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I’m memorizing as much of this as I can, for use aboard our next larger boat….
On our current boat (7 tons and 35 feet), we use a 6-part mainsheet tackle and no winch. Trimming the mainsheet by hand gives a *very* clear and intuitive sense of just how heavily loaded everything is. If Katy tries to ease it by a foot and finds that she needs both hands to do so, we’ll reef.
My other favourite indicator is the feedback of the wheel or tiller. Even if you spend 95% of the time on autopilot, it’s good to take the helm for a couple of minutes every time something changes. Our boat has near-perfect fingertip helm balance when the sails are in proper trim, and develops an aggressive weather helm as soon as she’s on the edge of being overcanvassed on the mainsail.
We don’t carry an autopilot, using a Hydrovane self-steering gear instead. It will track perfectly as long as the sails are balanced, and it’s very obvious when the vane can’t keep up and a reef is needed.
Since we sail entirely by feel (no instruments except for compass and log) most of the time, the helm is our main way of feeling what the boat’s up to.
As for multihulls: the Hobie Mirage Tandem Island might be too weird for my experience with it to carry over to larger boats, but I’ve found that (a) it has zero helm feel at all so you just have to look at your rudder angle, and (b) it, like many trimarans, will really start to bury the leeward bow at about the point where you want to reduce sail.
Our first mate’s level of anxiety is the #1 indicator on our boat, and has some “tell-tale” signs which I have leaned to notice, as I grip the wheel with an enormous grin on my face:
After stupidly many years of ignoring these “tell-tales”, I know to immediately say something reassuring like, “the breeze feels like it’s building, shall we put a reef in”? AND I have to preempt the first mate making the suggestion to reef (which I try to encourage and praise), as she often doesn’t want to spoil my enjoyment of a great sail.
We have manual LeisureFurl in-boom reefing. Since the AAC articles on reefing downwind and the dangers of rounding up to reef offshore, it now takes us no more time to reef the main than our roller-reefing jib, upwind OR downwind. This was a marvellous learning, takes a little practise and good technique, but makes the decision to take a reef or take one out, quick and easy. Probably the biggest insight and benefit we have gained from our membership of AAC (and there have been many), so thank you John.
Note. The anxiety indicator is slightly shy of the “15 degree rule of thumb” for reefing. A simple inclinometer will substitute well for those skippers less attuned to their surroundings.
Hi Rob, I’m curious to learn your technique for furling your LeisureFurl system while heading downwind as I’ve only ever managed to make it work pointing up wind or just slightly off the wind. Totaly agree with your comments on reefing early just would like to understand how you do it without heading into the wind. Thanks in advance for the update.
Hi Carl and Rob,
I really don’t want to go down this course about in boom systems, yet again, on this article. We have a complete in depth series on this where we have already done this subject to death. See Further reading. So if you wish to take this further please do so on those articles, after reading them. I am closing this thread.
This discussion seems to be oriented towards sloops. I had the incredible good fortune to own and sail Danza, a 60′ ketch, around the world. We did not have an anemometer aboard but as the wind built up we dropped the mizzen. As it continued to build we would put a reef in the main and then a second. After that we rolled in the Yankee 100% leaving us the staysail as our headsail. We never needed to put in a third reef in the main. The reefing system on the main was simple slap reefing that all took place at the mast and boom. I have seen too many systems run back to the cockpit that develop a problem at the mast requiring a trip to the mast but when there it was complicated because all the lines were back at the cockpit.
Danza, under new ownership, is leaving for her second circumnavigation in a few days.
Hi David,
I agree completely and we have a full section on the benefits of the cutter rig: https://www.morganscloud.com/2015/09/17/12-reasons-the-cutter-is-a-great-offshore-voyaging-rig/
Hi John,
We continue to adjust our reefing system and procedure as we practice, and every time I read an update on the subect here at AAC. So thank you for continuing to highlight the important points and sharing some of the hacks.
Here are three points that we have found to be significant steps towards safe and stress-free offshore sailing, especially short-handed, especially in our first years (we will always be in our first years!). I don’t know about a Part 3, so hopefully this is on topic.
Optimize the setup. As you learn from reefing and shaking, from reading AAC, from watching other boats, be sure to translate the learnings into rig optimization and procedure improvements. Make a loop shorter. Add a friction ring. Mark the main halyard. Mark all the reefing lines for each reef. Use marks you see at night. Mark the mast and the headboard with glow-in-the-dark tape.
