Which Tack Will Produce a Change in the Wind?

There is a simple method to find the center of a low pressure system. Face the wind and hold your right arm straight out to your side, then point. You are now pointing at the center of the low pressure system that is causing the wind you are experiencing. Inversely, perpendicularly and to your left is the center of the high pressure system in your immediate area. This simple trick works in the Northern Hemisphere thanks to the Coriolis Effect. If you are in the Southern Hemisphere, this trick would work with, just using the opposite arms for the low and high.

To answer the original question, which tack will produce a change in the wind? The answer is either tack!

You can not sail directly into the wind, so you need to choose starboard tack or port tack. Port tack will have your bow facing the low pressure system that is causing the present wind, and therefore would eventually lead to more wind.

Starboard tack will have the bow facing the high pressure system that is opposing the low, eventually leading to calmer winds.

There is a way, however, to stay in exactly the same conditions, and that is to sail on an absolute dead run. Here you will simply spiral around the highs and lows without ever moving closer or farther from any of them.

When you are crossing an ocean, just remember the effects that your tack will have in a few days. Starboard tack will produce more wind, port tack will produce calmer conditions.

The giant flaw in this theory is that weather systems move, so if you sail in a straight line towards a low, it might not be there by the time you reach the spot where the center was. So, keep this in mind and be sure to keep an eye on the weather!

Observation About Headsail Tack Location and Motion Through Seas

We have crossed the Atlantic on a 1968 Morgan 45 with a full keel and cutter rig. This is a CCA style boat with a LOD of 46 feet and a 32 foot waterline. Yes, 14 feet of the boat hover above the water while at rest.

Our bow has a far amount of overhang, with the staysail's tack just behind the beginning of the waterline and the headstay's tack located several feet ahead of the waterline.

One consistent observation we have noted when sailing, particularly when beating, is the way the yacht moves through the seas depending on which headsail is flying. If we have the job lowered and are only flying the staysail, we will ride up and over the waves. This gives us a much drier ride but a significantly bumpier one. Each wave is a wall that must be scaled and climbed down. This greatly adds to the distance we sail as we are now climbing the face and back of each wave, but we do so in a very calm and collected manner. Our speed suffers significantly as each wall almost stops us in our tracks! The end result is a very slow, albeit dry, passage to windward.

The alternative has also been noted. When we fly the jib on our headstay, we no longer ride up and over waves. Instead, we plow right through them. Water pours over the bow as we turn into a submarine and a river of seawater runs down the deck and off the stern. The river can be quite deep, reaching a few inches deep when beating in heavy conditions. This makes deck work less enjoyable and much less safe. Everything is slippery and a few inches of water rushing past can take away your footing, causing you to slip and fall!

On the other hand, our speed drastically improves as we no longer ride over waves, or slow down for them either.

Having a cutter allows us more versatility in Headsail arrangement and sail balance over a sloop, but now I wonder about sloops with their tack location. Most sloops, but not all, have their tack at the tip of the bow; some have them a few feet back. We have the choice of a fast wet ride or a slow dry ride through the seas, a sloop has the setup given to them by the naval architect.

Please let me know in the comments section below about your experiences with tack positions relative to the waterline and how the yacht handles beating into the seas. Also, I would love to hear from those with a bowsprit, does it provide even more drive through the seas?

The Value of Effort

Sport sailing is all about getting the most out of every puff of wind. Coastal sailing is about getting from one place to the next as quickly and comfortably as possible. Ocean sailing is about making it to the other side.

While the goal in all three types of sailing involves getting somewhere, and quickly, the first two categories can be viewed as sprints where the latter should be viewed as a marathon.

Ocean sailing is an endurance sport, there is no way around it. Every action you take requires energy, and you have to be able to keep up that pace for the entire ocean! This leads to different decision processes as to sail selection and trim, as well as course.

If the winds are light, but you have clouds building around you, you are presented with a few options:

Option 1 would be to take down the working sails and put up the light air sails. When the winds change, then take down the light air sails and put the working sails back up.

Option 2 would be to grab a book and wait for the stronger winds to reach you so you can keep sailing with the sails you already have set.

This choice came up on our third day of ocean sailing, when our crew member got frustrated that we were ghosting along at 2 knots on a broad reach under mainsail and staysail. He suggested that we swap the sails out and put up the drifter. I attested that this would require a lot of energy and that it would be the same result in the end: we would move slow.

Being how he is rather Type A and in a rush all the time, I told him that we would do it as a learning exercise, to see when something is worth the work.

I was relaxing and reading my book as we ghosted along at 2-3 knots and recommended that he do the same. Instead, we all got up, sleepy and tired since we just finished our night watches, and swapped the sails over. The entire conversion took about 15 minutes to complete and a fair amount of effort. The light air filled the drifter and we began moving along once again, at 2-3 knots.

So, was it worth all that effort?

