF RACE 19th Annual GUNTERSVILLE CUP REGATTA

Sailing Vessels under 65 meters must give way to Commercial Traffic on the Tennessee River

MARCH 2009 wwwlakeguntersvillesailingcom

EntryRegistration Form Lake Guntersville Sailing Club at Lake Guntersville Marina

Skipper_________________________________________ Phone____________________

Street__________________________________________ CityZip___________________

E-Mail Address __________________________________

Boat Name __________________________ Manufacturer amp Model ____________________

Sail No___________________________ Length______ft

Classes Classes for this event will include A-Open Portsmouth with Spinnaker B-Portsmouth without Spinnaker and C-Novice Fleets The Novice Fleet for first-time racershelmspersons may be formed if there is sufficient interest

(Mark one) A-Spinnaker __ B-Non- Spinnaker __ C-Novice __

The LGSC Race Chairman will assign a Portsmouth Rating (Leave blank)

The Portsmouth Rating will be based on the boat its outfitting and the wind condition I understand that the assigned rating is for this Regatta only and cannot be appealed

Race Fees (After April 18 2009 $3000) $2500

Additional ItemsFriday Night Italian Dinner amp Social $800each No____ Amt$______Saturday Night Barbeque Dinner $1500each No____ Amt$______Tee Shirts $1200 each No____ Amt$______ Sizes (indicate Number at each size M___ L___ XL___ XZ___

Total Fees enclosed Check No _____ $______

Make checks payable to Lake Guntersville Sailing Club Mail with this entryregistration form to Dick Potter 129 Wilder Drive Harvest Alabama 35749 Tel 256 837-2537 e-mail dickpotterbellsouthnet

In consideration of your accepting my entry into the Sailing Program I agree to be bound by the Racing Rules of Sail-ing 2009-2012 the prescriptions of the US Sailing Association and the Navigational Rules InternationalInland Wa-terways which I have read and understand and the Sailing Instructions dated April 1 2009 My boat will be outfitted equipped and handled in accordance with those instructions and she shall be properly manned I waive for myself my executors and administrators heir(s) and assigns any and all claims as may accrue to me or them against the Lake Gun-tersville Sailing Club and Lake Guntersville Marina their officers directors employees and agents and anyone or more of them arising out of my participation in the 2008 Guntersville Cup Regatta or arising from any related activities

Skipper __________________________ (Signature) Date ____________

WANTED ndash COMMITTEE BOAT AND COMMITTEE BOAT HELPERS

Boats are needed to act as Committee Boat for the upcoming racing including the Weekend Series start-ing in March and the LGSC Guntersville Cup in April

Helpers are also needed to monitor the racing from the committee boat No experience necessary

ndash on-the-job training will be provided Come out and see what sailboat racing is all about and help the

Club

CONTACTDick Potter

129 Wilder Drive Harvest Alabama 35749 Tel 256 837-2537 e-mail dickpotterbellsouthnet

The 2009 Racing Season certainly started with a bang Saturday March 7 saw nine boats beat down to Upper Guntersville Light and back to the Seibold Light in a 10 to 15 mph stiff breeze Line honors went to Bev Kuhlman on ldquoNo Namerdquo who started last under the Pursuit Racing format and overtook the field Bev and her crew Keith were closely followed in by Trish (assisted by her crew George) on ldquoMystic Trdquo and Randy Rathmann on ldquoNo Namerdquo (Come on folks you really need to give these boats a name I mean how do you address them when you are encouraging them to speed up) The finish saw the next five boats finish over a four-minute time spam with Chip Meegan in sixth place leading Rich Mason in by less than a second Special mention goes to John Smith who sailed alone on his Hunter ndash another ldquoNo Namerdquo His sailing and racing experience may be small but his enthusiasm is large Full results are listed below

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

DICK POTTER RACE CHAIRMAN

Saturday was only a preview to the conditions on Sunday when the wind blew 15 to 20 mph from the south Five boats set out over the same course and the finish saw Trish and George Brown on ldquoMystic Trdquo beat out Rich Mason on ldquoEscaperdquo with the Kuhlmans as crew by less than five feet This after nearly nine miles (in a straight line) of racing over approximately one and a half hours Larry and Stacey on ldquoPuffrdquo were the small-est boat and they had some trouble with gusts of up to 25 mph being reported I donrsquot know if the wind got up to that speed as I was hanging on for dear life on Roger Ericksonrsquos ldquoAvikingrdquo as he attempted to cut close to the marks and out-tack the opposition to finish third Full results are also given elsewhere

These two races bode well for the upcoming season So why not come out and join us The next races in the Club Pursuit Calendar are on the Saturdays and Sundays of March 21 and 22 April 4 and 5 and April 11 and 12 Skipperrsquos meeting is at 1100 am on both days There is a Joint Pursuit with Browns Creek on Sunday April 19 with the Skipperrsquos meeting at 1000 am All this is leading up to the Guntersville Cup Regatta on Saturday April 25 No experience is needed for guaranteed fun and the whole process is light-hearted (ex-cept perhaps between any couple of boats that find themselves in close proximity to each other) Handicaps will be allocated based on the boat and the crewrsquos experience See you on the water

Boat Skipper MakeModel Sail No Finishing PositionNo Name Bev Kuhlman Catalina 320 791 1Mystic T Trish Brown Benateau 321 2Providence Randy Rathmann Pearson 31 3Close Encounters Tony Martin Catalina 27T 386 4Breeze Charlie Raines Catalina 28 17 5Kathy II Chip Meegan S2 90 7067 6Escape Rich Mason Hunter 34 764 7Aviking Roger Erickson OrsquoDay 32 37 8No Name John Smith Hunter 255 9

LGSC Race Results

Race Saturday Spring Series 1 March 7 2009 Course Seibold Light-Short Creek Light-Upper Guntersville Light-Short Creek Light-Seibold LightWind South 10-15 mph

Boat Skipper MakeModel Sail No Finishing PositionMystic T Trish Brown Benateau 321 1Escape Rich Mason Hunter 34 764 2Aviking Roger Erickson OrsquoDay 32 37 3Kokamo John Frost Catalina 320 1118 4Puff Larry Bontrager Catalina 25 5013 5

Race Sunday Spring Series 1 March 8 2009 Course Seibold Light-Short Creek Light-Upper Guntersville Light-Short Creek Light-Seibold LightWind South-South West 15-20 mph

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

Comments from the Social Corner

By Trish Brown Chair

On March 21st after the Saturday Series 3 race we will have a raft-up in Town Creek and hopefully spend the night Trish amp George Brown will lead this so look for their Beneteau and come tie up alongside This is contingent on good weather ndash none of us want to stay out if itrsquos cold or wet If the weather is not good as itrsquos likely to be this time of year wersquoll return to the marina and pick a restaurant for all to join in a group dinner

The Board Meeting will be the second Saturday in April on the 11th Afterwards at 6 pm Judy and Barry Bicknell and Amy Stapleton will be hosting a potluck ldquoSpring Dinnerrdquo at the clubhouse Put your best spring dish together and come down and enjoy the fellowship Plans for the Guntersville Cup are coming along great We will have an Italian dinner on Friday evening breakfast on Saturday morning and Bar-B-Q Ribs Chicken and Pulled Pork (slow cooked all afternoon on site) for dinner with Chip and his guitar afterwards for your listening pleasure after the silent auction and awards presentations So if you havenrsquot registered yet for the Guntersville Cup ndash do so to enjoy a fun weekend

In May the Club dinner will be on the 9th It will be a ldquobring your own meat to grill and a dish to sharerdquo hosted by the Melissa and Jean-Marc Zanni There will be another raft-up on May 16th lead by Amy Staple-ton So keep checking the master calendar to make sure you donrsquot miss any of the events Also if you have an idea for an event let one of the Social Committee members know and wersquoll add it to the schedule

Hope to see you at the marina

RAfT UPS

Rear Commodore Trish Brown

Social Committee Chair

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

HOT NEWS We had 29 people for dinner at the Club House March 14th in spite of the hor-rible weather Excellent dinner with a variety of great entres and some dynamite Strawberry Short Cake (Thanks Bev)

Quill arranged to have two members of the USCG auxiliary speak after dinner on boat safety and inspections and some of the duties and charges of the Auxiliary They were fol-lowed by Charlie Rains who talked about the Alabama laws regarding MSDrsquos and his role as an inspector Charlie can inspect your boat and issue the certificate (decal) They were all due JANUARY FIRST

REEFING

I see a lot of boats out on the lake that are overpowered when the wind gets up and with a lot of weather helm In most cases itrsquos because the main hasnrsquot been reefed There are two reasons to reef in heavy air One is sailshape The only alternative to reefing is to continually play out the mainsheet which basically ruins your sail shape particularly to windward When the main is reefed it allows you to keep the twist and power in the sail but lowers the power area and the heeling moment The other reason to reef in heavy air is simply to keep the boat on itrsquos feet and eliminate a lot of the weather helm The real key to reefing is to do it BEFORE YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO and to anticipate Irsquove talked to a lot of people over the years who tell me they donrsquot even know how to reef their boat The simplest way to do it is at the dock Just raise the main in the slip and experiment with your boatrsquos reefing system Over the forty plus years Irsquove been sailing Irsquove found the simpler the system the more likely you will reef Maybe the best advance Irsquove seen over the years is loose footed mains It makes reefing so much easier A lot of the very complicated slab reefing systems donrsquot actually work very well when you are short handed

Irsquom going to discuss three basic forms of mainsail reefing and two forms of headsail reefing MainSail Reefing

1) California Jiffy or Slab Reefing2) Roller Reefing3) In Boom Reefing

Headsail Reefing1) Roller Furlingreefing2) Cringle Reefing

While there are differences in the kinds of mainsail reefing they all require certain procedures in common to actually take in the reef California or Slab Reefing

The drill on slab reefing is as follows First bring the boat up into the wind where the main just starts to luff and try and keep forward momentum with the Jib Loosen the vang preventer and just ease the main sheet some more If you have a mechanical topping lift raise the boom If not hold it up with the rigid vang our your shoulder Some boats will require taking loose the Cunningham Then slack the halyard and fasten the luff reef cringle to the boom or gooseneck (Here is where I differ with a lot of advice I find the ramrsquos horn reef hooks you find on almost every boom to be not only a nuisance but dangerous They tend to come undone at the worst times and they are not that easy to use You have to sort of fold and hook the cringle to the hook I prefer to use a poly strap or rope and simply tie the cringle to the gooseneck Itrsquos faster and easier to do Just Opinion And if you have altered your sail with new reef locations you might have to actually take the sail stop out of the groove to make the connection to the hook) After the reef is tied or hooked at the luff take up your halyard tension Then pull tight on the clew reef line Slack off the topping lift and steer back on course Really it shouldnrsquot take more than five minutes at the most We can do it on our boat in about three If you try to pull the clew reef down first you will end up with a mess Always start with the luff reef and then tension the halyard The single line reefing systems that are often diagramed donrsquot really work very well at all I installed one on our old boat and discarded it On some boats the outhaul will need to be slacked While itrsquos a very neat idea to mark the halyard at the dock for the reef position I find itrsquos a little optimistic I prefer to leave some slop If you are using hooks and you donrsquot have quite enough slack you wonrsquot get them hooked Unless off shore in a real blow I donrsquot bother with the intermediate reef points However if you are putting in a second reef the sail may hang down into the cockpit and you will have to tie them

