Thank you Graeme for outing me! ;^)
I was thinking about replying earlier, but I'm not sure how helpful I can be. Since buying the boat ten years ago I spent 5 or 6 years doing work I had not anticipated, then fighting the River Ribble from Preston, and the tides in the Irish Sea, so have not built up any great experience, or intuitive feel for sailing the boat. Now she is in the Firth of Clyde I am starting that process.
The boat is a Freedom 33, junk-rigged ketch, with shoal draught fixed keel, having flat cut sails with wooden battens, hinged by way of GRP sleeve-type hinges. Originally the carbon fibre masts were both the same length, the different amounts of bury giving the main a higher peak than the mizzen. Before my ownership the fore mast suffered a breakage at sea, and although the remnant was salvaged it could only be repaired a few feet shorter than original, and was swapped out for the intact mizzen, resulting in an appreciably lower mizzen peak, together with redesigned sails.
Initially I found she would be hard to tack from starboard- to port-tack, and would readily self-tack back at the slightest opportunity. Now I have more sailing opportunities on the Clyde I have begun studying the rig, and feel I am starting to get to grips with it, although still to fully appreciate the complexities of its efficient use.
A factor I have long puzzled about is how best to route the sheet line at the triple block that feeds the three spans up to the luff and back. I have noticed a few times on other boats, that an arrangement that allows the three spans to pass each other freely on one tack, can result in crossed lines on the other tack, causing increased friction and impeding the free running of the sheet spans in and out. Below are drawings of the arrangement I had in use until a few weeks ago, and the arrangement I have since changed it to. The drawings lack the full 3D form in the actual rig, but you might be able to see that one is rather less self-interfering than the other. Combined with the "twistless coiling" method I wrote about in a recent magazine, I feel a lot happier about tacking the boat. This coiling method cured the horrible twisting that occured in the sheet spans when I used the standard, RYA-type coiling, where the rope is twisted at each loop to allow the rope coils to lie neatly and look "ship-shape".
Also below is a photo of the screen of my chart plotter, showing the tracks of various trips I made in and out of Lamlash Harbour on the Isle of Arran. Most were under motor, but my latest exit was under sail, which track should be obvious. Leaving the mooring buoy there was a light wind coming directly down the North Channel, of 5 to 10 knots, light enough for me to fully raise both sails prior to casting off. Although I had the engine running in case of unforeseens, once the mooring strop was let go the bows fell away to starboard and the boat sailed away without the engine's assistance. It soon became clear I could tack and make progress into the wind towards the exit. Feeling very Jack Aubrey, I continued to sail at around 3 knots, tacking over the next hour or so until, near the exit, the wind seemed to veer to the south east, at which point I could lay a course of around 60 degrees, directly towards Ardrossan. The apparent wind direction inside the bay may have been modified by wind shadowing and funnelling by the steep hills on Holy Island and Arran. The varying angles in the tack tracks were dictated by slight variations of wind direction over time. I have no greater knowledge of wind strengths, directions, lee/weather helm etc than can be gleaned from the tracks, sorry.
Once clear of the exit, and on the 60 degree heading, I was passed by three yachts on a reciprocal course, say 240 degrees. The SE-ish wind would have provided them something like a broad reach, at worst a beam reach. Although the wind was rather light and sea state smooth, I wondered why all three were motoring. Guess what rig they carried!
As well as changing the running arrangements of the sheets, the other thing I have done recently is to set both sheet travellers amidships for windward sailing, so that no adjustment is required when going through the wind. The traveller can be used to make a quick in or out sheet adjustment to the whole sail at once, without the sheet line needing to pay in or out through the sheet block system, as would be needed if playing the sheet at the cockpit end. It could also be used when the sail needs to be tight amidships for beating, allowing sheet tension to be reduced by setting the traveller out to windward. I also use the traveller in harbour - a line with a snap shackle is used to clip onto the boom aft end, attaching it to a stanchion base, or similar, then with the traveller run out opposite, tightening the sheet will hold the bundle amidships against wind blown swaying. My boat has no boom gallows which might otherwise perform this function.
Old Sheet Layout
New Sheet Layout
Tacking Out of Lamlash