Practice. Before a passage with new crew, we practice reefing in light air during day sails. With more experienced crew, we reef very early so we can shake often, and reef again! When I am on my own for a day sail, I’ll reef if it’s been a while since I had to practice alone. Then, go out when reefing is required, and practice again, including at night.
This allows us to reef fast (for a leisure boat): under 2 minutes on my own, under 45 seconds when double handed. It takes a lot more time alone mainly because I am so attentive to avoid messing things up. When two of us are involved, one of the two often has the exclusive job to watch and make sure all is going well. When expecting squalls and we have enough crew, a third crew will join the cockpit team as soon as a menacing squall is expected, hopefully seen on Radar early enough: one takes the helm as we tend to avoid relying on the autopilot in such conditions and two are active reefing as soon as required – we then reef in about 30 seconds once trained again. On a long passage such as an Atlantic crossing, the process has been very rewarding and reassuring for all of us as we saw our ability to deal with squalls improve.
From the early days when we followed a written step-by-step procedure and reefing felt like a daunting task, often performed way too early, we have come a long way but still perform reefing with great attention to safety. In particular, we prepare everything before starting, talk through it especially with less-trained crew, and clean up the cockpit diligently when done.
Finally, another factor that makes the decision to reef simple for us is the sail plan: we have four reefing points, three of which are rigged at any one time. This makes for a more gradual sail reduction (sail area: 86%, 67%, 48%, 31%), and the concern of being under-canvased never impedes the decision to reef early. I know there’s a whole article on the subject, but it is probably worth bearing sail design in mind when aiming for safe and stress-free reefing.
Hi Jean-Louis,
All good points, particularly the importance of practicing and optimization.
One place we differ a bit: for cruising I prefer three reefs, not four, and believe pretty strongly that a reef that is not rigged, is not useful because of the danger involved in rigging it when required: https://www.morganscloud.com/2014/11/26/reefs-how-many-and-how-deep/
I am about to pull the plug on a new mainsail and would value your opinion on one aspect of my reefing plan for my 40ft Adams cutter rig.
On your recommendation I am converting the reefing lines to the mast only, and adding a strong pulpit and extra handholds to make getting there very secure. Everyone local tells me I’m wrong, but the shape of my coach roof introduces a lot of friction if I run all the reefing lines to the cockpit. Plus being a cutter I have far too much line clutter in the cockpit at present and I really want to clean this up.
The main has a 43ft luff and 310 sq.ft so I have chosen three reefing points plus an outhaul – which is the number of internal lines my boom can accommodate. Again on your recommendation I am making the third reef deep as I have no option to add a storm trisail. The percentages I have used are almost the same as in your OP article.
The question I have is at the three leach end reefing lines. The big problem I keep seeing is that the conventional approach just pulls downward on the sail, without maintaining any outhaul tension, which messes up the sail shape.
Do you – or anyone else here – have any proven ideas to address this problem?
Happy to repost this elsewhere if you would prefer – but I’m keen to get feedback from the very experienced people here as well.
Where do your reefing lines attach to the boom?
If they are routed from the boom end, through the reef cringle/grommet, back to a block at or near the boom end, and then forward to the gooseneck – as ours are, and most others I’ve seen lately – then the tension is mostly downward while reefing, and then transitions to mostly outward (i.e. reefing line becomes the new outhaul) as the cringle (new clew) gets close to the boom. This naturally flattens the sail.
Hi Philip,
Good question, I will do a tip.
Hi Philip,
Tip is up: https://www.morganscloud.com/jhhtips/qa-how-to-run-reef-clew-pennants/
Hi John,
You mention the important benefits of slab reefing and I agree completely.
I will add one that I enjoy.
If your sailmaker has done his/her job correctly, you end up with a reefed, even deeply reefed, mainsail that is perfectly shaped and gives good drive for those, hopefully rare, times you must work your way to wind in heavy air. And that is very satisfying.
My best, Dick Stevenson, s/v Alchemy
Hi Dick,
Sure, one of the big advantages of slab over other systems, although to be fair, even though I’m not a fan, a good in in-boom system can yield good reefed shape too: https://www.morganscloud.com/2022/10/17/in-mast-in-boom-or-slab-reefing-performance-cost-and-safety/
Hi John,
These are great common sense ways to think about reefing. Thinking about speed to length ratios makes a lot of sense, we also do that when thinking about motoring where we try to keep cruise below 1.1 and efficient cruise at 1.0. It can be a bit deceiving when hard on the wind as the lift to drag ratio gets very poor so the sails are really loaded up but there isn’t that much lift.
