Agreed, just like steering "down" in a gust to de-power when going down wind, sheet/traveler in as you turn down, but go smooth and fast so you don't loose too much speed, smooth out with traveler/sheet as you come back out the other side. When single handed just leave the jib alone until you are comfortable on the opposite tack, then tack it over. Especially single handed I feel safter gybing in heavy wind than tacking. But that's on a Nacra. Those crazy pitchpole machine Hobies may be a different story.
@@slode1693 We prefer to use the genny downwind in all conditions but pure survival mode. Steering in a S- shaped track through the jibe might be a nice description as one goes through the parts of the evolution. One thing beachcat sailors often do much better than crews on larger boats is throwing the mainsail over manually just before the wind passes astern and the forces are low. This reduces the "slam" factor and risks involved a lot. Looking at large monohulls jibing in a blow is.. scary.. with that boom and mailsail slamming over. The forces have to be immense. What NACRA are you riding? We moved from the Tornado to an F-18 Infusion when the big-T was thrown out of the olympics.
Yes, for sure. However, I wanted viewers to know that it's OK to go the long way round if they're too scared to go for the gybe. I think the biggest hurdle that sailors have in these conditions is the fear. With confidence everything becomes so much easier.
Depends a bit on the boat but this maneuver can be worse than a high wind "tight gybe" because in this "long gybe" you go through yhe power zone twice. Instead, try a tight gybe. Run ndowmwind deep deep, almost dead downwind, with mainsheet in and traveler in. The mainsail should be sailing by the lee - telltales will show flow reversed. From there, the gybe is easy, just be super careful in the steering. (The tricky trick is of this mode is to survive the bear away from reach to downwind. That takes a long explanation I wont write here).
When you say closer to the wind, you mean turn towards where the wind is coming from, to bleed off speed, then turn back away from the wind to tack? Like a Scandinavian flick? Or do you just rave into the wind a little longer to bleed off energy, then tack around as the wind catches the sails again?
Yes, in the high wind unless trying to sail competitively upwind, having the daggers lifted helps to de-power the boat. Nice Q - I'll talk about it in the Q+A on Friday. Cheers
I found this 3 point technique 'by accident' in a situation where I repeatedly did not manage to tack with high wind combined with the very difficult short waves we have at the Ijsselmeer in the netherlands. The boat loses speed immediately once it has the face in the wind because the waves push the boat back. So that's a situation where it seems to apply too. I was wondering. I also manually pulled the mainsheet towards me, which increases the reverse speed. Is that a good idea?
That will certainly help - especially in less wind. So yes, but be a little careful if it's a very strong wind as it could cause you to capsize backwards
