Hands free sailing

[Randy Stolze]

  This is my sixth year with this boat and I am still surprised at its performance and my learning curve. Today I discovered that the boat will sail itself without autopilot.

  I was on a close reach 20 degrees with about 12 mph of wind and 5 degrees of weather helm as she sailed on without touching the wheel. She would slowly drift to weather, stall slightly and fall off 1-2 degrees and than come back. It was a beautiful thing. I tried it again later in the day with the wind blowing 17-22. I had the same results with a little more weather helm but the boat maintained a straight course at six knots.

  Retirement ain't bad!

  Fair Winds- Randy

[Joe and Carol]

Randy, we also got our 34 to sail "hands free" last weekend in 14k steady winds.  We used basically beam reach to starboard with our jib reefed to 135 or so.  By trimming sails to no resistance on wheel to maintain heading we established the hands free run.  We have removed our auto pilot due to its tendency to hunt on heading making us a bit weary.  Our 34 is so forgiving and able to handle steady winds, it is indeed, as you state, a pleasure to sail.  Gusty winds ended our fun but for a good while the boat sailed herself without hand or friction on the wheel!

[Ken Heyman]

Ditto--our 34's seem to get in the groove quite easily. We have easily maintained upwind headings "handsfree" by proper  trim adjustment. I'm not sure I would go down below and take a nap however but I guess i wouldn't do that under auto pilot either. A corollary technique (which there are many threads in this forum)is "heaving to" to get proper adjustment between helm, backwinded jib and dynamic forces.
Ken

[glwestcott]

We were coming back to San Francisco from Hawaii on our 34 and our Autohelm broke one day out.  We were heading pretty much due north on a beat.  We found with the boat well trimmed and the wheel lock partially tightened, she would sail herself with only minor tweaks occasionally.  We did 1,000 miles north this way.  Didn't work once we flopped over and headed east and were on a broad reach, but hard on it was great!