The Offshore Voyaging Reference Site

Downwind Sailing—Poling Out The Jib

Having looked at ways to improve boat speed, comfort and safety when reaching in the last chapter of this online book, it’s time to look at what can be done once the wind comes right aft—beyond 150° apparent wind angle (measured from the bow).

If we do nothing, the headsail gets blanketed by the main and starts collapsing and filling with a bang every ten or twenty seconds, which is not only hard to live with, but will do the sail no good at all in the long run. Also, boat speed will drop drastically and the boat will start to wallow uncomfortably into the bargain.

As these are the sort of conditions that you can expect on a downwind trade winds passage, it’s time to do something!

I’d argue that, if you work on your skills for poling the headsail out, that it’s the best way to go (particularly when the wind is up).

The method that we use is slightly more complicated than some others in that we use an additional sheet, but it has real benefits over more basic methods and has worked perfectly for us over many thousands of miles.


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More Articles From Online Book: Sail Handling and Rigging Made Easy:

  1. Six Reasons To Leave The Cockpit Often
  2. Don’t Forget About The Sails
  3. Your Mainsail Is Your Friend
  4. Hoisting the Mainsail Made Easy—Simplicity in Action
  5. Reefs: How Many and How Deep
  6. Reefing Made Easy
  7. Reefing From The Cockpit 2.0—Thinking Things Through
  8. Reefing Questions and Answers
  9. A Dangerous Myth about Reefing
  10. Mainsail Handling Made Easy with Lazyjacks
  11. Topping Lift Tips and a Hack
  12. 12 Reasons The Cutter Is A Great Offshore Voyaging Rig
  13. Cutter Rig—Should You Buy or Convert?
  14. Cutter Rig—Optimizing and/or Converting
  15. Cruising Rigs—Sloop, Cutter, or Solent?
  16. Sailboat Deck Layouts
  17. The Case For Roller-Furling Headsails
  18. UV Protection For Roller Furling Sails
  19. In-Mast, In-Boom, or Slab Reefing—Convenience and Reliability
  20. In-Mast, In-Boom, or Slab Reefing —Performance, Cost and Safety
  21. The Case For Hank On Headsails
  22. Making Life Easier—Roller Reefing/Furling
  23. Making Life Easier—Storm Jib
  24. Gennaker Furlers Come Of Age
  25. Swept-Back Spreaders—We Just Don’t Get It!
  26. Q&A: Staysail Stay: Roller Furling And Fixed Vs Hanks And Removable
  27. Rigid Vangs
  28. Rigging a Proper Preventer, Part 1
  29. Rigging a Proper Preventer—Part 2
  30. Amidships “Preventers”—A Bad Idea That Can Kill
  31. Keeping The Boom Under Control—Boom Brakes
  32. Downwind Sailing, Tips and Tricks
  33. Downwind Sailing—Poling Out The Jib
  34. Setting and Striking a Spinnaker Made Easy and Safe
  35. Ten Tips To Fix Weather Helm
  36. Running Rigging Recommendations—Part 1
  37. Running Rigging Recommendations—Part 2
  38. Two Dangerous Rigging Mistakes
  39. Rig Tuning, Part 1—Preparation
  40. Rig Tuning, Part 2—Understanding Rake and Bend
  41. Rig Tuning, Part 3—6 Steps to a Great Tune
  42. Rig Tuning, Part 4—Mast Blocking, Stay Tension, and Spreaders
  43. Rig Tuning, Part 5—Sailing Tune
  44. 12 Great Rigging Hacks
  45. 9 Tips To Make Unstepping a Sailboat Mast Easier
  46. Cruising Sailboat Spar Inspection
  47. Cruising Sailboat Standing Rigging Inspection
  48. Cruising Sailboat Running Rigging Inspection
  49. Cruising Sailboat Rig Wiring and Lighting Inspection
  50. Download Cruising Sailboat Rig Checklist
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Marc Dacey

Very interesting, Colin, and thank you. One small issue (literally) that I note is that the clew cringle might be too small to pass three of the right-sized control lines. Did you have your sailmaker size up the cringle or am I overthinking this?

Colin Speedie

Hi Marc

very astute comment. My fault really, as I should have checked on the size of the cringle when I ordered the sail, but I assumed (!) that it would be bigger due to the boat’s size. The next time I’ll spec. a larger cringle.

However, the cringle is just capable of accommodating all three sheets, so it’s not an issue. And I prefer making the sheet fast to the cringle with a bowline, not a snap shackle, where the snap shackle would get snarled up in the other sheets, so it works OK – just.

