Balancing a C34 sailing to weather

[PaulJacobs]

I notice that most topics are concerned with maintenance, which I fully understand.  However, I wanted to start one devoted solely to sailing.

Some background: In the 60's, 70's and 80's I lived in Pasadena CA, co-owned an L-36 out of Marina del Rey, and did a lot of racing, including three TransPacs, 20 Mexican races, and countless "round the cans" regattas.  In 1998 I moved to Rhode Island, and although Nancy and I cruise Pleiades (1990 Mark 1.5 No. 1068) hither, thither and yon every spring, summer and fall, apparently it is impossible to fully extract the racer from my bones. 

Over the past seven or so years I very much wanted to "tweak" Pleiades so as to improve her balance when sailing to weather.  I have tried MANY different things, and eventually, literally through "trial and error" have arrived at an amazing place.  The following is most definitely NOT intended to toot our horn, since anyone willing to spend the time and effort could have arrived at the same result.  Specifically, in winds from about 5 knots apparent all the way up to about 20 knots apparent Pleiades can be trimmed so that she will sail literally "all by herself" (i.e. with ZERO hands on the wheel) for up to 10 minutes at a time!!!  The good news: it is absolutely delightful, and guests who sail with us are genuinely amazed to see no hands on the wheel.  The bad news: do NOT fall overboard, she will simply continue sailing away leaving you far behind unless someone else takes control and comes about to rescue you!

Step No 1.  In keeping with the recent trend towards smaller headsails, when we initially purchased her in 2012 she was equipped with a 135% Genoa.  While excellent in lighter airs, tacking in strong winds (i.e. 18-22 knots apparent) was absolutely exhausting at my age (then 71 now 82), and multiple tacks typically required in the relatively narrow "East Passage" of Narragansett Bay, between Newport & Jamestown would have me seriously huffing and puffing.   Even with self-tailing winches Nancy - who is petite - simply did not have the upper body strength necessary to grind the headsail sheets in sufficiently, so I had to do it while she steered.  Recognizing that we might be sacrificing some light air performance in favor of MUCH easier tacking, we decided in 2016 to purchase a 115% jib.  This has made tacking vastly easier, and in all but the very lightest breezes (i.e. less than about 4 knots apparent) still provides more than adequate performance to weather.  Of course, when sailing well off the apparent wind, in extremely light air performance with a 115% headsail seriously suffers, but then if we will be sailing for a reasonable distance on a broad reach out comes our asymmetric, which has much more sail area than any Genoa.

Step No 2.  We have learned by trial and error to set the traveler about 4-5" to weather, such that with the C34's mainsheet system and the main sheet very tight the aft end of the boom will then be about 1.5" below the centerline.  In light air when sailing to weather we tighten both the outhaul and the vang, in order to substantially flatten the main.  Then, we sheet the 115% headsail in until it is about 1" off the tip of the spreader, while setting the fairlead to balance foot and leech tension.  In heavier air (viz. 15 - 22 knots) we put in a first reef in the main sail, flatten the main as much as possible, and again set the traveler so that the aft end of the boom is only about one inch below centerline.  Under these conditions we will often be sailing above six knots and pointing with modern racing sailboats, while not only NOT having any substantial weather helm, once we find the location of the wheel that optimizes VMG while sailing to weather, I initially noticed that I was steering with only two fingertips!  So, feeling gutsy, I was utterly amazed that I could actually take my hands COMPLETELY OFF the wheel!!!  Pleiades would romp along, very gradually heading up towards an imminent luff, and then almost as if by magic she would very slowly fall off until she was right back in the "maximum VMG groove", whence she would begin this process all over again, often for many MINUTES at a time!  Narragansett Bay is not sufficiently wide that we would soon be coming up on land, requiring a tack, whence the process would repeat all over again.

Step No. 3.  Early on this "look Ma, no hands" process would only occur on port tack.  After tweaking with the standing rigging, and especially adjusting the forward lower tensions, we eventually reached "nirvana" - where Pleiades would sail to weather in almost perfect balance on EITHER tack and in apparent winds from about 5 knots to about 22 knots.  Above 22 knots apparent we sail Pleiades with two reefs.  However, this happens sufficiently infrequently that we have not yet had adequate "tweaking time" under these conditions to achieve perfect balance, so, heaven forbid, one actually must sail Pleiades to weather in 25 knots apparent with one hand on the wheel!

[LogoFreak]

Very cool read! Thank you for sharing Paul. My C34 is very new to me with only a season of ownership and now undergoing a re-fit. I will definitely be playing around with trim and finding out what works best. Mine came with an aftermarket in mast furling (technically behind the mast furling).

I have ordered and now received a brand new North Sails main, looking forward to getting it on the boat

[lazybone]

Hi Paul,   Do you fly your asymmetric with a pole?