I have spent a lot of my time sailing on boats which are quite tricky to reef usually calling for all hands and a good bit of manual labor. This went much better once I have adopted a version of what my Uncle did on our family boat growing up for deciding when to reef. For normal areas without acceleration zones, squalls, etc. if we think that we should reef (entering the start of your red zone), I set a timer for 5 minutes. If at 5 minutes we still would prefer a reef (still at the start of the red) but the boat is doing okay without one, we wait another 5 minutes but if we are in the middle of the red already, we reef then. At any point getting high on the red, we would reef regardless of time. On our boat, if we get to 10 minutes and still feel that the boat would do better with a reef (start of the red), we put it in at that point. On large schooners and other similar vessels, I typically keep this going longer where at 10 minutes we start prepping (500′ halyards need time to prep) and then at 15 minutes call for the reef. Making this a formal process has made it very easy for me to feel good about reefing but also not end up waiting way too long and in trouble as we start this countdown as soon as we might want a reef instead of once we need one. Where we don’t use this technique is if we see a reason for a squall which calls for immediate action, ideally before any wind changes. Another one is if there is nearby terrain that can cause acceleration, we make a call as to whether we want to sail hard pressed for a few minutes or we often tack back out of the acceleration zone, tuck a reef then tack into it and sail through.
Our boat has hank-on headsails and it gives a slightly different perspective on reefing. Our first reduction in sail is always to swap our 130 genoa for a 100%. Even without pressing hard, genoas can cause a ton of weather helm and getting rid of the overlap immediately makes the helm right again. For our boat, we actually sail reasonably well with a pretty small jib and a lot of the main provided that jib has good shape, we have shortened down to a storm jib and 1 reef in the main with good helm when expecting a lot more breeze later although normally we shorten the 2 sails down alternatively. The other reason we do the jib first is that fighting big jibs on the foredeck isn’t always the most fun and I prefer to do it in as little wind as possible. Looking at your windspeed table, the upwind speeds almost exactly match what we do for full main +100% jib, 1 reef main and 100% jib, 2nd reef main and fractional hoist 100%.
Eric
Hi Eric,
Interesting idea to formalize the reefing decision with a timer, particularly on a big schooner. By coincidence I was sat next to the Captain Watson of Bluenose the other day and we had an interesting chat about the challenges of really big boats. Made me think of you and your observations on the same subject.
Also, good point about how having hanked on headsails change things. I had not thought of that, so thanks for the fill, particularly the point that a headsail with good shape can be carried in much higher winds that a part rolled 130%.
I recently sailed a friend’s used but recently purchased Pacific Seacraft 34 on a short voyage. It had two single line reefs from the cockpit, the critical turning points on the sail had bearing blocks. I found the system remarkably easy with moderate friction, and a big asset for sailing solo because deck work is eliminated. We had a developing squall of sorts and by the time I got the first reef in, another was needed. I found the second reef just as easy as the first, though I was a bit breathless.
We have slab reefing which I find very reliable, but this experience opened my eyes to possibilities. For offshore solo work, I think a good reliable single line reefing system might be safer. Though I am pretty sure John thinks otherwise.
PS: I believe single line reefing is only appropriate for smaller boats.
I’d be interested in thouhts about this.
Hi Frederick,
Sure, give it a try. But I would also suggest giving double line a try too. I have a very simple tack line on the J/109 that runs back to the cockpit and I don’t even need to winch it. Just ease the halyard, and give the tack line a sharp tug, and that’s done. The advantage is that the clew line is much shorter and so takes way less time to grind in and has way less friction than single line.
And my boom on the J/109 is all set up for single, but given the above I find it hard to see a reason for doing it, other than maybe saving the clutch that I use for the tack line.
Hi John,
I also chose to have all lines returning to the cockpit and it became a matter of clutch allocation for me too (in fact, also under-deck organizer tracks, as well as the maximum number of mast-base blocks).
I have the first two reefs rigged as single-line, the third with separate tack and clew lines, so I can easily compare the two arrangements on the same rig. I much prefer handling the double-line reef and would choose rigging all the reefs this way anytime. I just don’t have the space to install the two additional lines I would need to lead back to the cockpit.
