Lasso

Storm jib hanked on to a removable inner forestay

With a single forestay you can only reduce the amount of sail set and cannot move its effort inboard until you set a storm jib. For boats with only a single forestay and roller furling it’s a good idea to have a removable forestay for the storm jib; this can be stored by the shrouds and, when needed, set to a D ring in the deck and tensioned with a highfield lever, tackle, turning block or bottle screw. Check that the storm jib has been cut so that your existing sheet leads will work with it.

Whatever system or set of sails you have it is important to go out and test them in benign conditions. It is no good finding that when it comes to setting up the inner forestay for the storm job that you are missing a vital shackle.

The old saying that if you think you should reef, you should do so immediately is absolutely true. Because if you wait and the wind strengthens reefing will be harder. If the wind eases, it will be easy to shake the reef out.

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BALANCING THE SAILS

An important part of heavy weather sailing is balancing the sails. If the headsail overpowers the mainsail it is hard to get the bow of the boat through the wind when you tack because you lose the momentum of the turn as the headsail is beaten down by the wind. Reduce the size of the headsail and you will be able to tack. Once the wind reaches a certain strength it is possible to sail to windward without a headsail at all as there is sufficient windage in the bow of the boat. Indeed, at 30 knots and above you can heave to with a triple-reefed main and no headsail.

WEATHER HELM

There are two dynamic forces at work on a boat: the aerodynamic force from the wind in the sails and the hydrodynamic force from the water over the keel. Each of these forces has a centre point; when they are in line the boat is balanced. If the centre of the aerodynamic force moves behind the centre of the hydrodynamic force the boat will round up into the wind and you will experience weather helm. This means that when the boat is trying to round up into the wind you have to try to steer it to bring the bow down by bringing the helm up to windward (i.e. to weather).

If the forces are the other way round, with the aerodynamic force forward of the hydrodynamic one, the boat will fall off to leeward and present her stern to the wind. This is undesirable since any boat that, left unattended, could fall off to leeward and run downwind is leaving herself open to a crash gybe. So you want a boat to have a degree of weather helm so that she will luff up if left alone but not so much weather helm that you have to fight it all the time.

As the wind strength increases you will experience more weather helm. Reduce the sail area to reduce the weather helm and then balance the sails to make sure that the main isn’t overpowering the headsail. There are many things you can do to reduce the power in the main: flatten the sail by tensioning the foot on the clew outhaul and sheeting in, open the leech, drop the main car to leeward or, indeed, reef. Or you can increase the power of the headsail.