[PaulJacobs]

No.  We just tack it to the bow at the port roller.

Paul

[glennd3]

Thank you for the informative post. I have just one question and it pertains to this  " In light air when sailing to weather we tighten both the outhaul and the vang" . I would think you would release the outhaul in light air. Do you do this because it balances your helm with your sail configuration?

[waughoo]

Very slick.  The traveler possition reminds me of how we set the traveler on the J22 we race in our local summer series one design.  On the J there is also a lot of work done to balance the crew weight to the mast to get the butt out of the water.  We knew everything was right when the helm had nearly NO feel.  The effect was faster performance due to not dragging the helm to weather as a speed brake.

[PaulJacobs]

Glenn and Alex. 

Glenn is correct that "normally" in very light air you want more curvature to the sails, so one would not tension the outhaul and vang.  However, too much curvature is not great when going to weather.  We found on Pleiades that even with only 5 knots of apparent wind - or probably only about 2.7 knots of true wind when sailing to weather - which is barely enough to cause even tiny ripples on the water - moderately snug tension on both the outhaul and vang actually was faster when going to weather, and allowed us to point a bit higher as well. 

From our observations with Pleiades Alex is exactly correct; the fastest VMG seems to happen when everything is tuned such that almost zero torque is needed on the helm.  Since any "steering" involves dragging the rudder even a little bit sideways, this produces additional DRAG which is not the way one spells speed.  I would note that while it is absolutely delightful to not even TOUCH the helm for minutes on end, if we were racing I would sail slightly differently.  Pleiades tendency to "hunt and self correct", while amazing, does spend a bit too much time nearly luffing before it moves back to maximum VMG.  If we were racing I would apply just a tiny bit of helm (literally fingertip control) to keep her from "hunting".

I hope this is helpful.

[ewengstrom]

Just curious what your rig and keel configuration is? Tall rig/standard rig, wing keel, deep keel?
I'm not a serious racer by any stretch of the imagination but do enjoy sail tweaking to get the most out of her. Ours is a wing keel/standard rig with a 135 roller furling genoa and I've found that this boat points well even with the wing. I'll be interested to incorporate your methods and see how she handles this spring!!! Thanks so much for sharing and starting this interesting topic.

[Jim Hardesty]

I find Don Guillette's book and charts very useful.  Being a seasonal sailor I reread each spring and keep them handy in the first part of the season, keep them on the boat all season.  It's one of the books I do not loan out.   I know it's not exactly on topic of balancing a C34, but for me sail trim is at the same time simple and complex.  Sailing is more fun with a well trimmed boat and this information helps me.

https://shop.sailboatowners.com/prod.php?55534/Sail+Trim+Chart+and+Guide+Combo

Jim

[PaulJacobs]

Hi Eric,
Pleiades (No. 1068) is a 1990 Mk 1.5 tall rig, fin keel.  When I started this thread I meant to make a few additional comments, but somewhere along the way I hit "send" first.  So, now might be a good time to add those comments.

1.  Over 60+ years I have owned, sailed, and raced many different sailboats.  I started on a sunfish, graduated to a Lightning, then a Lapworth 36 (designed by Bill Lapworth, and precursor to the Cal 40) which I co-owned for 5 years and sailed 2 Transpacs aboard as owner, skipper & (celestial) navigator, a Cal 40 which I also sailed a third Transpac on as navigator, the 12 Metre "Valiant" which I skippered in a Newport Beach - Ensenada race, the Catalina 30 "Clair de Lune" which Nancy and I owned for 12 years, a Jeanneau 36i which we also owned as part of the Sunsail fleet in Tortola, BVI, a J-125 that I raced on, and finally "Pleiades" which we have now owned for almost nine years.  In all those years, and on all those various sailboats our C34 is BY FAR THE BEST BALANCED SAILBOAT OF THEM ALL!

2.  Most of the above sailboats required a continuous "hand on the helm", especially when sailing to weather.  Some, after much tweaking, namely "Valiant" and "Clair de Lune" could sail to weather for 20 - 30 seconds with no hands on the helm.  Admittedly, after much "tweaking", ONLY "Pleiades" can sail to weather for MINUTES at a time with no hands on the wheel!

3.  We do not just like our C34 - we LOVE our C34!!!  I distinctly recall when we were thinking about upgrading from our former C30 we looked at an Erickson, a Sabre, a Tartan, and a C&C, all in the 34 - 35 ft. range.  In no way do I want to put any of these sailboats down.  Like all sailboats they each have their pluses and minuses.  However, at least for us, when the dust finally settled Nancy and I both concluded that Catalina provides by far "the most boat for the money".  We have had "Pleiades" for nine years now, and we STILL feel that way!