Roller Reefing

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

Roller reefing only concerns boats with end boom sheeting There are two types The geared system which requires turning the gooseneck either with a tool or by hand and a few that insert a winch handle in the end of the boom The other system is a double line system that goes to a winch on either side of the boom This is the system you will find on the McGregor 26 power sailor Roller reefing is much the same as slab reefing You have to bring the boat into the wind and then slack the halyard But the difference is that you do not slack off the whole run of the halyard This is why itrsquos a little hard to do with one person One person must lower the halyard while the other person cranks the boom rolling the sail up If you donrsquot have enough tension on the halyard you will end up with a big thick mess Too much and you wonrsquot get it furled A lot of older boats with roller reefing also required you to ease the outhaul On the double line systems you simply ease the halyard and pull on the reefing line To shake out the reef you ease the halyard and pull on the other end of the line One advantage of roller furling is that you can take in exactly the amount of sail you want to On the McGregorrsquos you can also furl the sail on the boom the same way with the soft battens One thing a bit different in a roller furling system is that you need to keep the boom pretty much horizontal And that means most of the time keeping the boom centered in the boat The advantage of slab reefing is you can work the boom over to one side or another Not completely luffed

In Boom Furling

Really for around here most of the in boom furling systems will work a lot like slab reefing The drill is the same Except for one major difference THE BOOM HAS TO BE HORIZONTAL or you will have a devil of a time not jamming the system For most boats that means having the boom more or less centered There are very complicated in boom furlers that use a continuous system that does not require messing with the halyard As far as I know all the boats here in our marina do not have that system If I were offshore I would definitely have reefing cringles in a boom furler just in case it failed So I could tie a reef to the boom The Seldon Hall and Hood systems are closed systems The Schaefer has a lot of open areas to inspect and flush the mechanisms If they are working they are very fast and easy to do

The simplest way to figure it all out is to do it at the dock And if itrsquos blowing twenty at the dock I reef before we go out Itrsquos a whole lot easier to shake the reef out than to put it in The big advantage of Slab or Inboom furling is that one person can do it Roller furling is very hard to do by yourself Irsquove never been good at rubbing my stomach and patting my head at the same time

Headsail Reefing

Most of our boats have roller furlers And by and large thatrsquos what they are Furlers As soon as you start to roll up a headsail you will alter the dynamics of the sail big time Most headsails are designed to have their maximum draft (depth) at about 33 percent aft from the headstay or luff This is optimal and important for your headsail to work properly with your mainsail As soon as a sail is reefed the draft moves to a position where it isnrsquot of much use despite such features as foam luff pads and double swivelsOn mast head rigged boats with big headsails sometimes you just have to reef to maintain control When you are racing with crew you would probably make a head sail change rather than reef But the furlers can really be helpful on a fractional rigged boat in a blow because although the boat will sail beautifully under main alone in a blow the problem is tacking Getting the boat around And if you leave just a tad of jib up it will help you through that tack It wonrsquot do much going up wind There is another system of reefing a headsail that was common back in the fifties and sixties The sailmaker basically designed two sails and ran a series of vertical cringles on the sail You then tied the luff to the cringles and reduced the size of the sail I never understood the value of the system because it requires lowering the sail or in some ingenious systems that were applied messing up airflow with a complicated system of reefing lines The beauty of roller furling is you donrsquot have to go up on the bow when itrsquos blowing

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

So what does reefing do for you Is it worth the effort Well in racing it is critical By having to slack off the main you will loose your ability to point When you reef you can maintain sailshape and then sail closer into the wind There is a tradeoff You might loose some boatspeed But in racing velocity made good is more important Irsquove been on boats with very sophisticated computer programs and itrsquos quite fascinating to see a plot based on boat speed versus velocity made good Letrsquos assume a five mile straight line distance to a mark on a beat A minor two degree change in optimum upwind direction isnrsquot very much But letrsquos say you tack five times When you look at the plot on the computer itrsquos pretty radical because it increased exponentially with each tack And of course the longer the tack the more it affects the velocity made good

Off the wind is more complicated At that point itrsquos really a matter of boatspeed Without getting ridiculously technical some boats sail at higher angle of heels than others For instance A J-24 or other hard bilged boats need to be sailed flat Older boats built to the CCA rule sail with much greater angle of heels because they pick up water line length Some of those boats sail fastest with the rail in the water But rudder position also has a lot to do with how much weather helm a boat will affect and when you begin to loose rudder control and round up By and large most designers design a boat with a optimum angle of heel You sort of have to figure that out boat by boat and by wind conditions Irsquove noticed that by design the Beneteau boats are harder in the bilge than Catalinas So theoretically a Beneteau 32rsquo should be sailed much more flat than a Catalina 320 In observing the two different boats I think thatrsquos pretty accurate And Irsquove noticed that once heeled the Beneteau boats are more prone to gusts than the Catalina Irsquom guessing itrsquos the flatter bottom and rudder position But the point of all this is that to maintain boat speed and control you need to have a sense of your best angle of heel and then REEF the boat if you need to in order to maintain it

Fractionally Rigged boats have much larger main sails and are therefore much more sensitive to mainsail reefing However they can be controlled in gusts a bit better because the backstay can spill the upper part of the sail without moving the center of effort like on a mast head rigged boat Remember when you crank on the backstay on a masthead rigged boat you are also moving the draft back on the Jib So it changes the mast dynamics in a different way You are actually bending more of the column than on a fractionally rigged boat which is intended to radically bend the upper part of the mast You donrsquot move the draft on the jib at all

I know we live on a lake and usually if we just wait it out the wind changes But reefing the boat can make a big difference in control and comfort on the boat And not wear you out nearly as much Besides it just might make a big difference Three years ago we started out to the Fireworks on Fourth of July I saw a small cell to the South when we left on our old little 21rsquo boat and reefed at the dock I figured it would continue south which it did But WOW When we poked out into the Channel we saw the nasty squall just barreling down the river Very condensed I decided to stay in the river rather than try and deal with tacking in the channel and if we hadnrsquot been reefed we might have been in serious trouble So you definitely should at least know how to reef your boat And if you donrsquot Irsquom sure somebody will help you figure it out

I donrsquot mean for this little article to be any sort of expert compendium on reefing Simply a primer There are millions of articles out there devoted to the subject One of the most concise Irsquod seen is on the following website Just click it for the whole article

Reefed down boats on SF Bay

httpwwwmyboatsgearcomnewsletter2008115asp

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

EntryRegistration Form Lake Guntersville Sailing Club at Lake Guntersville Marina

Skipper_________________________________________ Phone____________________

Street__________________________________________ CityZip___________________

E-Mail Address __________________________________

Boat Name __________________________ Manufacturer amp Model ____________________

Sail No___________________________ Length______ft

Classes Classes for this event will include A-Open Portsmouth with Spinnaker B-Portsmouth without Spinnaker and C-Novice Fleets The Novice Fleet for first-time racershelmspersons may be formed if there is sufficient interest

(Mark one) A-Spinnaker __ B-Non- Spinnaker __ C-Novice __

The LGSC Race Chairman will assign a Portsmouth Rating (Leave blank)

The Portsmouth Rating will be based on the boat its outfitting and the wind condition I understand that the assigned rating is for this Regatta only and cannot be appealed

Race Fees (After April 18 2009 $3000) $2500

Additional ItemsFriday Night Italian Dinner amp Social $800each No____ Amt$______Saturday Night Barbeque Dinner $1500each No____ Amt$______Tee Shirts $1200 each No____ Amt$______ Sizes (indicate Number at each size M___ L___ XL___ XZ___

Total Fees enclosed Check No _____ $______

Make checks payable to Lake Guntersville Sailing Club Mail with this entryregistration form to Dick Potter 129 Wilder Drive Harvest Alabama 35749 Tel 256 837-2537 e-mail dickpotterbellsouthnet

In consideration of your accepting my entry into the Sailing Program I agree to be bound by the Racing Rules of Sail-ing 2009-2012 the prescriptions of the US Sailing Association and the Navigational Rules InternationalInland Wa-terways which I have read and understand and the Sailing Instructions dated April 1 2009 My boat will be outfitted equipped and handled in accordance with those instructions and she shall be properly manned I waive for myself my executors and administrators heir(s) and assigns any and all claims as may accrue to me or them against the Lake Gun-tersville Sailing Club and Lake Guntersville Marina their officers directors employees and agents and anyone or more of them arising out of my participation in the 2008 Guntersville Cup Regatta or arising from any related activities

Skipper __________________________ (Signature) Date ____________

WANTED ndash COMMITTEE BOAT AND COMMITTEE BOAT HELPERS

Boats are needed to act as Committee Boat for the upcoming racing including the Weekend Series start-ing in March and the LGSC Guntersville Cup in April

Helpers are also needed to monitor the racing from the committee boat No experience necessary

ndash on-the-job training will be provided Come out and see what sailboat racing is all about and help the

Club

CONTACTDick Potter

129 Wilder Drive Harvest Alabama 35749 Tel 256 837-2537 e-mail dickpotterbellsouthnet

The 2009 Racing Season certainly started with a bang Saturday March 7 saw nine boats beat down to Upper Guntersville Light and back to the Seibold Light in a 10 to 15 mph stiff breeze Line honors went to Bev Kuhlman on ldquoNo Namerdquo who started last under the Pursuit Racing format and overtook the field Bev and her crew Keith were closely followed in by Trish (assisted by her crew George) on ldquoMystic Trdquo and Randy Rathmann on ldquoNo Namerdquo (Come on folks you really need to give these boats a name I mean how do you address them when you are encouraging them to speed up) The finish saw the next five boats finish over a four-minute time spam with Chip Meegan in sixth place leading Rich Mason in by less than a second Special mention goes to John Smith who sailed alone on his Hunter ndash another ldquoNo Namerdquo His sailing and racing experience may be small but his enthusiasm is large Full results are listed below

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

DICK POTTER RACE CHAIRMAN

Saturday was only a preview to the conditions on Sunday when the wind blew 15 to 20 mph from the south Five boats set out over the same course and the finish saw Trish and George Brown on ldquoMystic Trdquo beat out Rich Mason on ldquoEscaperdquo with the Kuhlmans as crew by less than five feet This after nearly nine miles (in a straight line) of racing over approximately one and a half hours Larry and Stacey on ldquoPuffrdquo were the small-est boat and they had some trouble with gusts of up to 25 mph being reported I donrsquot know if the wind got up to that speed as I was hanging on for dear life on Roger Ericksonrsquos ldquoAvikingrdquo as he attempted to cut close to the marks and out-tack the opposition to finish third Full results are also given elsewhere

These two races bode well for the upcoming season So why not come out and join us The next races in the Club Pursuit Calendar are on the Saturdays and Sundays of March 21 and 22 April 4 and 5 and April 11 and 12 Skipperrsquos meeting is at 1100 am on both days There is a Joint Pursuit with Browns Creek on Sunday April 19 with the Skipperrsquos meeting at 1000 am All this is leading up to the Guntersville Cup Regatta on Saturday April 25 No experience is needed for guaranteed fun and the whole process is light-hearted (ex-cept perhaps between any couple of boats that find themselves in close proximity to each other) Handicaps will be allocated based on the boat and the crewrsquos experience See you on the water

Boat Skipper MakeModel Sail No Finishing PositionNo Name Bev Kuhlman Catalina 320 791 1Mystic T Trish Brown Benateau 321 2Providence Randy Rathmann Pearson 31 3Close Encounters Tony Martin Catalina 27T 386 4Breeze Charlie Raines Catalina 28 17 5Kathy II Chip Meegan S2 90 7067 6Escape Rich Mason Hunter 34 764 7Aviking Roger Erickson OrsquoDay 32 37 8No Name John Smith Hunter 255 9

LGSC Race Results

Race Saturday Spring Series 1 March 7 2009 Course Seibold Light-Short Creek Light-Upper Guntersville Light-Short Creek Light-Seibold LightWind South 10-15 mph

Boat Skipper MakeModel Sail No Finishing PositionMystic T Trish Brown Benateau 321 1Escape Rich Mason Hunter 34 764 2Aviking Roger Erickson OrsquoDay 32 37 3Kokamo John Frost Catalina 320 1118 4Puff Larry Bontrager Catalina 25 5013 5

Race Sunday Spring Series 1 March 8 2009 Course Seibold Light-Short Creek Light-Upper Guntersville Light-Short Creek Light-Seibold LightWind South-South West 15-20 mph

