Taking in sail without an engine

[pbryant]

I learned to sail in Sweden, where people were enormously reticent to run an engine. If you started your engine, you obviously didn't know how to sail. They'd rather break out the oars and paddle like Vikings while singing: "Vem kan sigla forutan vind?" (Who can sail without the wind?) Their marinas were designed to accommodate engineless entry and exit - while many of ours are not.

I did learn one very useful technique that I find far safer and easier than what I will call "the American Method" of taking in sail. They taught me to heave to -- instead of trying to force the bow into the wind with an engine.

I've been single handing my Ariel for three years now, and I've never had to run my engine to take in my mainsail. And I frankly can't understand why anyone else would. You have to point the boat up on a knife edge heading and deal with a bucking boom that's being slapped around by the turbulence of a sail in a full luff, and as soon as you start to take the sail in, the helm has to be continually readjusted to compensate for the sail coming down. I can't imagine anyone attempting that method in a fresh wind single-handed without an autopilot. Using the method I was taught, the helm is controlled by a short piece of bungee cord.

Am I missing something here? Is there something good about the method that most people around here are using? I've crewed on racing boats in the Bay, and I had to cringe watching them take in the mainsail, and laugh to myself when my suggestion they heave to drew only blank stares and the question: "how do you heave to?" In 25 knot winds, with the mainsheet pulled in tight to center the boom on these racer-crewed boats, twice I've experienced the bow falling off and the boat heeling all the way over on her side, spreaders and sidedeck in the water, sliding sideways along the chop, while the crew hung on with their fingernails! Why would anyone risk that?

Here's a video I shot in 20 knot winds and 5 foot swells off Pillar Point. It doesn't look that ruff while I'm hove to because an Ariel hove to creates lots of nice surface eddies that break up oncoming swells . Notice how the swells suddenly appear at the end of the video after I get back underway and leave the boat's slick of turbulence in the water. Here's the vid:

http://youtu.be/EI_PnHZwBOY (note: you need Adobe Flash installed for it to play.)

Doesn't this technique look a lot safer? Of course, it'll be hard to accomplish if you've cluttered up your cabin with a dodger that can't be gotten out of the way. Which is why the dodger was the first thing I took off my Ariel when I bought her.

Please. I'd love comments about what I am failing to understand about the technique being taught for taking in the mainsail by sailing schools here in the U.S.