Some Easy Ways To Reduce Heel (Tipping the Boat)

Some Easy Ways To Reduce Heel (Tipping the Boat)

For many sailors – especially inexperienced sailors – a sailboat heeling in excess of 15 or so degrees is not only uncomfortable; it’s downright frightening.  So, one of the most important skills for the new sailor to learn is how to reduce the amount of heel that the boat (and crew) is experiencing.

One prevalent problem that many new sailors have is that the boat they have purchased is a previously owned one with old (maybe the original) sails.  These old sails have stretched significantly since they were new - - they’re “blown out”.  This means that there is too much draft or “belly”; and the sail is more powerful than originally designed.  One problem of these “blown out” sails is that they don’t allow the boat to point and sail upwind very efficiently.  A second problem with the “blown out” sails is that instead of driving the boat forward, these sails tend to tip the boat over much farther than newer sails would.  This creates excessive heel which is uncomfortable, inefficient, and frightening.  What follows are several ways that a skipper and crew can reduce the degree of heel.

One of the easiest things a skipper can do in a gust is to steer the boat a bit more upwind (called feathering upwind).  Doing this spills wind out of the sails and decreases the wind’s pressure on the sails.  Of course, the sails often flap and make a lot of noise (called luffing).  Luffing the sails too much weakens the sails even more.  So feathering is a short-term fix; not a long-term solution.

Similarly, the mainsheet could be eased a bit – causing just the mainsail to luff. The luffing mainsail is spilling wind.  So, the boat tends to heel less.  Easing the mainsheet is usually preferred to easing the jib sheet because the boat will tend to stay on course with a luffing main; but tend to round upwind with a luffing jibsail.

As you grow in proficiency, easing the traveler control line so that the traveler car moves to leeward along the traveler track will become preferred over easing the mainsheet because the mainsail’s adjustments don’t change – just the mainsail’s angle to the wind changes.  When the gust dies down, the traveler can be pulled more to the center of the track and the mainsheet won’t need to be changed.

If there is a steady increasing of wind velocity, more direct inputs to the mainsail and jib sail will probably need to happen.  One of these direct inputs might be to change down to a smaller jib sail – even to a storm jib.  Changing to a smaller jib can really calm things down – especially heeling.  If your boat has a furling jib, simply rolling up two or three turns accomplishes about the same thing as changing to a smaller jib.

There are direct inputs for the mainsail that are effective too.  An easy adjustment would be to increase the tension on the Cunningham and the clew outhaul.  Increasing these two adjustment lines will tend to flatten the mainsail and make it less powerful.  The wind is becoming more powerful; so, the sail doesn’t need to be as powerful compared to before.

Similarly, the jib halyard  be tightened to help flatten that sail.

Finally, you might want to reef the mainsail.  On Snickerdoodle I have three reef points.  A flattening reef that nicely flattens the bottom half of the sail…  A first full reef point that decreases the mainsail area by about 20%...  And a second full reef point that decreases the mainsail area by a similar amount.  All of the reef points are set up with single line reefing which makes reefing a 30 second maneuver or so.

All of these “fixes” can and should be practiced on nice days with an approximate 5 to 15 knots of wind blowing.  Accomplishing the “fixes” will be easier than when the wind is gusting to 25+ - - - but you will be able to see and feel the effective differences even with the lighter breeze blowing.