Reefing When Ocean Crossing

The biggest distinction between ocean crossing and coastal sailing is the lack of help. If something breaks close to shore, there are plenty of people around who can help you. They will tow you back to a marina where an army of skilled labor exists to get you back out there sailing! In the ocean, if something breaks, you better know how to fix it yourself with the supplies you are carrying on board your yacht because no one is coming to help you!

This lack of aid is precisely why you should reef early. If you see a storm coming, don't wait for it to hit you to then start adjusting the sail plan! Reef now and wait for it to pass over. Once it has passed and completely cleared you, then shake out the reefs! This will ensure that you and your gear are exposed to minimal risk during the ocean crossing.

Maddie and I sleep in the V-Berth up in the bow and our third crew member sleeps in the quarter berth. At night, we rotate watches accordingly. Maddie has first watch from 9 to midnight. I have second watch from midnight to 4:30AM and the third crew member has the morning watch from 4:30AM until we all get up. Since we are up in the bow, we hear the sound of the stem cutting through the water, and we can also feel how much we are heeling over. I have frequently poked my head out of the forward hatch to see dark and stormy looking clouds all around us and notice that we are full sail! I assume that the crew member on watch is keeping an eye on them and tracking their movements with the compass. A storm that is not coming at you is not a storm you need to worry about. Then we pick up speed and begin to heel over to an extreme angle and I hear a desperate cry from the helm.

"It's time to reef!"

Yes, it is time to reef, and it was time to reef a long time ago! The two of us run up to the mast and begin taking in the sails while Maddie works the sheets and helm to keep us safe. I quickly tuck in a few reefs in the main while he lowers the jib entirely. After all of this, he will usually say something like, "We reefed at the perfect time" and I don't understand what he is talking about.

Now, he knows how I reef. I track the storms on the horizon and if I find one that is coming at us, get ready to reef. I will also reef if everything looks fine but the temperature just dropped significantly. I will reef at the first hint of anything getting stronger, and the reefing is so easy to do!

The boat is stable, the winds are light and manageable, and I easily tuck in a reef or two in the main without really needing the winch handle. The jib is easy to pull over the deck by tugging on the lazy sheet and releasing the halyard. There is no fuss about it, this is the perfect time to reef!

Once we are reefed, we wait for the storm to strike and when it does, nothing happens! We do not heel, we do not panic, and most of all, we do not risk ourselves or our boat in the process.

Speed While Crossing an Ocean

We picked up a third crew member to cross the Atlantic with us. This is his first ocean crossing and something that he has always wanted to do. He is a very competent sailor who knows his stuff (a huge improvement over the previous crew member). His background is in racing, meaning that he can trim and squeak out every last knot available. When he is approaching hull speed, he will imagine that there is still more power available and continue to trim. He obsesses over every tenth of a knot, making the boat sail as fast as possible.

This makes for fun and spirited sails over short distances, but this philosophy is very different from ocean crossing.

In ocean crossing, the goal is to get to the other side of the ocean with everything still working and as comfortably as possible. This means sitting back and relaxing as the sails and wind carry you from Point A to Point B. You are not going to be moving as fast as possible, but you are moving comfortably. This comfortable moving is what ocean cruising is all about. The trip is going to be several weeks, and if we wear ourselves out in the first day, we will be dead from exhaustion by the time we make our distant landfall. Instead, sailing comfortably is our goal, that way we arrive at the next destination rested and ready to explore!

This difference in philosophy came up when I saw a storm system forming. A massive thunderhead had been billowing up behind us with massive clouds climbing high into the sky. At this point, the system was only developing but I knew to keep my eye on it as it could start to come our way with devastating consequences.

All of a sudden, the massive cloud formation turned into an anvil cloud with the horn extending right over our boat. The cloud became so thick that it blocked out the sun! Instantly, I knew it was time to reef down. We were full sail with our Main, Staysail, and Jib flying; soon we would be only the staysail and trysail.

The concept of putting up the trysail in light airs perplexed our racing friend. "The winds are light, we can just switch the sail when the winds get here." I responded with, when the winds hit, no one wants to go up to the mast and wrestle with sails. The day was drawing to an end and the sun would be setting soon. Changing from full-sail to storm-sails is one thing, but doing it in the dark on a moonless night is completely different! To be safe, we simply set the storm sails and waited for the weather to reach us.

Our speed went from 5 knots to 4 knots. This meant that for every hour that we waited as the storm approached, we would theoretically lose 1 nautical mile of travel. That may sound like a significant loss in distance made good in a short course, but we are traveling 2800+ miles! 1 mile is 0.000357% of the journey, so not a significant issue to me, who is a comfortable cruiser and not a racer.

Late that night, the winds finally came, and we may have lost a theoretical 5 or so miles, but who cares! When the winds hit late at night, we were ready and relaxed. There was no drama caused by the boat pitching and rolling, instead the off-watch crew didn't even know it occurred.