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

Comments from the Social Corner

By Trish Brown Chair

On March 21st after the Saturday Series 3 race we will have a raft-up in Town Creek and hopefully spend the night Trish amp George Brown will lead this so look for their Beneteau and come tie up alongside This is contingent on good weather ndash none of us want to stay out if itrsquos cold or wet If the weather is not good as itrsquos likely to be this time of year wersquoll return to the marina and pick a restaurant for all to join in a group dinner

The Board Meeting will be the second Saturday in April on the 11th Afterwards at 6 pm Judy and Barry Bicknell and Amy Stapleton will be hosting a potluck ldquoSpring Dinnerrdquo at the clubhouse Put your best spring dish together and come down and enjoy the fellowship Plans for the Guntersville Cup are coming along great We will have an Italian dinner on Friday evening breakfast on Saturday morning and Bar-B-Q Ribs Chicken and Pulled Pork (slow cooked all afternoon on site) for dinner with Chip and his guitar afterwards for your listening pleasure after the silent auction and awards presentations So if you havenrsquot registered yet for the Guntersville Cup ndash do so to enjoy a fun weekend

In May the Club dinner will be on the 9th It will be a ldquobring your own meat to grill and a dish to sharerdquo hosted by the Melissa and Jean-Marc Zanni There will be another raft-up on May 16th lead by Amy Staple-ton So keep checking the master calendar to make sure you donrsquot miss any of the events Also if you have an idea for an event let one of the Social Committee members know and wersquoll add it to the schedule

Hope to see you at the marina

RAfT UPS

Rear Commodore Trish Brown

Social Committee Chair

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

HOT NEWS We had 29 people for dinner at the Club House March 14th in spite of the hor-rible weather Excellent dinner with a variety of great entres and some dynamite Strawberry Short Cake (Thanks Bev)

Quill arranged to have two members of the USCG auxiliary speak after dinner on boat safety and inspections and some of the duties and charges of the Auxiliary They were fol-lowed by Charlie Rains who talked about the Alabama laws regarding MSDrsquos and his role as an inspector Charlie can inspect your boat and issue the certificate (decal) They were all due JANUARY FIRST

REEFING

I see a lot of boats out on the lake that are overpowered when the wind gets up and with a lot of weather helm In most cases itrsquos because the main hasnrsquot been reefed There are two reasons to reef in heavy air One is sailshape The only alternative to reefing is to continually play out the mainsheet which basically ruins your sail shape particularly to windward When the main is reefed it allows you to keep the twist and power in the sail but lowers the power area and the heeling moment The other reason to reef in heavy air is simply to keep the boat on itrsquos feet and eliminate a lot of the weather helm The real key to reefing is to do it BEFORE YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO and to anticipate Irsquove talked to a lot of people over the years who tell me they donrsquot even know how to reef their boat The simplest way to do it is at the dock Just raise the main in the slip and experiment with your boatrsquos reefing system Over the forty plus years Irsquove been sailing Irsquove found the simpler the system the more likely you will reef Maybe the best advance Irsquove seen over the years is loose footed mains It makes reefing so much easier A lot of the very complicated slab reefing systems donrsquot actually work very well when you are short handed

Irsquom going to discuss three basic forms of mainsail reefing and two forms of headsail reefing MainSail Reefing

1) California Jiffy or Slab Reefing2) Roller Reefing3) In Boom Reefing

Headsail Reefing1) Roller Furlingreefing2) Cringle Reefing

While there are differences in the kinds of mainsail reefing they all require certain procedures in common to actually take in the reef California or Slab Reefing

The drill on slab reefing is as follows First bring the boat up into the wind where the main just starts to luff and try and keep forward momentum with the Jib Loosen the vang preventer and just ease the main sheet some more If you have a mechanical topping lift raise the boom If not hold it up with the rigid vang our your shoulder Some boats will require taking loose the Cunningham Then slack the halyard and fasten the luff reef cringle to the boom or gooseneck (Here is where I differ with a lot of advice I find the ramrsquos horn reef hooks you find on almost every boom to be not only a nuisance but dangerous They tend to come undone at the worst times and they are not that easy to use You have to sort of fold and hook the cringle to the hook I prefer to use a poly strap or rope and simply tie the cringle to the gooseneck Itrsquos faster and easier to do Just Opinion And if you have altered your sail with new reef locations you might have to actually take the sail stop out of the groove to make the connection to the hook) After the reef is tied or hooked at the luff take up your halyard tension Then pull tight on the clew reef line Slack off the topping lift and steer back on course Really it shouldnrsquot take more than five minutes at the most We can do it on our boat in about three If you try to pull the clew reef down first you will end up with a mess Always start with the luff reef and then tension the halyard The single line reefing systems that are often diagramed donrsquot really work very well at all I installed one on our old boat and discarded it On some boats the outhaul will need to be slacked While itrsquos a very neat idea to mark the halyard at the dock for the reef position I find itrsquos a little optimistic I prefer to leave some slop If you are using hooks and you donrsquot have quite enough slack you wonrsquot get them hooked Unless off shore in a real blow I donrsquot bother with the intermediate reef points However if you are putting in a second reef the sail may hang down into the cockpit and you will have to tie them

Roller Reefing

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

Roller reefing only concerns boats with end boom sheeting There are two types The geared system which requires turning the gooseneck either with a tool or by hand and a few that insert a winch handle in the end of the boom The other system is a double line system that goes to a winch on either side of the boom This is the system you will find on the McGregor 26 power sailor Roller reefing is much the same as slab reefing You have to bring the boat into the wind and then slack the halyard But the difference is that you do not slack off the whole run of the halyard This is why itrsquos a little hard to do with one person One person must lower the halyard while the other person cranks the boom rolling the sail up If you donrsquot have enough tension on the halyard you will end up with a big thick mess Too much and you wonrsquot get it furled A lot of older boats with roller reefing also required you to ease the outhaul On the double line systems you simply ease the halyard and pull on the reefing line To shake out the reef you ease the halyard and pull on the other end of the line One advantage of roller furling is that you can take in exactly the amount of sail you want to On the McGregorrsquos you can also furl the sail on the boom the same way with the soft battens One thing a bit different in a roller furling system is that you need to keep the boom pretty much horizontal And that means most of the time keeping the boom centered in the boat The advantage of slab reefing is you can work the boom over to one side or another Not completely luffed

In Boom Furling

Really for around here most of the in boom furling systems will work a lot like slab reefing The drill is the same Except for one major difference THE BOOM HAS TO BE HORIZONTAL or you will have a devil of a time not jamming the system For most boats that means having the boom more or less centered There are very complicated in boom furlers that use a continuous system that does not require messing with the halyard As far as I know all the boats here in our marina do not have that system If I were offshore I would definitely have reefing cringles in a boom furler just in case it failed So I could tie a reef to the boom The Seldon Hall and Hood systems are closed systems The Schaefer has a lot of open areas to inspect and flush the mechanisms If they are working they are very fast and easy to do

The simplest way to figure it all out is to do it at the dock And if itrsquos blowing twenty at the dock I reef before we go out Itrsquos a whole lot easier to shake the reef out than to put it in The big advantage of Slab or Inboom furling is that one person can do it Roller furling is very hard to do by yourself Irsquove never been good at rubbing my stomach and patting my head at the same time

Headsail Reefing

Most of our boats have roller furlers And by and large thatrsquos what they are Furlers As soon as you start to roll up a headsail you will alter the dynamics of the sail big time Most headsails are designed to have their maximum draft (depth) at about 33 percent aft from the headstay or luff This is optimal and important for your headsail to work properly with your mainsail As soon as a sail is reefed the draft moves to a position where it isnrsquot of much use despite such features as foam luff pads and double swivelsOn mast head rigged boats with big headsails sometimes you just have to reef to maintain control When you are racing with crew you would probably make a head sail change rather than reef But the furlers can really be helpful on a fractional rigged boat in a blow because although the boat will sail beautifully under main alone in a blow the problem is tacking Getting the boat around And if you leave just a tad of jib up it will help you through that tack It wonrsquot do much going up wind There is another system of reefing a headsail that was common back in the fifties and sixties The sailmaker basically designed two sails and ran a series of vertical cringles on the sail You then tied the luff to the cringles and reduced the size of the sail I never understood the value of the system because it requires lowering the sail or in some ingenious systems that were applied messing up airflow with a complicated system of reefing lines The beauty of roller furling is you donrsquot have to go up on the bow when itrsquos blowing

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

So what does reefing do for you Is it worth the effort Well in racing it is critical By having to slack off the main you will loose your ability to point When you reef you can maintain sailshape and then sail closer into the wind There is a tradeoff You might loose some boatspeed But in racing velocity made good is more important Irsquove been on boats with very sophisticated computer programs and itrsquos quite fascinating to see a plot based on boat speed versus velocity made good Letrsquos assume a five mile straight line distance to a mark on a beat A minor two degree change in optimum upwind direction isnrsquot very much But letrsquos say you tack five times When you look at the plot on the computer itrsquos pretty radical because it increased exponentially with each tack And of course the longer the tack the more it affects the velocity made good

Off the wind is more complicated At that point itrsquos really a matter of boatspeed Without getting ridiculously technical some boats sail at higher angle of heels than others For instance A J-24 or other hard bilged boats need to be sailed flat Older boats built to the CCA rule sail with much greater angle of heels because they pick up water line length Some of those boats sail fastest with the rail in the water But rudder position also has a lot to do with how much weather helm a boat will affect and when you begin to loose rudder control and round up By and large most designers design a boat with a optimum angle of heel You sort of have to figure that out boat by boat and by wind conditions Irsquove noticed that by design the Beneteau boats are harder in the bilge than Catalinas So theoretically a Beneteau 32rsquo should be sailed much more flat than a Catalina 320 In observing the two different boats I think thatrsquos pretty accurate And Irsquove noticed that once heeled the Beneteau boats are more prone to gusts than the Catalina Irsquom guessing itrsquos the flatter bottom and rudder position But the point of all this is that to maintain boat speed and control you need to have a sense of your best angle of heel and then REEF the boat if you need to in order to maintain it

Fractionally Rigged boats have much larger main sails and are therefore much more sensitive to mainsail reefing However they can be controlled in gusts a bit better because the backstay can spill the upper part of the sail without moving the center of effort like on a mast head rigged boat Remember when you crank on the backstay on a masthead rigged boat you are also moving the draft back on the Jib So it changes the mast dynamics in a different way You are actually bending more of the column than on a fractionally rigged boat which is intended to radically bend the upper part of the mast You donrsquot move the draft on the jib at all

I know we live on a lake and usually if we just wait it out the wind changes But reefing the boat can make a big difference in control and comfort on the boat And not wear you out nearly as much Besides it just might make a big difference Three years ago we started out to the Fireworks on Fourth of July I saw a small cell to the South when we left on our old little 21rsquo boat and reefed at the dock I figured it would continue south which it did But WOW When we poked out into the Channel we saw the nasty squall just barreling down the river Very condensed I decided to stay in the river rather than try and deal with tacking in the channel and if we hadnrsquot been reefed we might have been in serious trouble So you definitely should at least know how to reef your boat And if you donrsquot Irsquom sure somebody will help you figure it out

I donrsquot mean for this little article to be any sort of expert compendium on reefing Simply a primer There are millions of articles out there devoted to the subject One of the most concise Irsquod seen is on the following website Just click it for the whole article

Reefed down boats on SF Bay

httpwwwmyboatsgearcomnewsletter2008115asp

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

WANTED ndash COMMITTEE BOAT AND COMMITTEE BOAT HELPERS

Boats are needed to act as Committee Boat for the upcoming racing including the Weekend Series start-ing in March and the LGSC Guntersville Cup in April

Helpers are also needed to monitor the racing from the committee boat No experience necessary

ndash on-the-job training will be provided Come out and see what sailboat racing is all about and help the

