"Capt. JG" wrote:

"Rosalie B." wrote in message
.. .
"Capt. JG" wrote:
snip

Here's a long explanation of the various techniques...

http://www.boats.com/news-reviews/ar....html?lid=1284

"heaving to" is a sea anchor and storm sail and "lying ahull" is
basicly adrift and depending on your boat running fair.

That's basically correct given that URL. Heaving to is doing
something to make the boat keep still in good orientation to the
waves. There are other techniques to do that and a sea anchor is one
of them.

Nope... read it again. Heaving to is using your sails and rudder...
nothing to do with a sea anchor.

Nope, not according to the linked info. To quote:

"But, heaving to is most often done when the wind is really piping.

There
are three generally accepted ways to heave to in a sail boat: lying to a
sea anchor or para-anchor; lying ahull; and, heaving to under reduced
sail."


Three ways:

It says there
"are three generally accepted ways to HEAVE TO in a sailboat"

and lists three ways

1) lying to a sea anchor or para-anchor
2) lying ahull
3) heaving to under reduced sail

Thus, heaving-to is under reduced sail and has nothing to do with a sea
anchor.

We know what we mean by heaving to because we are sailors. But that's
not what that passage actually SAYS.

He may have used the term heave-to (incorrectly) in the intro paragraph, but
lying to a sea anchor and heaving to (the technique) have nothing to do with
each other.

Who is the HE you refer to as using the term incorrectly. You gave
this URL as an explanation. Why do that if you think that what is
written is incorrect?

I think the person who wrote the explanation is using 'heave to' in
the general sense of storm weather tactics.

Don't be so quick to criticize a non-sailor for actually reading what
is written instead of what you think was written. Because the point
is to explain what a sailboat would do in case of a storm differently
than what a power boat would do. The OP grasped quite quickly that
lying ahull would perhaps not be a wise idea, and why that would be
so. Why nitpick about what he is calling heaving to?

Note: It is necessary to practice heaving to just as anything else,
and while you might want to do it first in good weather, it might be a
good idea to try it sometime in heavy weather conditions. We do it
with the staysail and main or with the staysail and jib, and one of
the other people who has our type of boat says that one of those ways
is wrong. (I don't remember which he says is correct.) I'm pretty
sure that we don't use the main and jib, but I could be wrong about
that.

We also have a sea anchor, but have not practiced with it yet because
in the Chesapeake there's too much traffic for it to be needed. Plus
there's a lot of places to hide.

It's also a good idea to have the canvas reduced before you really
need to do it.

Type: define: heave to in google.

Actually, there's a fourth way to heave-to.... I always ask people to do it
on the leward side. g