The average sloop sailboat does sails well with either the main or jib
alone.
The better one do go upwind with the main alone or jib.
The trick is practice and more practice. When I had knee surgery I sailed
with the main alone for a while. Then with the jib alone. After a while I
used both sails.
The best way is to start practicing on a calm day. You have to master the
art of filling your sails and emptying them. There are no book or video
that will trained you properly. Like a toddler you have to do it again and
again until you become confident and assert yourself. Sometime taking a in
the water sailing course coupled with classroom teaching is better than
renting a boat that you are not familiar with.

"Mys Terry" wrote in message
...
On 6 May 2006 20:16:28 -0700, "Nikita" wrote:

This is not directly related to cruising, but I hope you guys can help
me out on this one...

I rented a Catalina 16.5 today, and being somewhat rusty and in an
unfamiliar boat, decided to sail it with only the main, figuring I'd
have less to worry about. Result: near disaster.

I couldn't tack the thing at all. It would come up into the wind just
fine, and then it would sit there, effectively stopping me. When
sailing even marginally upwind, it had horrible weather helm, trying to
come up into the wind all the time. Luckily the boat had a small
trolling motor on it, so I was able to motor-sail it back to the rental
office and return it without incident. But for the motor, I would have
been stuck on the downwind side of the lake.

Now, I realize that sloops are designed for two sails, but the boats I
learned to sail on (Club 420, if you are interested) handle just fine
under main alone. So why was I having so much trouble? Is it because

a) I haven't sailed over the winter and I'm rusty
b) Catalina 16.5s handle much worse without a jib than an average boat
c) Something else I'm not aware about.

Input appreciated!

Nikita.


The Club 420 mast is much further forward than the Catalina 16.5, and the
main
is relatively much larger. Without a jib, those differences could be very
significant.

It's also possible that the mast on the particular Catalina you rented was
rigged with too much rake. That would tend to increase weather helm.

When you realized you couldn't sail well on the main alone, why didn't you
just
raise the jib? If you "learned" on a 420, this should have been no big
deal.


Terry & Skipper, Clearlake Texas