Club

CONTACTDick Potter

129 Wilder Drive Harvest Alabama 35749 Tel 256 837-2537 e-mail dickpotterbellsouthnet

The 2009 Racing Season certainly started with a bang Saturday March 7 saw nine boats beat down to Upper Guntersville Light and back to the Seibold Light in a 10 to 15 mph stiff breeze Line honors went to Bev Kuhlman on ldquoNo Namerdquo who started last under the Pursuit Racing format and overtook the field Bev and her crew Keith were closely followed in by Trish (assisted by her crew George) on ldquoMystic Trdquo and Randy Rathmann on ldquoNo Namerdquo (Come on folks you really need to give these boats a name I mean how do you address them when you are encouraging them to speed up) The finish saw the next five boats finish over a four-minute time spam with Chip Meegan in sixth place leading Rich Mason in by less than a second Special mention goes to John Smith who sailed alone on his Hunter ndash another ldquoNo Namerdquo His sailing and racing experience may be small but his enthusiasm is large Full results are listed below

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

DICK POTTER RACE CHAIRMAN

Saturday was only a preview to the conditions on Sunday when the wind blew 15 to 20 mph from the south Five boats set out over the same course and the finish saw Trish and George Brown on ldquoMystic Trdquo beat out Rich Mason on ldquoEscaperdquo with the Kuhlmans as crew by less than five feet This after nearly nine miles (in a straight line) of racing over approximately one and a half hours Larry and Stacey on ldquoPuffrdquo were the small-est boat and they had some trouble with gusts of up to 25 mph being reported I donrsquot know if the wind got up to that speed as I was hanging on for dear life on Roger Ericksonrsquos ldquoAvikingrdquo as he attempted to cut close to the marks and out-tack the opposition to finish third Full results are also given elsewhere

These two races bode well for the upcoming season So why not come out and join us The next races in the Club Pursuit Calendar are on the Saturdays and Sundays of March 21 and 22 April 4 and 5 and April 11 and 12 Skipperrsquos meeting is at 1100 am on both days There is a Joint Pursuit with Browns Creek on Sunday April 19 with the Skipperrsquos meeting at 1000 am All this is leading up to the Guntersville Cup Regatta on Saturday April 25 No experience is needed for guaranteed fun and the whole process is light-hearted (ex-cept perhaps between any couple of boats that find themselves in close proximity to each other) Handicaps will be allocated based on the boat and the crewrsquos experience See you on the water

Boat Skipper MakeModel Sail No Finishing PositionNo Name Bev Kuhlman Catalina 320 791 1Mystic T Trish Brown Benateau 321 2Providence Randy Rathmann Pearson 31 3Close Encounters Tony Martin Catalina 27T 386 4Breeze Charlie Raines Catalina 28 17 5Kathy II Chip Meegan S2 90 7067 6Escape Rich Mason Hunter 34 764 7Aviking Roger Erickson OrsquoDay 32 37 8No Name John Smith Hunter 255 9

LGSC Race Results

Race Saturday Spring Series 1 March 7 2009 Course Seibold Light-Short Creek Light-Upper Guntersville Light-Short Creek Light-Seibold LightWind South 10-15 mph

Boat Skipper MakeModel Sail No Finishing PositionMystic T Trish Brown Benateau 321 1Escape Rich Mason Hunter 34 764 2Aviking Roger Erickson OrsquoDay 32 37 3Kokamo John Frost Catalina 320 1118 4Puff Larry Bontrager Catalina 25 5013 5

Race Sunday Spring Series 1 March 8 2009 Course Seibold Light-Short Creek Light-Upper Guntersville Light-Short Creek Light-Seibold LightWind South-South West 15-20 mph

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

Comments from the Social Corner

By Trish Brown Chair

On March 21st after the Saturday Series 3 race we will have a raft-up in Town Creek and hopefully spend the night Trish amp George Brown will lead this so look for their Beneteau and come tie up alongside This is contingent on good weather ndash none of us want to stay out if itrsquos cold or wet If the weather is not good as itrsquos likely to be this time of year wersquoll return to the marina and pick a restaurant for all to join in a group dinner

The Board Meeting will be the second Saturday in April on the 11th Afterwards at 6 pm Judy and Barry Bicknell and Amy Stapleton will be hosting a potluck ldquoSpring Dinnerrdquo at the clubhouse Put your best spring dish together and come down and enjoy the fellowship Plans for the Guntersville Cup are coming along great We will have an Italian dinner on Friday evening breakfast on Saturday morning and Bar-B-Q Ribs Chicken and Pulled Pork (slow cooked all afternoon on site) for dinner with Chip and his guitar afterwards for your listening pleasure after the silent auction and awards presentations So if you havenrsquot registered yet for the Guntersville Cup ndash do so to enjoy a fun weekend

In May the Club dinner will be on the 9th It will be a ldquobring your own meat to grill and a dish to sharerdquo hosted by the Melissa and Jean-Marc Zanni There will be another raft-up on May 16th lead by Amy Staple-ton So keep checking the master calendar to make sure you donrsquot miss any of the events Also if you have an idea for an event let one of the Social Committee members know and wersquoll add it to the schedule

Hope to see you at the marina

RAfT UPS

Rear Commodore Trish Brown

Social Committee Chair

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

HOT NEWS We had 29 people for dinner at the Club House March 14th in spite of the hor-rible weather Excellent dinner with a variety of great entres and some dynamite Strawberry Short Cake (Thanks Bev)

Quill arranged to have two members of the USCG auxiliary speak after dinner on boat safety and inspections and some of the duties and charges of the Auxiliary They were fol-lowed by Charlie Rains who talked about the Alabama laws regarding MSDrsquos and his role as an inspector Charlie can inspect your boat and issue the certificate (decal) They were all due JANUARY FIRST

REEFING

I see a lot of boats out on the lake that are overpowered when the wind gets up and with a lot of weather helm In most cases itrsquos because the main hasnrsquot been reefed There are two reasons to reef in heavy air One is sailshape The only alternative to reefing is to continually play out the mainsheet which basically ruins your sail shape particularly to windward When the main is reefed it allows you to keep the twist and power in the sail but lowers the power area and the heeling moment The other reason to reef in heavy air is simply to keep the boat on itrsquos feet and eliminate a lot of the weather helm The real key to reefing is to do it BEFORE YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO and to anticipate Irsquove talked to a lot of people over the years who tell me they donrsquot even know how to reef their boat The simplest way to do it is at the dock Just raise the main in the slip and experiment with your boatrsquos reefing system Over the forty plus years Irsquove been sailing Irsquove found the simpler the system the more likely you will reef Maybe the best advance Irsquove seen over the years is loose footed mains It makes reefing so much easier A lot of the very complicated slab reefing systems donrsquot actually work very well when you are short handed

Irsquom going to discuss three basic forms of mainsail reefing and two forms of headsail reefing MainSail Reefing

1) California Jiffy or Slab Reefing2) Roller Reefing3) In Boom Reefing

Headsail Reefing1) Roller Furlingreefing2) Cringle Reefing

While there are differences in the kinds of mainsail reefing they all require certain procedures in common to actually take in the reef California or Slab Reefing

The drill on slab reefing is as follows First bring the boat up into the wind where the main just starts to luff and try and keep forward momentum with the Jib Loosen the vang preventer and just ease the main sheet some more If you have a mechanical topping lift raise the boom If not hold it up with the rigid vang our your shoulder Some boats will require taking loose the Cunningham Then slack the halyard and fasten the luff reef cringle to the boom or gooseneck (Here is where I differ with a lot of advice I find the ramrsquos horn reef hooks you find on almost every boom to be not only a nuisance but dangerous They tend to come undone at the worst times and they are not that easy to use You have to sort of fold and hook the cringle to the hook I prefer to use a poly strap or rope and simply tie the cringle to the gooseneck Itrsquos faster and easier to do Just Opinion And if you have altered your sail with new reef locations you might have to actually take the sail stop out of the groove to make the connection to the hook) After the reef is tied or hooked at the luff take up your halyard tension Then pull tight on the clew reef line Slack off the topping lift and steer back on course Really it shouldnrsquot take more than five minutes at the most We can do it on our boat in about three If you try to pull the clew reef down first you will end up with a mess Always start with the luff reef and then tension the halyard The single line reefing systems that are often diagramed donrsquot really work very well at all I installed one on our old boat and discarded it On some boats the outhaul will need to be slacked While itrsquos a very neat idea to mark the halyard at the dock for the reef position I find itrsquos a little optimistic I prefer to leave some slop If you are using hooks and you donrsquot have quite enough slack you wonrsquot get them hooked Unless off shore in a real blow I donrsquot bother with the intermediate reef points However if you are putting in a second reef the sail may hang down into the cockpit and you will have to tie them

Roller Reefing

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

Roller reefing only concerns boats with end boom sheeting There are two types The geared system which requires turning the gooseneck either with a tool or by hand and a few that insert a winch handle in the end of the boom The other system is a double line system that goes to a winch on either side of the boom This is the system you will find on the McGregor 26 power sailor Roller reefing is much the same as slab reefing You have to bring the boat into the wind and then slack the halyard But the difference is that you do not slack off the whole run of the halyard This is why itrsquos a little hard to do with one person One person must lower the halyard while the other person cranks the boom rolling the sail up If you donrsquot have enough tension on the halyard you will end up with a big thick mess Too much and you wonrsquot get it furled A lot of older boats with roller reefing also required you to ease the outhaul On the double line systems you simply ease the halyard and pull on the reefing line To shake out the reef you ease the halyard and pull on the other end of the line One advantage of roller furling is that you can take in exactly the amount of sail you want to On the McGregorrsquos you can also furl the sail on the boom the same way with the soft battens One thing a bit different in a roller furling system is that you need to keep the boom pretty much horizontal And that means most of the time keeping the boom centered in the boat The advantage of slab reefing is you can work the boom over to one side or another Not completely luffed

In Boom Furling

Really for around here most of the in boom furling systems will work a lot like slab reefing The drill is the same Except for one major difference THE BOOM HAS TO BE HORIZONTAL or you will have a devil of a time not jamming the system For most boats that means having the boom more or less centered There are very complicated in boom furlers that use a continuous system that does not require messing with the halyard As far as I know all the boats here in our marina do not have that system If I were offshore I would definitely have reefing cringles in a boom furler just in case it failed So I could tie a reef to the boom The Seldon Hall and Hood systems are closed systems The Schaefer has a lot of open areas to inspect and flush the mechanisms If they are working they are very fast and easy to do

The simplest way to figure it all out is to do it at the dock And if itrsquos blowing twenty at the dock I reef before we go out Itrsquos a whole lot easier to shake the reef out than to put it in The big advantage of Slab or Inboom furling is that one person can do it Roller furling is very hard to do by yourself Irsquove never been good at rubbing my stomach and patting my head at the same time

Headsail Reefing

Most of our boats have roller furlers And by and large thatrsquos what they are Furlers As soon as you start to roll up a headsail you will alter the dynamics of the sail big time Most headsails are designed to have their maximum draft (depth) at about 33 percent aft from the headstay or luff This is optimal and important for your headsail to work properly with your mainsail As soon as a sail is reefed the draft moves to a position where it isnrsquot of much use despite such features as foam luff pads and double swivelsOn mast head rigged boats with big headsails sometimes you just have to reef to maintain control When you are racing with crew you would probably make a head sail change rather than reef But the furlers can really be helpful on a fractional rigged boat in a blow because although the boat will sail beautifully under main alone in a blow the problem is tacking Getting the boat around And if you leave just a tad of jib up it will help you through that tack It wonrsquot do much going up wind There is another system of reefing a headsail that was common back in the fifties and sixties The sailmaker basically designed two sails and ran a series of vertical cringles on the sail You then tied the luff to the cringles and reduced the size of the sail I never understood the value of the system because it requires lowering the sail or in some ingenious systems that were applied messing up airflow with a complicated system of reefing lines The beauty of roller furling is you donrsquot have to go up on the bow when itrsquos blowing

