No question, the thread drifted away from where it started, which was heaving to as a method of stopping the boat to take a break, reef, etc.  My intention was to contribute to that thread, not to address extreme weather. 

It does seem that we might take Hans-Erik's concern with heavy weather in context.  I believe he sails on the South African coast, which is subject to a good bit of such weather. I imagine most sailors there are preoccupied with it.   

As for the Abbott drogue, the author notes that it's just another method of slowing or stopping the boat for whatever reason, and that it's not intended for extreme conditions.

Given where the thread started, I've found it an interesting discussion from all contributors.

For some reason fellow junkies appear to have an obsession with (very) heavy weather. This thread turned into that pretty quickly.

My aim was just to find a way to stop my sloop-rigged junk for more than a few minutes. I didn’t ‘sell’ my way of heaving to as a heavy weather tactic, but it probably will work as that for just as long as heaving to will work on a Bermuda rig on the same type of boat.

I once participated in a heaving-to exercise with a sister-boat of my Ingeborg. With a full mainsail, it didn’t work so well, as the boat hunted up and down and almost tacked. With a deep reef in the mainsail, she hove to steadily.

Ingeborg’s way of heaving to with that drogue is actually quite similar to the classic way with a backed jib. It is just that the drogue and the forward-set mast combine to do the job of that backed jib. In the case of the 7.9m Marieholm IF (Ingeborg), I think the JR + drogue method gave a steadier ride than the Bermuda rig with a backed jib.

A ballasted keelboat, in particular with a long keel, will provide a lot of resistance against drifting downwind ( heaving to in heavy weather is sometimes used to avoid drifting ashore). Up to a certain point, heaving to appears to be a good method to ‘put the brakes on’  -  but don’t ask me when it is time to give up that tactic: This is outside my experience.
Have a look at some other threads on similar subjects:

• ·         Golden Globe Race 2018
• ·         Design and use of drogues
• ·         Heave to?

Arne

I'm always interested in outside-the-box thinking, so thanks Arne for sharing your new method of heaving to.  In my experience, being able to safely and comfortably stop a boat is an undervalued and under-utilized skill.  I agree with Hans-Erik that heaving to is not necessarily about extreme weather.  I've often used it to "hold station" offshore, waiting for daylight to approach a harbor. 

The most novel use is one I encountered more than 40 years ago. We were crossing from the southern tip of Baja, California to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico in our 20' sloop.  It's a 300 mile open ocean crossing and when we arrived in Puerto Vallarta, we met an elderly couple in a 25' trimaran.  They asked how long it took us and we reported 3 days.  They'd taken 5 days, which of course surprised us, given their much faster boat.  Then they explained their unorthodox sailing routine at sea. 

They sail from dawn until a couple hours after dusk, then take sails down, put out a parachute sea anchor and an anchor light, have dinner and get 8 hours sleep before continuing the next day.  Over the years, they'd found it an effective way to keep fatigue at bay and to make passages more enjoyable.       

Hans-Erik,

heaving to is not necessarily about extreme weather. The manoeuvre is just meant to be an easy method to let one take a break.  When I had my 23’ Albin Viggen, Malena, still with a Bermuda rig, it was standard practice to heave to when the mainsail was to be reefed or unreefed. I have also read about travellers who hove to while waiting for the sunrise before approaching a harbour or tricky inlet of some sort.

To give an idea of the size of the drogue, mine, at 0.18sqm is 1.2% of the sail’s 3-panel top section and 1.8% of the two last panels. On your Jasmine, I guess a 0.3 og 0.4sqm drogue would do fine. I have made drogues of that size, and they are not difficult to manhandle. Making the drogue too big will probably kill too much of the speed so the boat will not head up enough. ( I need to test my setup with the drogue tied to the weather quarter...)

Ending the heaving-to is easy. Just let the sheet go and then raise as much sail as you want. Then haul in the drogue with the sheet still slack, and finally resume sailing. This is easy. I do it every time I go sailing alone.

Just as with heaving to with a Bermuda- or gaff-rig, one must practice a little with the method on a breezy day. Long-keeled boats are known to heave to nicely, but many fin-keeled boats also do it just fine. My armchair hunch is that even fin-keeled boats, which heave to badly with a Bermuda rig, will behave better with a JR plus drogue (or even Bermuda jib plus drogue).

The obvious drawback with the drogue method is that one must have a drogue. A bucket in tow may work, but that is only 1/3 the size of my present drogue. However, stitching up a parachute drogue can be done in an afternoon. I use offcuts of sailcloth, left over from making my sails. It could even be a fine start-up project for wannabe JR sailmakers to get a bit sewing machine practice.

Cheers,
Arne

Very interesting Arne.

I look forward to trying this and variations thereof on Jasmine.

Ultimately though we sloop junkies would love to discover the best method of heaving to in extreme weather.

Short of deliberately being out in the danger of such weather whilst messing about with ideas I am unsure how a 'best method' could be discovered.