Best wishes

Colin

Marc Dacey

I’ll have to remind myself to get a bigger cringle, then. I find that if the bowline can’t move much because it’s jammed in the cringle, the knots tend to beat themselves open easier because the same parts of the knot are slamming, or can slam in certain conditions. While a couple of turns can help with this, there’s also good reasons NOT to make a knot too secure on a jib, I’ve found. Now I carry a fid.

Colin Speedie

Hi Marc
one trick you could try if the cringle is too small is to make the bowline on the running sheet fast to one of the existing bowlines on the working sheets – works fine.
Colin

Marc Dacey

Sure, and I’ve done that on some sails where backing the sail slightly during a tack helps the entire thing snap over. But I think a bigger cringle is a touch more clean, but they seem to be a special order.

Stein Varjord

On racing multihulls the sail loads are huge, so cringles are not used anymore. Just not strong enough. We use stainless steel rings attached to the sail with several webbings. That way the loads can be distributed much better. If you want a bigger cringle, I’d consider leaving the one you have and just adding a steel ring as mentioned, “outside” of the corner of the sail, or next to it. You can also cut off the corner of the sail where the cringle is now, but no big point normally…

Adam

I can’t really tell from the pictures: do you have the pole jaws facing up or down? If down, can you explain why it’s done that way for a jib but not a spinnaker?

Colin Speedie

Hi Adam

the jaws are facing up, same as a spinnaker, and I can’t think of any circumstances when you’d do it otherwise.

Colin

Dick Stevenson

Dear Colin,
You will add a great deal to any sailor’s downwind enjoyment with your recent article. I believe it to be right on in broad strokes and I am going to respond in bits and pieces as I absorb the details.
We handle our pole and sail with it in a very similar manner. One comment that immediately struck me as a difference is that we rarely adjust the tip position (only to drop it forward if sailing by the lee about which I will write later). Once set, I leave the pole alone (occasionally snugging lines to stop movement/chafe as you suggest) as I find adjusting the pole tip finicky work (3 lines need tweaking). This may speak to an attribute of a jib topsail where clew height remains roughly at the same height so tip position needs no adjustment. We can go from full sail to just a handkerchief without adjusting the pole at all.
Another attribute of a jib topsail in this application is that it gets the pole (and its tip) up high where it is very unlikely to get its tip dug into the water.
A great addition to augmenting DW sail technique.
Dick Stevenson, s/v Alchemy

Colin Speedie

Hi Dick
thanks for the kind words – I hope people find this piece useful.
Re the pole adjustment, we have a yankee headsail (partly because it is so good downwind) and although we can get away with leaving the pole in situ as if we had the full sail out, I prefer to ease the pole forward as we reef to keep the bowline snug against the jaws to keep chafe to a minimum. As you rightly say, with a yankee/jib topsail the clew height remains constant, so there’s not a lot of fiddling with the guys to do – with a genoa where the clew height varies as the sail is reefed, you have to adjust the pole height to suit.

Colin

Bill Robinson

I have used the same method on my Ebbtide 36. The problem that I found was damage to the gooseneck, and to the mast spinnaker pole track, due to high compression loads in strong winds. I have therefore been using a “twistle ” rig, for downwind sailing, it is much easier to set up, reef, or furl. There is no chafe problem, and as the poles are free floating an not attached to the mast track, no track damage. Also, as the twin sails are right forward, the boat is very easy to steer , without jiving, from about 140 degrees on either side. You just ease one sheet, and haul in the other. A side benefit is the huge reduction in rolling down wing. It of course needs a new twistle sail, an extra pole and a pole universal joint, but these are cheap and easy to make, or have made. I am usually singlehanded or with just one other crew, and this rig is safe, easy and fast.

Colin Speedie

Hi Bill
I’ve never encountered any problems with this rig in many thousands of miles, and the only time I’ve ever seen damage from pole compression aaas in the bad old days of the IOR rule in the seventies, when it wasn’t uncommon to stick the pole (and even occasionally the boom) end into the water as those boats death-rolled merrily downed in a big breeze.
I’ve never sailed with the twistle rig, although I’ve heard good things about them, especially on heavy displacement long keeled boats like yours that roll a lot downing (thing gaff cutters etc.). On our Ovni, like all of these French centre boarders, the mast is well forward to achieve perfect balance and so the method we use works really well, and rolling is minimal. Horses for courses, and I’m sure your Ebbtide (great boat, by the way) with the mast well inboard would go really well with the twistle rig.
Colin

John Harries

Hi Colin, Bill and Dick,

I think that Bill’s concern is important to highlight and that it in turn points to a big advantage of Colin’s running sheet system.