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

So what does reefing do for you Is it worth the effort Well in racing it is critical By having to slack off the main you will loose your ability to point When you reef you can maintain sailshape and then sail closer into the wind There is a tradeoff You might loose some boatspeed But in racing velocity made good is more important Irsquove been on boats with very sophisticated computer programs and itrsquos quite fascinating to see a plot based on boat speed versus velocity made good Letrsquos assume a five mile straight line distance to a mark on a beat A minor two degree change in optimum upwind direction isnrsquot very much But letrsquos say you tack five times When you look at the plot on the computer itrsquos pretty radical because it increased exponentially with each tack And of course the longer the tack the more it affects the velocity made good

Off the wind is more complicated At that point itrsquos really a matter of boatspeed Without getting ridiculously technical some boats sail at higher angle of heels than others For instance A J-24 or other hard bilged boats need to be sailed flat Older boats built to the CCA rule sail with much greater angle of heels because they pick up water line length Some of those boats sail fastest with the rail in the water But rudder position also has a lot to do with how much weather helm a boat will affect and when you begin to loose rudder control and round up By and large most designers design a boat with a optimum angle of heel You sort of have to figure that out boat by boat and by wind conditions Irsquove noticed that by design the Beneteau boats are harder in the bilge than Catalinas So theoretically a Beneteau 32rsquo should be sailed much more flat than a Catalina 320 In observing the two different boats I think thatrsquos pretty accurate And Irsquove noticed that once heeled the Beneteau boats are more prone to gusts than the Catalina Irsquom guessing itrsquos the flatter bottom and rudder position But the point of all this is that to maintain boat speed and control you need to have a sense of your best angle of heel and then REEF the boat if you need to in order to maintain it

Fractionally Rigged boats have much larger main sails and are therefore much more sensitive to mainsail reefing However they can be controlled in gusts a bit better because the backstay can spill the upper part of the sail without moving the center of effort like on a mast head rigged boat Remember when you crank on the backstay on a masthead rigged boat you are also moving the draft back on the Jib So it changes the mast dynamics in a different way You are actually bending more of the column than on a fractionally rigged boat which is intended to radically bend the upper part of the mast You donrsquot move the draft on the jib at all

I know we live on a lake and usually if we just wait it out the wind changes But reefing the boat can make a big difference in control and comfort on the boat And not wear you out nearly as much Besides it just might make a big difference Three years ago we started out to the Fireworks on Fourth of July I saw a small cell to the South when we left on our old little 21rsquo boat and reefed at the dock I figured it would continue south which it did But WOW When we poked out into the Channel we saw the nasty squall just barreling down the river Very condensed I decided to stay in the river rather than try and deal with tacking in the channel and if we hadnrsquot been reefed we might have been in serious trouble So you definitely should at least know how to reef your boat And if you donrsquot Irsquom sure somebody will help you figure it out

I donrsquot mean for this little article to be any sort of expert compendium on reefing Simply a primer There are millions of articles out there devoted to the subject One of the most concise Irsquod seen is on the following website Just click it for the whole article

Reefed down boats on SF Bay

httpwwwmyboatsgearcomnewsletter2008115asp

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

Saturday was only a preview to the conditions on Sunday when the wind blew 15 to 20 mph from the south Five boats set out over the same course and the finish saw Trish and George Brown on ldquoMystic Trdquo beat out Rich Mason on ldquoEscaperdquo with the Kuhlmans as crew by less than five feet This after nearly nine miles (in a straight line) of racing over approximately one and a half hours Larry and Stacey on ldquoPuffrdquo were the small-est boat and they had some trouble with gusts of up to 25 mph being reported I donrsquot know if the wind got up to that speed as I was hanging on for dear life on Roger Ericksonrsquos ldquoAvikingrdquo as he attempted to cut close to the marks and out-tack the opposition to finish third Full results are also given elsewhere

These two races bode well for the upcoming season So why not come out and join us The next races in the Club Pursuit Calendar are on the Saturdays and Sundays of March 21 and 22 April 4 and 5 and April 11 and 12 Skipperrsquos meeting is at 1100 am on both days There is a Joint Pursuit with Browns Creek on Sunday April 19 with the Skipperrsquos meeting at 1000 am All this is leading up to the Guntersville Cup Regatta on Saturday April 25 No experience is needed for guaranteed fun and the whole process is light-hearted (ex-cept perhaps between any couple of boats that find themselves in close proximity to each other) Handicaps will be allocated based on the boat and the crewrsquos experience See you on the water

Boat Skipper MakeModel Sail No Finishing PositionNo Name Bev Kuhlman Catalina 320 791 1Mystic T Trish Brown Benateau 321 2Providence Randy Rathmann Pearson 31 3Close Encounters Tony Martin Catalina 27T 386 4Breeze Charlie Raines Catalina 28 17 5Kathy II Chip Meegan S2 90 7067 6Escape Rich Mason Hunter 34 764 7Aviking Roger Erickson OrsquoDay 32 37 8No Name John Smith Hunter 255 9

LGSC Race Results

Race Saturday Spring Series 1 March 7 2009 Course Seibold Light-Short Creek Light-Upper Guntersville Light-Short Creek Light-Seibold LightWind South 10-15 mph

Boat Skipper MakeModel Sail No Finishing PositionMystic T Trish Brown Benateau 321 1Escape Rich Mason Hunter 34 764 2Aviking Roger Erickson OrsquoDay 32 37 3Kokamo John Frost Catalina 320 1118 4Puff Larry Bontrager Catalina 25 5013 5

Race Sunday Spring Series 1 March 8 2009 Course Seibold Light-Short Creek Light-Upper Guntersville Light-Short Creek Light-Seibold LightWind South-South West 15-20 mph

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

Comments from the Social Corner

By Trish Brown Chair

On March 21st after the Saturday Series 3 race we will have a raft-up in Town Creek and hopefully spend the night Trish amp George Brown will lead this so look for their Beneteau and come tie up alongside This is contingent on good weather ndash none of us want to stay out if itrsquos cold or wet If the weather is not good as itrsquos likely to be this time of year wersquoll return to the marina and pick a restaurant for all to join in a group dinner

The Board Meeting will be the second Saturday in April on the 11th Afterwards at 6 pm Judy and Barry Bicknell and Amy Stapleton will be hosting a potluck ldquoSpring Dinnerrdquo at the clubhouse Put your best spring dish together and come down and enjoy the fellowship Plans for the Guntersville Cup are coming along great We will have an Italian dinner on Friday evening breakfast on Saturday morning and Bar-B-Q Ribs Chicken and Pulled Pork (slow cooked all afternoon on site) for dinner with Chip and his guitar afterwards for your listening pleasure after the silent auction and awards presentations So if you havenrsquot registered yet for the Guntersville Cup ndash do so to enjoy a fun weekend

In May the Club dinner will be on the 9th It will be a ldquobring your own meat to grill and a dish to sharerdquo hosted by the Melissa and Jean-Marc Zanni There will be another raft-up on May 16th lead by Amy Staple-ton So keep checking the master calendar to make sure you donrsquot miss any of the events Also if you have an idea for an event let one of the Social Committee members know and wersquoll add it to the schedule

Hope to see you at the marina

RAfT UPS

Rear Commodore Trish Brown

Social Committee Chair

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

HOT NEWS We had 29 people for dinner at the Club House March 14th in spite of the hor-rible weather Excellent dinner with a variety of great entres and some dynamite Strawberry Short Cake (Thanks Bev)

Quill arranged to have two members of the USCG auxiliary speak after dinner on boat safety and inspections and some of the duties and charges of the Auxiliary They were fol-lowed by Charlie Rains who talked about the Alabama laws regarding MSDrsquos and his role as an inspector Charlie can inspect your boat and issue the certificate (decal) They were all due JANUARY FIRST

REEFING

I see a lot of boats out on the lake that are overpowered when the wind gets up and with a lot of weather helm In most cases itrsquos because the main hasnrsquot been reefed There are two reasons to reef in heavy air One is sailshape The only alternative to reefing is to continually play out the mainsheet which basically ruins your sail shape particularly to windward When the main is reefed it allows you to keep the twist and power in the sail but lowers the power area and the heeling moment The other reason to reef in heavy air is simply to keep the boat on itrsquos feet and eliminate a lot of the weather helm The real key to reefing is to do it BEFORE YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO and to anticipate Irsquove talked to a lot of people over the years who tell me they donrsquot even know how to reef their boat The simplest way to do it is at the dock Just raise the main in the slip and experiment with your boatrsquos reefing system Over the forty plus years Irsquove been sailing Irsquove found the simpler the system the more likely you will reef Maybe the best advance Irsquove seen over the years is loose footed mains It makes reefing so much easier A lot of the very complicated slab reefing systems donrsquot actually work very well when you are short handed

Irsquom going to discuss three basic forms of mainsail reefing and two forms of headsail reefing MainSail Reefing

1) California Jiffy or Slab Reefing2) Roller Reefing3) In Boom Reefing

Headsail Reefing1) Roller Furlingreefing2) Cringle Reefing

While there are differences in the kinds of mainsail reefing they all require certain procedures in common to actually take in the reef California or Slab Reefing

The drill on slab reefing is as follows First bring the boat up into the wind where the main just starts to luff and try and keep forward momentum with the Jib Loosen the vang preventer and just ease the main sheet some more If you have a mechanical topping lift raise the boom If not hold it up with the rigid vang our your shoulder Some boats will require taking loose the Cunningham Then slack the halyard and fasten the luff reef cringle to the boom or gooseneck (Here is where I differ with a lot of advice I find the ramrsquos horn reef hooks you find on almost every boom to be not only a nuisance but dangerous They tend to come undone at the worst times and they are not that easy to use You have to sort of fold and hook the cringle to the hook I prefer to use a poly strap or rope and simply tie the cringle to the gooseneck Itrsquos faster and easier to do Just Opinion And if you have altered your sail with new reef locations you might have to actually take the sail stop out of the groove to make the connection to the hook) After the reef is tied or hooked at the luff take up your halyard tension Then pull tight on the clew reef line Slack off the topping lift and steer back on course Really it shouldnrsquot take more than five minutes at the most We can do it on our boat in about three If you try to pull the clew reef down first you will end up with a mess Always start with the luff reef and then tension the halyard The single line reefing systems that are often diagramed donrsquot really work very well at all I installed one on our old boat and discarded it On some boats the outhaul will need to be slacked While itrsquos a very neat idea to mark the halyard at the dock for the reef position I find itrsquos a little optimistic I prefer to leave some slop If you are using hooks and you donrsquot have quite enough slack you wonrsquot get them hooked Unless off shore in a real blow I donrsquot bother with the intermediate reef points However if you are putting in a second reef the sail may hang down into the cockpit and you will have to tie them

Roller Reefing

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

Roller reefing only concerns boats with end boom sheeting There are two types The geared system which requires turning the gooseneck either with a tool or by hand and a few that insert a winch handle in the end of the boom The other system is a double line system that goes to a winch on either side of the boom This is the system you will find on the McGregor 26 power sailor Roller reefing is much the same as slab reefing You have to bring the boat into the wind and then slack the halyard But the difference is that you do not slack off the whole run of the halyard This is why itrsquos a little hard to do with one person One person must lower the halyard while the other person cranks the boom rolling the sail up If you donrsquot have enough tension on the halyard you will end up with a big thick mess Too much and you wonrsquot get it furled A lot of older boats with roller reefing also required you to ease the outhaul On the double line systems you simply ease the halyard and pull on the reefing line To shake out the reef you ease the halyard and pull on the other end of the line One advantage of roller furling is that you can take in exactly the amount of sail you want to On the McGregorrsquos you can also furl the sail on the boom the same way with the soft battens One thing a bit different in a roller furling system is that you need to keep the boom pretty much horizontal And that means most of the time keeping the boom centered in the boat The advantage of slab reefing is you can work the boom over to one side or another Not completely luffed

