While reading rec.boats.cruising, I noticed Terry Spragg
felt compelled to write:

Ian, if you think you are going to reef while running when you need
to, you are in for a shock.

You just can't do it.

Well, depends what you mean by when you need to, I suppose. I sail a
trimaran and when it is just past time to reef (to gust speed, rather
than aggregate speed) reefing down-wind is preferable to straining the
crap out of the rig chasing the higher apparent wind in rounding up.

Usually I put in a first reef when gusts regularly exceed 22kn, and so
in average of 14-15. Most keelboats are breaking out the spinnakers,
but a big roachy main is starting to think about pushing the nose in
on a multi. Nothing to stop us flying a kite after the main has been
powered down, after all.

This type of sailing makes it is easy to misjudge the true wind speed
on a run, and there are problems with the higher apparent wind when
coming about, in fact it is preferable to gybe down a track rather
than round and tack a multihull through this type of scenario, because
the higher boatspeed carried in to the stronger breeze can jump you
suddenly to a very sedate apparent condition at 15kts reaching off in
22kts of breeze, to rounding up into a hair straightening 30+ kts of
apparent wind despite halving that boat speed.

You must round up and come head to wind, or you will not get the
main down. It will hang on the spreaders, and jam in the sail
track. Then, you will broach. That's basic sailing. To broach means
to get spun around until you are head to wind, like it or not. It
often involves dipping the boom, possibly breaking it, and can be so
violent it fills the cockpit with water, even capsizing you. Which
means you sink on the spot in a keelboat.

Well, I reef well before we hit a gale, and would never try this in
heavy conditions, but as long as you have the sea room to bear away
quickly and have a cunningham rigged through a block, believe it or
not, we can and do reef quite easily downwind. It's a two man
operation though, one at the mast on the halyard, reef lines and
downhaul, one to helm off and dump the sheet to provide the
opportunity of a zero apparent wind interval..

The secret to reefing safely is to reef before you need to. If you
wait too long, you enter a situation where, as old salts say "The
sea doesn't give a damn." If the situation continues to
deteriorate, you will die.

Of course. And this is made worse with the higher lateral stability of
a multihull, at 8.5m of beam the wind can't easily knock you down and
settles for just taking the rig off. Sorry to have to agree with you,
but I am an absolute advocate of reefing early.

If you find yourself out there, you will only be able to get the jib
down, if you don't slide off the fore deck. If it's BAD, and your
furler jams, you will not be able to do anything, except hope the
damn thing flogs itself to death and tatters before you drown. When
the jib is gone, the main will spin you around wether you want it to
or not, possibly capsizing you if you are too silly to ease the
sheet as far as it can go without losing the end to the breeze, and
then, if you don't take water and sink, you will find yourself head
to wind, in irons, going backward, and will have about two seconds
to get the main reduced, or down altogether, before you dosi-do or
gybe around again and again and again, until the main is in tatters,
if you are lucky enough to see it happen, you might well be watching
that while being trolled for bait, on the end of your lifeline.

Well, I was advocating pulling down the sail from the furler when you
need to, rather than awaiting the rather dire circumstances that
inspire the consequnces you outline above. We carry a storm jib and
rig to a temporary cutter stay in those conditions, fortunately I've
never felt the need to go out and drop that. I have, however, been
caught by a furler unravelling a headsail in a breeze, with all its
attendant ugliness. This is why I prefer to drop the headsail from the
furler, well before the excrement and oscillator collide, and why I
advocate leaving the comfort of the cockpit to do so.

As for drowning and sinking, thanks for your concern, but there are
some advantages to not having a half ton of lead bolted to the bottom,
principal amongst which is making it difficult (though far from
impossible) to sink. Yes, I've flipped, but not my own boat and whilst
racing rather than cruising.

Unless you have the crew and the skill and the strength to steer a
close reach or in reverse and can keep the head to wind long enough
to reef as you wish you had practiced and perfected when it was
calmer, if you are alone, you could well die. Pray the boom takes
you, rather than drown.

I wasn't advocating this procedure in a hurricane, Terry. It is useful
when sailing down a steepish following sea, though, and far preferable
to turning across such a sea (and its consequent invitation to
broach), often the acceleration down the waves will provide the zero
wind opportunity to downhaul without even bearing off. This works on
monohulls too, I first learned it on a Ross 930, 25 years ago in the
Hauraki Gulf. Also learned how to cut away rigging quickly after doing
2 rigs in three races whilst learning a bit about apparent wind and
the hazards of having a Stewart 34 gybe their boom through your
windward stay. A new language was learned that day, by comparison to
which Tourette's is a mild and genteel form of communication.