When we designed our replacement mast with Hall Spars (one of the best mast builders in the world) Eric Hall was very concerned that the pole track and associated hardware be built massively strong (and they are).

He said that Hall Spars had seen several failures like the one Bill details and when they analyzed them they found that the compression loads on cruising boat poles being used with jibs were actually higher than those experienced by racing boats with spinnakers.

The reason? The acute angle made by the jib and the loaded sheet because most cruisers use an existing sheet from it’s normal lead point quite far forward and often inboard.

Colin’s system solves this problem because the load is carried by a sheet from the aft corner of the boat and this in turn vastly reduces the compression load on the pole.

The take away here is that even if you use the existing sheets as Dick and I do, the lead should be moved aft and outboard, preferably all the way to the stern. This, in turn, means that either our working sheets need to be very long, which will be a pain in the neck at other times, or we need to use a running sheet as Colin does.

I for one will be experimenting with Colin’s running sheet this summer.

Colin Speedie

Hi John
thanks for this useful addition to the argument. It’s something I hadn’t considered, but can see is evidently true.
Best wishes
Colin

Marc Dacey

John/Colin/Dick: This sounds very reasonable to me, even though I have a seriously overbuilt main spar (Selden) which is also securely stayed (11 stays plus running backs). I was slightly surprised when I acquired the “correct” pole lift ring for my particular mast: the thing is vast and chunky, but I can grasp now that it is made for situations in which Colin’s sensible running sheet tactic.

Stein Varjord

Hi Bill.
I had not encountered the Twistle / Twizzle rig before, so being a curious guy, I had to google it to find out more. The result is I actually think it has a lot of advantages and that it should be used by more sailors.

There’s some effort to rig the extra sail, but not considerably more I guess than rigging the system normally used, like the topic here. Considering that it needs no jibing, is much easier to adapt to different wind strengths and directions and that it inherently must dampen rolling much better, I’d say it’s the perfect downwind rig for cruising. For multihulls, rolling is not an issue but the rig probably is smart there too.

Obviously I have never tried this rig, but there is no doubt that the inherent anti roll properties must be quite strong. The booms will be affected by the roll of the boat, like a limited pendulum. As they move from side to side, one sail will be deeper and the other flatter. This in correct order to make the sails work more against the roll. Extremely simple and still quite advanced in function. I love that kind of stuff!

Bill Robinson

Hi Stein,
As I have a ReefRite furler, with Kiwi slides, changing headsails is easy. I motor downwind, to reduce the apparent wind, drop the Genoa , sail tie it and remove it from the foil. I then load the Twistle sail in the foil, rig the two sheets, with lots of slack and hoist the sail, which flies downwind like a flag. I then tension the sheets slightly and rig the poles. All this, I can do alone in about 20 minutes.
A big advantage of the Twistle rig is the speed, and ease that it can be depowered in a squall, one simply eases the sheets! If however strong winds are present, or expected, I furl the sail to an appropriate size. I feel comfortable, and safe, carrying this rig at night. This is in contrast to either a poled out headsail/mainsail combination, or a spinnaker which can be hairy in the dark, especially alone.
A

John Harries

Hi Stein and Bill,

There is a lot to like about the Twizzle rig, but it’s not all good. One big issue is that if you need to heave-to or suddenly go to windward, or even reach, there is a lot to do first. With Colin’s rig, not so much.

Also, I don’t believe that the Twizzle reduces rolling any more than a main and poled out jib.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying one is better than the other, just that there are advantages to each—like most things in offshore sailing.

By the way, although we call this rig a Twizzle today, it’s really what the Hiscocks, Smeatons, and Pyes, would have call twin spinnakers, back in the day.

Dick Stevenson

Hi Colin,
Very much as a side note: we kept our spinnaker halyard in front of the jib for years, but found that at least every year or 2 there would be a fire drill of some sort where the jib would get greedy and gobble up the halyard so that you could not furl the jib in. Very upsetting (or dangerous) in a rising squally wind. For a decade or more now we bring our spinnaker halyard back and flick it around our spreaders and secure it at the shroud bases amidships. We do this also for the spare halyard on the other side. Works great and keeps them out of the way for the times when you (or things) get sloppy.
Dick Stevenson, s/v Alchemy

Colin Speedie

Hi Dick
I agree – it’s as well to move the spi halyard downwind. On our boat we tend to mount the bowsprit when on long passages, and we put the spi halyard out on the end of it, which takes it well out of harms way.
But I’ve seen some real howlers with halyards wrapped in sails over the years, and, by the sound of it, so have you! Never did it myself, of course (ahem!).
Colin