In today's video I'm setting sail on Elan for the first time. From Mainsail to hanks I quickly learned that I didn't really know what I was doing. Join me as I take my new sailboat out for the first time.
Need to hoist the sail so that all the wrinkles come out of the luff. You have some really nice teak handrails and teak coamings--watch a video on proper varnish to protect them from damage. The previous owner really took exceptional care of this boat. You have what may be the finest example of a fine Gary Mull design. congratulations.
FYI - Research (or advertise) if any local sail boat owners require deckhands, especially for club races. Their friends usually also have boats in the same race, so need to get help from elsewhere. Possibly teach you more than any paid course will.
Sailing with Dad, kinda hard to beat that. My 1st Sailboat was a Hobie Cat 18 after which I graduated to an 76 Irwin 37 CC. Hey, you can always throw a yak on top and bring your self bow for exploring marsh islands ⛵️🏹🐗
Great first sail! Things to consider: wrinkles in a sail either point to something over tensioned, or perpendicular to something under tensioned. You needed more halyard tension. Your outhaul also looked completely slack. The black line on your boom is an ideal of how far back it could possibly go. You should start with moderate tension and increase it as the wind increases. This will pull the max draft of the lower 1/3 of the main forward and help to depower the main. To pull the rest of the sails draft forward and depower as the wind increases, apply Cunningham. This acts as extra halyard tension because it assumes the sail can’t be raised any higher. Lastly would be back stay tension. The easiest way to describe this is starting with the idea that flat sails draw less power from the wind than deep curvy sails. So if you lay a sail flat on the grass you’ll see the luff is curved. When you raise a sail on a strait mast, that’s the curvature you force into the sail. By tensioning the back stay you’ll make the sail look more like the flat one laying on the ground. And it also tensions the forestay, taking some curvature out of the headsail. And now you know your OBC’s!!! Outhaul Backstay Cunningham as the wind increases! If it’s not enough, REEF! The same principals apply!!! Get that halyard super tight on your reefed main! Your reef line becomes your outhaul, so SUPER TIGHT on that and a sail tie through the new clue incase the reef line slips! (Cunningham replaced by super tight halyard) There is a certain famous RU-vid single handed sailor that has made it half way round the world without understanding these concepts. You can do it without figuring this out, but you’ll be constantly struggling to balance your boat, and be unnecessarily uncomfortable. Headsails are the same principals the placemat of the turning block controls the balance of foot to leach tension. Just like the outhaul for the mainsail. A tight foot lets all the wind fall out of the top with a loose leach (fairleads aft), taught leach traps the wind and puts curvature into the headsail curvy = power.. fairleads forward. Think about the fairleads at throttles on a powerboat. Throttle forward gives power, aft depowers. To start with, the line from the fairleads following the taught sheet should cut the luff of the sail in half this puts equal tension on the foot and the leach and you can power up or depower from there. If your boat has a boom vang or boom kicker (same thing depending on where you live) this controls the tension of the leach of the main. Taught leach means power, slack leach = depower. To start with the top batten shold be brought parallel to the boom. (Full power) and slacked off from there. If you tighten your outhaul backstay and Cunningham, and move your headsail leads aft, you should maintain drive in the lower portions of your sail plan while spilling wind out of the top. You may even find the tops luffing a bit, but this should equal 80% of the first reef, so if you think the wind is picking up for a short period or just need to get back in, you may delay reefing… just don’t get caught when you should have reefed!!! lol, and that’s the trick!!! Good luck and have fun figuring all this stuff out, it will be a little different on your next boat, but the more you sail the more similar they will all seem. Have fun and I’ll be along to see all of the lessons you going to have to go through! It makes it all new again for me! Thank you!
@@SOLDOZER Yeah, thats why I explained the sail controls that 99% of sailors don't understand. This kid has passion and potential! How have you helped?
@@JohnBraman413 I’m an older generation and would like to try to do something along the line of Kevin from How to Sail Oceans. Less editing and more on the sailing. Right now I’m in the middle of a huge refit and would need to channel my inner Madds (from Sail Life) but I don’t know if I can learn to film and edit while sanding that much! lol!
@@sailingnomad4963 Yea Shut Up Tom! lol. Not like Nomad was forcing anyone to read it. I'm older also, skipped the filming/editing 🤬 Better things to do with my time.
Ahm a few observations from what I can see. The foot on your main is way too slack, which means you need to tighten up the outhaul. Also given the level of wrinkles it would mean either that perhaps it wasn’t totally hauled up (hence the luff is slack) or alternatively you need to check the leach and in that respect check the back stay. Also looking at how your boom is set up, and when you go about, but even more so when you jibe it’s set too low on the mast. Your main sheet arrangement in going past the tiller onto the stern is also a part of this problem. So you might want to relocate the traveller off the stern plus have the mail sheet forward of the tiller. All of which would make tacking both easier and safer. The other thing you really should have is a vang as this allows for vertical adjustment of the boom and is extremely important tool to shape the main for speed/efficiency of the main. As far as your headsail is concerned using a No.2, is probably the most useful sail for cruising, as it’s generally suitable for both light to moderately heavy conditions. The headsail is your main power sail.
Looks like you know what you are doing to me(but what do I know?). Practice makes perfect. As someone else said, You do make great videos. Keep them coming.
Ahoi, nice first cruise. Next lesson: sail trimming ;-) Is there a rail in the boom for the foot? Try it! Wondering you have no boom vang.... I'm looking forward to further adventures, keep it up! 💪
Congrats! Randomly stumbled upon your other video, and checked this one out. And I'm in a simillar spot, got little to no clue what i'm doing but today I just took my boat out for her first sail under my ownership. Soon maybe a first attempt at solosailing...
Copy/paste what I wrote him - Research (or advertise) if any local sail boat owners require deckhands, especially for club races. Their friends usually also have boats in the same race, so need to get help from elsewhere. Possibly teach you more than any paid course will.
Nice to see a young man follow his dream, As an old sailor it warms my heart, But i have to point a finger at you young man, Either wear prober footwear or be bare footed, crocs are banned 😉🤣
You didn’t do badly at all. Get somebody with some knowledge to do a lesson on board your boat. You will benefit greatly from learning how your boat works, rather than somebody else’s. I got a chuckle out of you forgetting to turn on the gas: been there, done that! 😂