I would never again sail without a certain method of getting the jib
down. I can no longer trust a furler, nor do I want to sail with a
baggy jib. I almost lost the mate overside in an unexpectedly rough
day, when all we could hope to do do was pull the bloody genoa down
on deck from the foredeck. A downhaul is now permanent, and has
never failed to do the deed. All large sails foreward will be set so
a knife can let it go off to sail heavan by itself. If it is so calm
I can't get anywhere without the genny I don't have any more, I will
either turn on Mr. Iron Oars, or start fishing.

I agree with that, sorry. I've just finished a substantial refit on
our boat, and replaced an old furler that had its own halyards and
downhaul rigged in the unit, for a far more expensive and modern one
which does not. I am working out a method for running a downhaul from
the slide car over the weekend. I am concerned that the distance
between the deck and the extrusion is not conducive to a forcing of
the sail down from the top. Really, the rationale behind these units
has become a 'one sail fits all' solution, not really designed to
facilitate changes. I seriously considered returning to hank-ons, for
three seconds. Any tips?

Sailing is not for wussies who don't take responsibility for their
own survival, and keep an eye out for weather.

Hardly the material for a tattoo, perhaps an epitaph?

Been there, done that! Seen that at a distance and was near tears
myself the day we went down to the government wharf near Cobourg,
Ont. 20 odd years ago to watch the waves and witnessed such a
potential death dance not a mile offshore in a 10 minute squall.
After a while, two pansy boys got the boat to the dock on the
engine, literally crying buckets of tears and screaming at each
other every inch of the way, got off the boat, called for the police
and two taxis, and were going to let it drift away, cursing horribly
and swearing they would never sail again. It was their first day of
sailing. They were at the face slapping stage. We grabbed their
dockline. We gathered that they had just taken possession of their
dream palace. They sold the boat, I think a brand new Hunter 25 with
a diesel, and a great big knot of tatted rags in the cockpit and on
deck, on the spot to a guy on the dock with a cheque book for 5
thousand dollars. I wish I had spoken first.

Well, I was fortunate to do all my terror, crying and a fair bit of
incidental, unscheduled swimming in sailing dinghies from the age of
eight, but have wailed nonetheless. Most notably when caught by my
mother not only 'sailing out of the bay' but sailing my 11' Arrow
class dinghy across the Tiri channel from Okoromai bay to Rangitoto
Island and back. By some miracle I survived the trip, but barely
survived my mothers wrath upon my successful return (the latter part
of the trip having been observed by binoculars from shore).

All your theory won't help a bit.

It helps some, I'd hate to forget all of it. More beneficial is the
experience to know when it might help, and when to deploy the
parachute and retire, as gracefully as blind panic allows, below.

Your tears won't even get you wet, and the sea will ignore your call
for mommy.

Refer above. I'd rather the sea take me than face mommy again, even
though she is nearly 80 now.

Yes, I have stupidly set sail into 50 knots of wind, and sailed off
the sheltered dock, but I just didn't know how lucky I would be to
get back home. That was 30 years ago, in Calandar bay, lake
Ni****ing, another surprising fresh water sea.

Well those cruising grounds are as foreign to me as Kawau, Okoromai,
Rangitoto and Hauraki Gulf most likely are to you. Once had to cleave
off a terrifying lee shore almost the length of the Coromandel
peninsula, took all day to make about five miles to weather, then much
later collapsing, utterly buggered into an unknown bay in a small
Island by torchlight at midnight. Woke to the crunch of the boat going
over at low tide (mono's, back then), simply too tired to do other
than reset the pillow, and was fortunate to wake floating.

That weather came out of nothing but the flattest calm, in the time it
took to go below and wash the breakfast dishes I returned to look at a
horizon of approaching whitecaps and 40kt winds. Lost a hat getting
the pick out, and the #1 jib shredded five minutes later. Hank ons,
took 40 minutes to get a new headsail up (seemed like 4 hours).

Ah, but what joy we have had, since!

That's the fun of it, all right. My wife still wont accept (over 20
years later) that we were never in serious danger.

Ian