In Boom Furling

Really for around here most of the in boom furling systems will work a lot like slab reefing The drill is the same Except for one major difference THE BOOM HAS TO BE HORIZONTAL or you will have a devil of a time not jamming the system For most boats that means having the boom more or less centered There are very complicated in boom furlers that use a continuous system that does not require messing with the halyard As far as I know all the boats here in our marina do not have that system If I were offshore I would definitely have reefing cringles in a boom furler just in case it failed So I could tie a reef to the boom The Seldon Hall and Hood systems are closed systems The Schaefer has a lot of open areas to inspect and flush the mechanisms If they are working they are very fast and easy to do

The simplest way to figure it all out is to do it at the dock And if itrsquos blowing twenty at the dock I reef before we go out Itrsquos a whole lot easier to shake the reef out than to put it in The big advantage of Slab or Inboom furling is that one person can do it Roller furling is very hard to do by yourself Irsquove never been good at rubbing my stomach and patting my head at the same time

Headsail Reefing

Most of our boats have roller furlers And by and large thatrsquos what they are Furlers As soon as you start to roll up a headsail you will alter the dynamics of the sail big time Most headsails are designed to have their maximum draft (depth) at about 33 percent aft from the headstay or luff This is optimal and important for your headsail to work properly with your mainsail As soon as a sail is reefed the draft moves to a position where it isnrsquot of much use despite such features as foam luff pads and double swivelsOn mast head rigged boats with big headsails sometimes you just have to reef to maintain control When you are racing with crew you would probably make a head sail change rather than reef But the furlers can really be helpful on a fractional rigged boat in a blow because although the boat will sail beautifully under main alone in a blow the problem is tacking Getting the boat around And if you leave just a tad of jib up it will help you through that tack It wonrsquot do much going up wind There is another system of reefing a headsail that was common back in the fifties and sixties The sailmaker basically designed two sails and ran a series of vertical cringles on the sail You then tied the luff to the cringles and reduced the size of the sail I never understood the value of the system because it requires lowering the sail or in some ingenious systems that were applied messing up airflow with a complicated system of reefing lines The beauty of roller furling is you donrsquot have to go up on the bow when itrsquos blowing

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

So what does reefing do for you Is it worth the effort Well in racing it is critical By having to slack off the main you will loose your ability to point When you reef you can maintain sailshape and then sail closer into the wind There is a tradeoff You might loose some boatspeed But in racing velocity made good is more important Irsquove been on boats with very sophisticated computer programs and itrsquos quite fascinating to see a plot based on boat speed versus velocity made good Letrsquos assume a five mile straight line distance to a mark on a beat A minor two degree change in optimum upwind direction isnrsquot very much But letrsquos say you tack five times When you look at the plot on the computer itrsquos pretty radical because it increased exponentially with each tack And of course the longer the tack the more it affects the velocity made good

Off the wind is more complicated At that point itrsquos really a matter of boatspeed Without getting ridiculously technical some boats sail at higher angle of heels than others For instance A J-24 or other hard bilged boats need to be sailed flat Older boats built to the CCA rule sail with much greater angle of heels because they pick up water line length Some of those boats sail fastest with the rail in the water But rudder position also has a lot to do with how much weather helm a boat will affect and when you begin to loose rudder control and round up By and large most designers design a boat with a optimum angle of heel You sort of have to figure that out boat by boat and by wind conditions Irsquove noticed that by design the Beneteau boats are harder in the bilge than Catalinas So theoretically a Beneteau 32rsquo should be sailed much more flat than a Catalina 320 In observing the two different boats I think thatrsquos pretty accurate And Irsquove noticed that once heeled the Beneteau boats are more prone to gusts than the Catalina Irsquom guessing itrsquos the flatter bottom and rudder position But the point of all this is that to maintain boat speed and control you need to have a sense of your best angle of heel and then REEF the boat if you need to in order to maintain it

Fractionally Rigged boats have much larger main sails and are therefore much more sensitive to mainsail reefing However they can be controlled in gusts a bit better because the backstay can spill the upper part of the sail without moving the center of effort like on a mast head rigged boat Remember when you crank on the backstay on a masthead rigged boat you are also moving the draft back on the Jib So it changes the mast dynamics in a different way You are actually bending more of the column than on a fractionally rigged boat which is intended to radically bend the upper part of the mast You donrsquot move the draft on the jib at all

I know we live on a lake and usually if we just wait it out the wind changes But reefing the boat can make a big difference in control and comfort on the boat And not wear you out nearly as much Besides it just might make a big difference Three years ago we started out to the Fireworks on Fourth of July I saw a small cell to the South when we left on our old little 21rsquo boat and reefed at the dock I figured it would continue south which it did But WOW When we poked out into the Channel we saw the nasty squall just barreling down the river Very condensed I decided to stay in the river rather than try and deal with tacking in the channel and if we hadnrsquot been reefed we might have been in serious trouble So you definitely should at least know how to reef your boat And if you donrsquot Irsquom sure somebody will help you figure it out

I donrsquot mean for this little article to be any sort of expert compendium on reefing Simply a primer There are millions of articles out there devoted to the subject One of the most concise Irsquod seen is on the following website Just click it for the whole article

Reefed down boats on SF Bay

httpwwwmyboatsgearcomnewsletter2008115asp

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

Comments from the Social Corner

By Trish Brown Chair

On March 21st after the Saturday Series 3 race we will have a raft-up in Town Creek and hopefully spend the night Trish amp George Brown will lead this so look for their Beneteau and come tie up alongside This is contingent on good weather ndash none of us want to stay out if itrsquos cold or wet If the weather is not good as itrsquos likely to be this time of year wersquoll return to the marina and pick a restaurant for all to join in a group dinner

The Board Meeting will be the second Saturday in April on the 11th Afterwards at 6 pm Judy and Barry Bicknell and Amy Stapleton will be hosting a potluck ldquoSpring Dinnerrdquo at the clubhouse Put your best spring dish together and come down and enjoy the fellowship Plans for the Guntersville Cup are coming along great We will have an Italian dinner on Friday evening breakfast on Saturday morning and Bar-B-Q Ribs Chicken and Pulled Pork (slow cooked all afternoon on site) for dinner with Chip and his guitar afterwards for your listening pleasure after the silent auction and awards presentations So if you havenrsquot registered yet for the Guntersville Cup ndash do so to enjoy a fun weekend

In May the Club dinner will be on the 9th It will be a ldquobring your own meat to grill and a dish to sharerdquo hosted by the Melissa and Jean-Marc Zanni There will be another raft-up on May 16th lead by Amy Staple-ton So keep checking the master calendar to make sure you donrsquot miss any of the events Also if you have an idea for an event let one of the Social Committee members know and wersquoll add it to the schedule

Hope to see you at the marina

RAfT UPS

Rear Commodore Trish Brown

Social Committee Chair

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

HOT NEWS We had 29 people for dinner at the Club House March 14th in spite of the hor-rible weather Excellent dinner with a variety of great entres and some dynamite Strawberry Short Cake (Thanks Bev)

Quill arranged to have two members of the USCG auxiliary speak after dinner on boat safety and inspections and some of the duties and charges of the Auxiliary They were fol-lowed by Charlie Rains who talked about the Alabama laws regarding MSDrsquos and his role as an inspector Charlie can inspect your boat and issue the certificate (decal) They were all due JANUARY FIRST

REEFING

I see a lot of boats out on the lake that are overpowered when the wind gets up and with a lot of weather helm In most cases itrsquos because the main hasnrsquot been reefed There are two reasons to reef in heavy air One is sailshape The only alternative to reefing is to continually play out the mainsheet which basically ruins your sail shape particularly to windward When the main is reefed it allows you to keep the twist and power in the sail but lowers the power area and the heeling moment The other reason to reef in heavy air is simply to keep the boat on itrsquos feet and eliminate a lot of the weather helm The real key to reefing is to do it BEFORE YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO and to anticipate Irsquove talked to a lot of people over the years who tell me they donrsquot even know how to reef their boat The simplest way to do it is at the dock Just raise the main in the slip and experiment with your boatrsquos reefing system Over the forty plus years Irsquove been sailing Irsquove found the simpler the system the more likely you will reef Maybe the best advance Irsquove seen over the years is loose footed mains It makes reefing so much easier A lot of the very complicated slab reefing systems donrsquot actually work very well when you are short handed

Irsquom going to discuss three basic forms of mainsail reefing and two forms of headsail reefing MainSail Reefing

1) California Jiffy or Slab Reefing2) Roller Reefing3) In Boom Reefing

Headsail Reefing1) Roller Furlingreefing2) Cringle Reefing

While there are differences in the kinds of mainsail reefing they all require certain procedures in common to actually take in the reef California or Slab Reefing

The drill on slab reefing is as follows First bring the boat up into the wind where the main just starts to luff and try and keep forward momentum with the Jib Loosen the vang preventer and just ease the main sheet some more If you have a mechanical topping lift raise the boom If not hold it up with the rigid vang our your shoulder Some boats will require taking loose the Cunningham Then slack the halyard and fasten the luff reef cringle to the boom or gooseneck (Here is where I differ with a lot of advice I find the ramrsquos horn reef hooks you find on almost every boom to be not only a nuisance but dangerous They tend to come undone at the worst times and they are not that easy to use You have to sort of fold and hook the cringle to the hook I prefer to use a poly strap or rope and simply tie the cringle to the gooseneck Itrsquos faster and easier to do Just Opinion And if you have altered your sail with new reef locations you might have to actually take the sail stop out of the groove to make the connection to the hook) After the reef is tied or hooked at the luff take up your halyard tension Then pull tight on the clew reef line Slack off the topping lift and steer back on course Really it shouldnrsquot take more than five minutes at the most We can do it on our boat in about three If you try to pull the clew reef down first you will end up with a mess Always start with the luff reef and then tension the halyard The single line reefing systems that are often diagramed donrsquot really work very well at all I installed one on our old boat and discarded it On some boats the outhaul will need to be slacked While itrsquos a very neat idea to mark the halyard at the dock for the reef position I find itrsquos a little optimistic I prefer to leave some slop If you are using hooks and you donrsquot have quite enough slack you wonrsquot get them hooked Unless off shore in a real blow I donrsquot bother with the intermediate reef points However if you are putting in a second reef the sail may hang down into the cockpit and you will have to tie them

Roller Reefing

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

Roller reefing only concerns boats with end boom sheeting There are two types The geared system which requires turning the gooseneck either with a tool or by hand and a few that insert a winch handle in the end of the boom The other system is a double line system that goes to a winch on either side of the boom This is the system you will find on the McGregor 26 power sailor Roller reefing is much the same as slab reefing You have to bring the boat into the wind and then slack the halyard But the difference is that you do not slack off the whole run of the halyard This is why itrsquos a little hard to do with one person One person must lower the halyard while the other person cranks the boom rolling the sail up If you donrsquot have enough tension on the halyard you will end up with a big thick mess Too much and you wonrsquot get it furled A lot of older boats with roller reefing also required you to ease the outhaul On the double line systems you simply ease the halyard and pull on the reefing line To shake out the reef you ease the halyard and pull on the other end of the line One advantage of roller furling is that you can take in exactly the amount of sail you want to On the McGregorrsquos you can also furl the sail on the boom the same way with the soft battens One thing a bit different in a roller furling system is that you need to keep the boom pretty much horizontal And that means most of the time keeping the boom centered in the boat The advantage of slab reefing is you can work the boom over to one side or another Not completely luffed

In Boom Furling

Really for around here most of the in boom furling systems will work a lot like slab reefing The drill is the same Except for one major difference THE BOOM HAS TO BE HORIZONTAL or you will have a devil of a time not jamming the system For most boats that means having the boom more or less centered There are very complicated in boom furlers that use a continuous system that does not require messing with the halyard As far as I know all the boats here in our marina do not have that system If I were offshore I would definitely have reefing cringles in a boom furler just in case it failed So I could tie a reef to the boom The Seldon Hall and Hood systems are closed systems The Schaefer has a lot of open areas to inspect and flush the mechanisms If they are working they are very fast and easy to do