4.  As to her name, many people have asked why we named her Pleiades?  A short story.  Back in 1971 my partner and I decided to sail our L-36 "Woodwynd" in the Transpac.  Obviously, we needed a navigator.  Remember this was well before GPS, and Loran and radio direction finders (RDF) only worked near land.  At that time the ONLY way to navigate to Honolulu was with celestial navigation.  Being a physicist, the mathematics was not a problem, so during the spring prior to the race I used three different books to teach myself celestial navigation, and then used it during the race.  To make a very long story short I fell in love with celestial navigation, eventually taught it for about 10 years out of Pacific Mariners YC in Marina del Rey, where I was a member, and then after moving to RI I was asked to teach the course again by The Museum of Yachting, in Newport, RI.  This was a 2 hour / week, ten week course, and one night - weather permitting - was always set aside to teach the students how to quickly and easily learn to identify ten of the most important navigational stars.  After one such session was concluding Nancy - who also took the course just for fun - asked "where are the Pleiades"?  Then, during a few starry, starry nights when cruising she would again ask "where are the Pleiades"?  Thus, after we purchased our C34 and were about to rename her (going through all the odes to Neptune) THE question was what should we name her?  Nancy immediately suggested "Pleiades".  So we went to Wikipedia to check on a few things.  Under the History section we learned that the mother of the seven sisters, "Pleia", in Greek means  ---- are you ready for this ---- "to sail"!  Then under the Astronomy section it was noted that "The Pleiades are a HOT MIDDLE AGED star cluster".  Well, Nancy and I are a bit past middle age, but that was too good to pass up.  Finally, in nine years of sailing from Long Island to Maine we have NEVER once come across another boat - sail or power - named Pleiades.

Paul

[mark_53]

Welcome Paul, Yes, she sails great with no hands.  I put off an autopilot for the first few years.  When friends are aboard, I say now Jesus has the wheel!

[Jim Lucas]

Hi Paul,
Thanks for this posting!
I'm new to sailing, having crossed over from the dark side of power boating. My wife grew up in a sailing family and her Dad had many boats during his sailing life.
In my quest for a sailboat, I looked at a lot of different boats (mostly just looking from afar) and had not much to draw on for comparison. One day, a sailboat pulled in to the brokers where my power boat was for sale. I liked the lines and general description. Read a few articles that said the Catalina had good reviews so I just pulled the trigger. Daring move considering my father-in-law was watching and my wife had so many boats in her past! 
Turns out I did OK choosing "Calypso" and I've been in love with her and getting lots of praise from my co-captain and huge pats on the back from her Dad.
After the many readings and support on this site and now reading your comments from your experience, it does seem this boat is a winner and will last us many years! Lots to learn and the fine tuning of trimming never ends but getting better at each outing. I'll keep working at it!

[waughoo]

Paul,

I'm a big fan of stories and have truly enjoyed all that you've shared in this thread.  I was really close with My grandfather and always wished I'd documented more of the stories he ahared with me.  For rather obvious reasons to me, reading your long format story posts reminds me of how special these stories are and how great it is to read yours.  Feel free to share some more (even if they don't have to do with sail trim :-).

[Stu Jackson]

Stories are always good and fun.

There are some true gems in this thread.

I, too, have often sailed my C34 without touching the wheel.  The boat truly does sail herself upwind.  I did this often back in San Francisco, heading up to Sausalito from Oakland.

I believe Jim's link to Don Guillette's excellent work is something every sailor should (be made to) read.  I have read almost all of the Sail Trim books published and a lot of the material online.  Compared to any and all of them, Don's presentation is superb, understandable and it works.  Once you begin to understand the "angle of attack" for your mainsail, for example, you will never again confuse a mainsheet for a traveler.   

Before we bought Aquavite in 1998, we had a Catalina 25 for many years.  Before I was able to save up the money for an autopilot, I began to tinker with John Letcher's Self Steering for Small Craft, using lines, clam cleats on the coaming and bungee cords on the tiller.  It worked very, very well.  I got good enough at it to tack upwind in SF Bay along The Cityfront.

What I learned from those experiences is the critical importance of sail trim, because what it does is teach you how to balance the entire boat.

I believe that because I learned that important lesson, however basic it may seem, I found my autopilot was not fighting the boat to keep her going straight, but was more easily making simply minor adjustments.

I often disconnected my autopilot on Aquavite and kept my hand close to but not on the wheel and she tracked like a freight train, for long stretches of time.

I, too, thank Paul for his excellent contributions on this subject.

[wingman]

Paul, completely agree about the C34, great boat. Makes sense that the better she's balanced, the less rudder you'll need and the faster she'll go and the better she will point. Any other thoughts about improving the wing keel 34's pointing abilities?

Side note, I have a lot of years on a fin keel C30. She was a joy to sail, very stiff in a good wind. Working upwind that boat was very balanced and light on the helm and you could "feel" the rudder in the slipstream and make very slight corrections for course or weather helm.