[quote=erice]on my 5.2 i often leave the jib off in high winds
when it's really blowing and i'm soloing it's almost guaranteed to go into irons as the forces trying to weather-vane the rig and hulls overcome the boats momentum going through the tack
the way around this is to reduce the weather-vane forces by not just releasing the mainsheet during the tack but by also releasing the traveler
with the travel released the weather-vane action of the whole rig is greatly reduced as it simply pivots on the turning hulls. this allows more momentum to the hulls around
but you're not sailing on the new tack yet as the rig is still idling, the boat would have lost most if not all hull speed now so the daggers and rudders have very little bite so it is very important to pull in the traveler SLOWLY and keep steering off the wind onto a broad reach until boat speed builds, the daggers start biting etc.
[i]if you just haul on the traveler you are likely to pull the hulls around back into irons[/i]
once the boat is well underway on something like a broad reach, perhaps with only half the traveler pulled in, (depending on wind strength), the rest of the traveler can be pulled in and the boat pointed higher to make ground upwind
so to summarize, when sailing a sloop on main only in high winds, once you blow the first tack with your usual tacking method, and have to back out of it, start releasing the traveler, get the boat well across the wind and then SLOWLY bring it back in <!-- editby --><em>edited by: erice, Apr 27, 2010 - 05:01 PM</em><!-- end editby --> [/quote]
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