The simplest way to figure it all out is to do it at the dock And if itrsquos blowing twenty at the dock I reef before we go out Itrsquos a whole lot easier to shake the reef out than to put it in The big advantage of Slab or Inboom furling is that one person can do it Roller furling is very hard to do by yourself Irsquove never been good at rubbing my stomach and patting my head at the same time

Headsail Reefing

Most of our boats have roller furlers And by and large thatrsquos what they are Furlers As soon as you start to roll up a headsail you will alter the dynamics of the sail big time Most headsails are designed to have their maximum draft (depth) at about 33 percent aft from the headstay or luff This is optimal and important for your headsail to work properly with your mainsail As soon as a sail is reefed the draft moves to a position where it isnrsquot of much use despite such features as foam luff pads and double swivelsOn mast head rigged boats with big headsails sometimes you just have to reef to maintain control When you are racing with crew you would probably make a head sail change rather than reef But the furlers can really be helpful on a fractional rigged boat in a blow because although the boat will sail beautifully under main alone in a blow the problem is tacking Getting the boat around And if you leave just a tad of jib up it will help you through that tack It wonrsquot do much going up wind There is another system of reefing a headsail that was common back in the fifties and sixties The sailmaker basically designed two sails and ran a series of vertical cringles on the sail You then tied the luff to the cringles and reduced the size of the sail I never understood the value of the system because it requires lowering the sail or in some ingenious systems that were applied messing up airflow with a complicated system of reefing lines The beauty of roller furling is you donrsquot have to go up on the bow when itrsquos blowing

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

So what does reefing do for you Is it worth the effort Well in racing it is critical By having to slack off the main you will loose your ability to point When you reef you can maintain sailshape and then sail closer into the wind There is a tradeoff You might loose some boatspeed But in racing velocity made good is more important Irsquove been on boats with very sophisticated computer programs and itrsquos quite fascinating to see a plot based on boat speed versus velocity made good Letrsquos assume a five mile straight line distance to a mark on a beat A minor two degree change in optimum upwind direction isnrsquot very much But letrsquos say you tack five times When you look at the plot on the computer itrsquos pretty radical because it increased exponentially with each tack And of course the longer the tack the more it affects the velocity made good

Off the wind is more complicated At that point itrsquos really a matter of boatspeed Without getting ridiculously technical some boats sail at higher angle of heels than others For instance A J-24 or other hard bilged boats need to be sailed flat Older boats built to the CCA rule sail with much greater angle of heels because they pick up water line length Some of those boats sail fastest with the rail in the water But rudder position also has a lot to do with how much weather helm a boat will affect and when you begin to loose rudder control and round up By and large most designers design a boat with a optimum angle of heel You sort of have to figure that out boat by boat and by wind conditions Irsquove noticed that by design the Beneteau boats are harder in the bilge than Catalinas So theoretically a Beneteau 32rsquo should be sailed much more flat than a Catalina 320 In observing the two different boats I think thatrsquos pretty accurate And Irsquove noticed that once heeled the Beneteau boats are more prone to gusts than the Catalina Irsquom guessing itrsquos the flatter bottom and rudder position But the point of all this is that to maintain boat speed and control you need to have a sense of your best angle of heel and then REEF the boat if you need to in order to maintain it

Fractionally Rigged boats have much larger main sails and are therefore much more sensitive to mainsail reefing However they can be controlled in gusts a bit better because the backstay can spill the upper part of the sail without moving the center of effort like on a mast head rigged boat Remember when you crank on the backstay on a masthead rigged boat you are also moving the draft back on the Jib So it changes the mast dynamics in a different way You are actually bending more of the column than on a fractionally rigged boat which is intended to radically bend the upper part of the mast You donrsquot move the draft on the jib at all

I know we live on a lake and usually if we just wait it out the wind changes But reefing the boat can make a big difference in control and comfort on the boat And not wear you out nearly as much Besides it just might make a big difference Three years ago we started out to the Fireworks on Fourth of July I saw a small cell to the South when we left on our old little 21rsquo boat and reefed at the dock I figured it would continue south which it did But WOW When we poked out into the Channel we saw the nasty squall just barreling down the river Very condensed I decided to stay in the river rather than try and deal with tacking in the channel and if we hadnrsquot been reefed we might have been in serious trouble So you definitely should at least know how to reef your boat And if you donrsquot Irsquom sure somebody will help you figure it out

I donrsquot mean for this little article to be any sort of expert compendium on reefing Simply a primer There are millions of articles out there devoted to the subject One of the most concise Irsquod seen is on the following website Just click it for the whole article

Reefed down boats on SF Bay

httpwwwmyboatsgearcomnewsletter2008115asp

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

REEFING

I see a lot of boats out on the lake that are overpowered when the wind gets up and with a lot of weather helm In most cases itrsquos because the main hasnrsquot been reefed There are two reasons to reef in heavy air One is sailshape The only alternative to reefing is to continually play out the mainsheet which basically ruins your sail shape particularly to windward When the main is reefed it allows you to keep the twist and power in the sail but lowers the power area and the heeling moment The other reason to reef in heavy air is simply to keep the boat on itrsquos feet and eliminate a lot of the weather helm The real key to reefing is to do it BEFORE YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO and to anticipate Irsquove talked to a lot of people over the years who tell me they donrsquot even know how to reef their boat The simplest way to do it is at the dock Just raise the main in the slip and experiment with your boatrsquos reefing system Over the forty plus years Irsquove been sailing Irsquove found the simpler the system the more likely you will reef Maybe the best advance Irsquove seen over the years is loose footed mains It makes reefing so much easier A lot of the very complicated slab reefing systems donrsquot actually work very well when you are short handed

Irsquom going to discuss three basic forms of mainsail reefing and two forms of headsail reefing MainSail Reefing

1) California Jiffy or Slab Reefing2) Roller Reefing3) In Boom Reefing

Headsail Reefing1) Roller Furlingreefing2) Cringle Reefing

While there are differences in the kinds of mainsail reefing they all require certain procedures in common to actually take in the reef California or Slab Reefing

The drill on slab reefing is as follows First bring the boat up into the wind where the main just starts to luff and try and keep forward momentum with the Jib Loosen the vang preventer and just ease the main sheet some more If you have a mechanical topping lift raise the boom If not hold it up with the rigid vang our your shoulder Some boats will require taking loose the Cunningham Then slack the halyard and fasten the luff reef cringle to the boom or gooseneck (Here is where I differ with a lot of advice I find the ramrsquos horn reef hooks you find on almost every boom to be not only a nuisance but dangerous They tend to come undone at the worst times and they are not that easy to use You have to sort of fold and hook the cringle to the hook I prefer to use a poly strap or rope and simply tie the cringle to the gooseneck Itrsquos faster and easier to do Just Opinion And if you have altered your sail with new reef locations you might have to actually take the sail stop out of the groove to make the connection to the hook) After the reef is tied or hooked at the luff take up your halyard tension Then pull tight on the clew reef line Slack off the topping lift and steer back on course Really it shouldnrsquot take more than five minutes at the most We can do it on our boat in about three If you try to pull the clew reef down first you will end up with a mess Always start with the luff reef and then tension the halyard The single line reefing systems that are often diagramed donrsquot really work very well at all I installed one on our old boat and discarded it On some boats the outhaul will need to be slacked While itrsquos a very neat idea to mark the halyard at the dock for the reef position I find itrsquos a little optimistic I prefer to leave some slop If you are using hooks and you donrsquot have quite enough slack you wonrsquot get them hooked Unless off shore in a real blow I donrsquot bother with the intermediate reef points However if you are putting in a second reef the sail may hang down into the cockpit and you will have to tie them

Roller Reefing

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

Roller reefing only concerns boats with end boom sheeting There are two types The geared system which requires turning the gooseneck either with a tool or by hand and a few that insert a winch handle in the end of the boom The other system is a double line system that goes to a winch on either side of the boom This is the system you will find on the McGregor 26 power sailor Roller reefing is much the same as slab reefing You have to bring the boat into the wind and then slack the halyard But the difference is that you do not slack off the whole run of the halyard This is why itrsquos a little hard to do with one person One person must lower the halyard while the other person cranks the boom rolling the sail up If you donrsquot have enough tension on the halyard you will end up with a big thick mess Too much and you wonrsquot get it furled A lot of older boats with roller reefing also required you to ease the outhaul On the double line systems you simply ease the halyard and pull on the reefing line To shake out the reef you ease the halyard and pull on the other end of the line One advantage of roller furling is that you can take in exactly the amount of sail you want to On the McGregorrsquos you can also furl the sail on the boom the same way with the soft battens One thing a bit different in a roller furling system is that you need to keep the boom pretty much horizontal And that means most of the time keeping the boom centered in the boat The advantage of slab reefing is you can work the boom over to one side or another Not completely luffed

In Boom Furling

Really for around here most of the in boom furling systems will work a lot like slab reefing The drill is the same Except for one major difference THE BOOM HAS TO BE HORIZONTAL or you will have a devil of a time not jamming the system For most boats that means having the boom more or less centered There are very complicated in boom furlers that use a continuous system that does not require messing with the halyard As far as I know all the boats here in our marina do not have that system If I were offshore I would definitely have reefing cringles in a boom furler just in case it failed So I could tie a reef to the boom The Seldon Hall and Hood systems are closed systems The Schaefer has a lot of open areas to inspect and flush the mechanisms If they are working they are very fast and easy to do

The simplest way to figure it all out is to do it at the dock And if itrsquos blowing twenty at the dock I reef before we go out Itrsquos a whole lot easier to shake the reef out than to put it in The big advantage of Slab or Inboom furling is that one person can do it Roller furling is very hard to do by yourself Irsquove never been good at rubbing my stomach and patting my head at the same time

Headsail Reefing

Most of our boats have roller furlers And by and large thatrsquos what they are Furlers As soon as you start to roll up a headsail you will alter the dynamics of the sail big time Most headsails are designed to have their maximum draft (depth) at about 33 percent aft from the headstay or luff This is optimal and important for your headsail to work properly with your mainsail As soon as a sail is reefed the draft moves to a position where it isnrsquot of much use despite such features as foam luff pads and double swivelsOn mast head rigged boats with big headsails sometimes you just have to reef to maintain control When you are racing with crew you would probably make a head sail change rather than reef But the furlers can really be helpful on a fractional rigged boat in a blow because although the boat will sail beautifully under main alone in a blow the problem is tacking Getting the boat around And if you leave just a tad of jib up it will help you through that tack It wonrsquot do much going up wind There is another system of reefing a headsail that was common back in the fifties and sixties The sailmaker basically designed two sails and ran a series of vertical cringles on the sail You then tied the luff to the cringles and reduced the size of the sail I never understood the value of the system because it requires lowering the sail or in some ingenious systems that were applied messing up airflow with a complicated system of reefing lines The beauty of roller furling is you donrsquot have to go up on the bow when itrsquos blowing

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

So what does reefing do for you Is it worth the effort Well in racing it is critical By having to slack off the main you will loose your ability to point When you reef you can maintain sailshape and then sail closer into the wind There is a tradeoff You might loose some boatspeed But in racing velocity made good is more important Irsquove been on boats with very sophisticated computer programs and itrsquos quite fascinating to see a plot based on boat speed versus velocity made good Letrsquos assume a five mile straight line distance to a mark on a beat A minor two degree change in optimum upwind direction isnrsquot very much But letrsquos say you tack five times When you look at the plot on the computer itrsquos pretty radical because it increased exponentially with each tack And of course the longer the tack the more it affects the velocity made good