I therefore focused on optimizing the two single-line reefs to reduce friction and avoid the usual pitfalls: using friction rings at the tack and friction blocks at the clew works well for me.
Hi Jean-Louis,
Good point, in fact I think that’s a lot of the reason single line exists as a thing since three reefs double line would requite 6 clutches and turning blocks. This is one of the reasons I like reefing at the mast since in that set up we can use a simple horn for the tack, and so get rid of three lines.
John has invited more multihull sailor feedback so here goes. Along with my wife who is my sailing partner, we are currently starting the last 5 days of a 16 day Gulf of Mexico cruise on our Dragonfly 32 trimaran. We are currently at Pensacola Yacht Club and are heading out tomorrow for a 55 mile day ending up at Pelican Bay on the east end of Dauphin Island at the bottom of Mobile Bay.
On day 4 of this trip, we left our anchorage at Petit Bois island, one of the barrier islands off the Mississippi Gulf coast and started a 140 mile leg across the upper Gulf to Port St. Joe, FL. The first 9 hours of this leg we had to motor never seeing more than 4-5 knots of wind mostly on the nose. Towards, dusk, the wind finally started to veer and build slightly so engine off and sails up. One hour later we were happily beam reaching at 6-8 knots in 8-10 knots of wind. Around 8 pm, the wife went below for a few hours of sleep while I sailed the boat (main and jib) on a pleasant broad reach as the breeze veered further built to the low teens. It held at that velocity as my wife came up at midnight to give me a 2-3 hour break. At that time the breeze was around 12 knots and I had seen a couple of gusts to 14-15 knots. The breeze had continued to veer and we were sailing TWA’s of 120-135 degrees so quite comfortable with a following sea. I told my wife to get me back up if the breeze built to over 16 knots. Ten minutes after I laid my head down, she called me up and as I got back to the cockpit, the wind was holding steady at 16-17 knots. I decided to put in the first reef. My wife stayed up for a bit but I was feeling pretty good so I sent her back below. About 30 minutes later the breeze built further to 18-20 knots. While the autopilot was handling the conditions well, it just felt pushy so I put the 2nd reef in. I was worried the boat would be too underpowered but was pleased to see she kept performing fine with boatspeed at a steady 8-10 knots with an occasional surf up to 11-12 knots and a very pleasant motion in the sea state. Continued with this setup through the night, the breeze built just a bit more to 19-21 knots and stayed in the 125-135 TWA range. This was a good example of a boat that is very easily driven having the advantage that you can add a reef that you think may be too much (in terms of leaving the boat underpowered) but it really does not harm performance and certainly makes the boat more comfortable. By dawn the breeze eased to 14-17 knots and stayed there until we reached our destination. We kept the 2nd reef in and we were pleased to see the boat still average 8-9 knots.
Closing comment about high wind bear aways in multihulls. I’ve raced high performance cats since 1992 starting with a Prindle 19 followed by a stint in the Tornado class and lastly to my 23 year obsession with the A-Class catamaran. You can easily survive getting thru the “death zone” of bearing away from upwind to downwind by a release of the mainsheet and traveler but keep the jib in with no ease (no jib on the A-Class so release of traveler and mainsheet only). If you turn down hard (and fast) you can get these skittish boats through the “zone” without a pitchpole. i apply the same technique if we have to turn down our Dragonfy 32 and so far it’s totally docile. The crashes happen when sailors try to do a full powered bear away especially with higher performing offshore multihulls and especially when they have not followed the reefing rules!
Hi Bob,
Great fill, thanks.
I was particularly interested in the idea of keeping the jib sheeted in a high wind bear away through the death zone. At first that seemed wrong, but then I thought about it and realized that it makes sense since the jib will stall and depower.
One thought, I’m guessing one might not want to do that with a big code sail up, and in that case a big ease on both sheets would be advised?
Hi John,
As a rule, on our boat, we won’t use the Code Zero at TWA’s of less than 90 degrees in any breeze over 12 knots. This is also consistent with Jens Quorning’s recommendations. In 12-18 knots, at TWA’s of 100 to 140 degrees, the Code Zero can basically function as a smaller, flatter gennaker. So based on that, unless we get caught with our pants down, we should never have to do a big wind turndown through the so called death zone. You would be right that if you did get caught in that situation that the best course would be big eases of the sheets on both sails and (I cannot stress this enough) to turn down hard and fast.
Cheers,
Bob
Hi Bob,
Thanks for the fill on that, makes sense, particularly the hard and fast bear away.