A schooner, mehitabel sails wing-and-wing with the foresail by the lee, looking as if she's running when she might be closer to beam reaching. The fore is very powerful this way, and its gybe is harmless if we head up on that tack.

When we're 'Annie-running' - main out for drive and fore sheeted in for downwind at sea - the main is okay somewhat by the lee, but I'll want to gybe it before it might happen accidentally and upset the self-steering balance.

It's nice to be able to gybe one sail ahead of a change of course, keep sailing, and gybe the other one at the last minute.

Cheers, Kurt

Hmmm....I bought a bit more of the 3/8" line than I needed for my main sheet and halyard and a few other odds and ends....and ended up with a bunch of extra on my main sheet. I'm leaving the bonus in the bottom of the line bag past a stopper knot. Now I'm re-thinking if I should leave a bit more so I can let it out slightly further than I've been doing.

I'm a bit nervous about that because one time early on when sailing downwind with the main well reefed, it got past the point where the main sheet held it back and swung forward, 180 degrees sticking way out in front of the boat! It was kinda freaky/scary when it happened, especially because pulling in the sheet at that point didn't help anything. We turned back up a bit and let the sail weathervane back to a point where the sheet would control it, and were amazed that no damage was done at all.

How far past 90 degrees can a junk sail safely go before this happens?

This technique  with sailing by the lee is certainly not only used by junkies. I have seen it in use  by the top sailors on single sail racing dinghies, like the Europe and Laser dinghy. They have even tufted their sails to let them monitor the backwards airflow. As I understood it, it both had to do with steering balance and to keep the squared out boom out of the water...

I regularly sail by the lee in my boats. I think mast rake has little to do with this on a sloop, except in weak winds and some swell  - but it pays to have a looong sheet! In light winds I am not afraid of squaring the sail out a bit "past square"...

Arne

Years ago, reading something like Voyaging on a Small Income, I learned that compared to a Bermudan rigged boat, a Junk ketch or schooner can sail wing and wing in a much wider variety of wind angles. But that wasn’t visceral practical knowledge, and now I’m starting to get a feel for how much it really works. And my mind is still boggling a bit.

A week or two ago, I was sailing in the Intra Coastal Waterway, a bit North of Charleston. This particular area appears to be mostly a natural body of water, and it is rather narrow and pretty straight, but does bend a bit, especially where inlets between barrier islands head toward the ocean. It is low marshy country that doesn’t block the wind with a few bits of “high ground” that actually grows trees here and there. I was mostly sailing on a broad reach or a run, with ~10 knots of wind. Conditions that Flutterby really likes. At one point I grabbed the mizzen by the sheets and swung it across so I could go wing and wing. Then I went around a bend, and things started to feel kinda weird.

I’ve done a good bit of wing and wing with the wind instrument saying the wind was at about 150 degrees. That feels very comfortable and normal.

The channel had me sailing at 120 degrees from the wind. Enough that the main was starting to draw well instead of being stalled….only it was drawing with the wind going across it backwards. Nothing seemed to mind. Flutterby started to heel a bit…and it felt like it was the “wrong” way given where the sails were.

Perhaps this is because I’ve got 20% balance in my main. (It is a split sail based on Slieve’s) Perhaps I had it sheeted out a bit much, with the top battens twisting off a little; I think they were past 90 degrees. Maybe all junk sails do this?

Anyhow I started to get nervous, so I headed up to try to get the main to gybe. Last time I pulled the main sheet in and tried to ease it out for a gybe, I got a rope burn and it didn’t feel very controlled. I don’t think I want to do it that way again. I got headed up so the wind was at 90 degrees on my apparent wind instrument, and the sail was starting to feel a little unstable like it was almost ready to gybe over, but I was running out of water on that side of the channel, so I gave up and turned back down instead.

Knowing that I could go THAT far by the lee without the sail gybing (at least in flat water; don’t think it would be as stable if I was rolling as waves went by) was quite comforting.

Is this normal?