Off the wind is more complicated At that point itrsquos really a matter of boatspeed Without getting ridiculously technical some boats sail at higher angle of heels than others For instance A J-24 or other hard bilged boats need to be sailed flat Older boats built to the CCA rule sail with much greater angle of heels because they pick up water line length Some of those boats sail fastest with the rail in the water But rudder position also has a lot to do with how much weather helm a boat will affect and when you begin to loose rudder control and round up By and large most designers design a boat with a optimum angle of heel You sort of have to figure that out boat by boat and by wind conditions Irsquove noticed that by design the Beneteau boats are harder in the bilge than Catalinas So theoretically a Beneteau 32rsquo should be sailed much more flat than a Catalina 320 In observing the two different boats I think thatrsquos pretty accurate And Irsquove noticed that once heeled the Beneteau boats are more prone to gusts than the Catalina Irsquom guessing itrsquos the flatter bottom and rudder position But the point of all this is that to maintain boat speed and control you need to have a sense of your best angle of heel and then REEF the boat if you need to in order to maintain it

Fractionally Rigged boats have much larger main sails and are therefore much more sensitive to mainsail reefing However they can be controlled in gusts a bit better because the backstay can spill the upper part of the sail without moving the center of effort like on a mast head rigged boat Remember when you crank on the backstay on a masthead rigged boat you are also moving the draft back on the Jib So it changes the mast dynamics in a different way You are actually bending more of the column than on a fractionally rigged boat which is intended to radically bend the upper part of the mast You donrsquot move the draft on the jib at all

I know we live on a lake and usually if we just wait it out the wind changes But reefing the boat can make a big difference in control and comfort on the boat And not wear you out nearly as much Besides it just might make a big difference Three years ago we started out to the Fireworks on Fourth of July I saw a small cell to the South when we left on our old little 21rsquo boat and reefed at the dock I figured it would continue south which it did But WOW When we poked out into the Channel we saw the nasty squall just barreling down the river Very condensed I decided to stay in the river rather than try and deal with tacking in the channel and if we hadnrsquot been reefed we might have been in serious trouble So you definitely should at least know how to reef your boat And if you donrsquot Irsquom sure somebody will help you figure it out

I donrsquot mean for this little article to be any sort of expert compendium on reefing Simply a primer There are millions of articles out there devoted to the subject One of the most concise Irsquod seen is on the following website Just click it for the whole article

Reefed down boats on SF Bay

httpwwwmyboatsgearcomnewsletter2008115asp

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

Roller reefing only concerns boats with end boom sheeting There are two types The geared system which requires turning the gooseneck either with a tool or by hand and a few that insert a winch handle in the end of the boom The other system is a double line system that goes to a winch on either side of the boom This is the system you will find on the McGregor 26 power sailor Roller reefing is much the same as slab reefing You have to bring the boat into the wind and then slack the halyard But the difference is that you do not slack off the whole run of the halyard This is why itrsquos a little hard to do with one person One person must lower the halyard while the other person cranks the boom rolling the sail up If you donrsquot have enough tension on the halyard you will end up with a big thick mess Too much and you wonrsquot get it furled A lot of older boats with roller reefing also required you to ease the outhaul On the double line systems you simply ease the halyard and pull on the reefing line To shake out the reef you ease the halyard and pull on the other end of the line One advantage of roller furling is that you can take in exactly the amount of sail you want to On the McGregorrsquos you can also furl the sail on the boom the same way with the soft battens One thing a bit different in a roller furling system is that you need to keep the boom pretty much horizontal And that means most of the time keeping the boom centered in the boat The advantage of slab reefing is you can work the boom over to one side or another Not completely luffed

In Boom Furling

Really for around here most of the in boom furling systems will work a lot like slab reefing The drill is the same Except for one major difference THE BOOM HAS TO BE HORIZONTAL or you will have a devil of a time not jamming the system For most boats that means having the boom more or less centered There are very complicated in boom furlers that use a continuous system that does not require messing with the halyard As far as I know all the boats here in our marina do not have that system If I were offshore I would definitely have reefing cringles in a boom furler just in case it failed So I could tie a reef to the boom The Seldon Hall and Hood systems are closed systems The Schaefer has a lot of open areas to inspect and flush the mechanisms If they are working they are very fast and easy to do

The simplest way to figure it all out is to do it at the dock And if itrsquos blowing twenty at the dock I reef before we go out Itrsquos a whole lot easier to shake the reef out than to put it in The big advantage of Slab or Inboom furling is that one person can do it Roller furling is very hard to do by yourself Irsquove never been good at rubbing my stomach and patting my head at the same time

Headsail Reefing

Most of our boats have roller furlers And by and large thatrsquos what they are Furlers As soon as you start to roll up a headsail you will alter the dynamics of the sail big time Most headsails are designed to have their maximum draft (depth) at about 33 percent aft from the headstay or luff This is optimal and important for your headsail to work properly with your mainsail As soon as a sail is reefed the draft moves to a position where it isnrsquot of much use despite such features as foam luff pads and double swivelsOn mast head rigged boats with big headsails sometimes you just have to reef to maintain control When you are racing with crew you would probably make a head sail change rather than reef But the furlers can really be helpful on a fractional rigged boat in a blow because although the boat will sail beautifully under main alone in a blow the problem is tacking Getting the boat around And if you leave just a tad of jib up it will help you through that tack It wonrsquot do much going up wind There is another system of reefing a headsail that was common back in the fifties and sixties The sailmaker basically designed two sails and ran a series of vertical cringles on the sail You then tied the luff to the cringles and reduced the size of the sail I never understood the value of the system because it requires lowering the sail or in some ingenious systems that were applied messing up airflow with a complicated system of reefing lines The beauty of roller furling is you donrsquot have to go up on the bow when itrsquos blowing

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

So what does reefing do for you Is it worth the effort Well in racing it is critical By having to slack off the main you will loose your ability to point When you reef you can maintain sailshape and then sail closer into the wind There is a tradeoff You might loose some boatspeed But in racing velocity made good is more important Irsquove been on boats with very sophisticated computer programs and itrsquos quite fascinating to see a plot based on boat speed versus velocity made good Letrsquos assume a five mile straight line distance to a mark on a beat A minor two degree change in optimum upwind direction isnrsquot very much But letrsquos say you tack five times When you look at the plot on the computer itrsquos pretty radical because it increased exponentially with each tack And of course the longer the tack the more it affects the velocity made good

Off the wind is more complicated At that point itrsquos really a matter of boatspeed Without getting ridiculously technical some boats sail at higher angle of heels than others For instance A J-24 or other hard bilged boats need to be sailed flat Older boats built to the CCA rule sail with much greater angle of heels because they pick up water line length Some of those boats sail fastest with the rail in the water But rudder position also has a lot to do with how much weather helm a boat will affect and when you begin to loose rudder control and round up By and large most designers design a boat with a optimum angle of heel You sort of have to figure that out boat by boat and by wind conditions Irsquove noticed that by design the Beneteau boats are harder in the bilge than Catalinas So theoretically a Beneteau 32rsquo should be sailed much more flat than a Catalina 320 In observing the two different boats I think thatrsquos pretty accurate And Irsquove noticed that once heeled the Beneteau boats are more prone to gusts than the Catalina Irsquom guessing itrsquos the flatter bottom and rudder position But the point of all this is that to maintain boat speed and control you need to have a sense of your best angle of heel and then REEF the boat if you need to in order to maintain it

Fractionally Rigged boats have much larger main sails and are therefore much more sensitive to mainsail reefing However they can be controlled in gusts a bit better because the backstay can spill the upper part of the sail without moving the center of effort like on a mast head rigged boat Remember when you crank on the backstay on a masthead rigged boat you are also moving the draft back on the Jib So it changes the mast dynamics in a different way You are actually bending more of the column than on a fractionally rigged boat which is intended to radically bend the upper part of the mast You donrsquot move the draft on the jib at all

I know we live on a lake and usually if we just wait it out the wind changes But reefing the boat can make a big difference in control and comfort on the boat And not wear you out nearly as much Besides it just might make a big difference Three years ago we started out to the Fireworks on Fourth of July I saw a small cell to the South when we left on our old little 21rsquo boat and reefed at the dock I figured it would continue south which it did But WOW When we poked out into the Channel we saw the nasty squall just barreling down the river Very condensed I decided to stay in the river rather than try and deal with tacking in the channel and if we hadnrsquot been reefed we might have been in serious trouble So you definitely should at least know how to reef your boat And if you donrsquot Irsquom sure somebody will help you figure it out

I donrsquot mean for this little article to be any sort of expert compendium on reefing Simply a primer There are millions of articles out there devoted to the subject One of the most concise Irsquod seen is on the following website Just click it for the whole article

Reefed down boats on SF Bay

httpwwwmyboatsgearcomnewsletter2008115asp

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

So what does reefing do for you Is it worth the effort Well in racing it is critical By having to slack off the main you will loose your ability to point When you reef you can maintain sailshape and then sail closer into the wind There is a tradeoff You might loose some boatspeed But in racing velocity made good is more important Irsquove been on boats with very sophisticated computer programs and itrsquos quite fascinating to see a plot based on boat speed versus velocity made good Letrsquos assume a five mile straight line distance to a mark on a beat A minor two degree change in optimum upwind direction isnrsquot very much But letrsquos say you tack five times When you look at the plot on the computer itrsquos pretty radical because it increased exponentially with each tack And of course the longer the tack the more it affects the velocity made good

Off the wind is more complicated At that point itrsquos really a matter of boatspeed Without getting ridiculously technical some boats sail at higher angle of heels than others For instance A J-24 or other hard bilged boats need to be sailed flat Older boats built to the CCA rule sail with much greater angle of heels because they pick up water line length Some of those boats sail fastest with the rail in the water But rudder position also has a lot to do with how much weather helm a boat will affect and when you begin to loose rudder control and round up By and large most designers design a boat with a optimum angle of heel You sort of have to figure that out boat by boat and by wind conditions Irsquove noticed that by design the Beneteau boats are harder in the bilge than Catalinas So theoretically a Beneteau 32rsquo should be sailed much more flat than a Catalina 320 In observing the two different boats I think thatrsquos pretty accurate And Irsquove noticed that once heeled the Beneteau boats are more prone to gusts than the Catalina Irsquom guessing itrsquos the flatter bottom and rudder position But the point of all this is that to maintain boat speed and control you need to have a sense of your best angle of heel and then REEF the boat if you need to in order to maintain it

Fractionally Rigged boats have much larger main sails and are therefore much more sensitive to mainsail reefing However they can be controlled in gusts a bit better because the backstay can spill the upper part of the sail without moving the center of effort like on a mast head rigged boat Remember when you crank on the backstay on a masthead rigged boat you are also moving the draft back on the Jib So it changes the mast dynamics in a different way You are actually bending more of the column than on a fractionally rigged boat which is intended to radically bend the upper part of the mast You donrsquot move the draft on the jib at all

I know we live on a lake and usually if we just wait it out the wind changes But reefing the boat can make a big difference in control and comfort on the boat And not wear you out nearly as much Besides it just might make a big difference Three years ago we started out to the Fireworks on Fourth of July I saw a small cell to the South when we left on our old little 21rsquo boat and reefed at the dock I figured it would continue south which it did But WOW When we poked out into the Channel we saw the nasty squall just barreling down the river Very condensed I decided to stay in the river rather than try and deal with tacking in the channel and if we hadnrsquot been reefed we might have been in serious trouble So you definitely should at least know how to reef your boat And if you donrsquot Irsquom sure somebody will help you figure it out

I donrsquot mean for this little article to be any sort of expert compendium on reefing Simply a primer There are millions of articles out there devoted to the subject One of the most concise Irsquod seen is on the following website Just click it for the whole article

Reefed down boats on SF Bay

httpwwwmyboatsgearcomnewsletter2008115asp

March 2009 lakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

MARCH 2009 wwwlakeguntersvillesailingclubcom

Dock MasterQuill Briggs

256-652-0916Call Quill with Billing

Issues and any facilities issues

Please MAke payments to LAKE GUNTERSVILLE RESORTS

404 Montgomery StreetGadsden alabama 35901

Alabama Marine Police256-582-1099vhf channel 16

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need