How to right a roll

Niki Perryman shares the methods she uses to right a roll and make downwind sailing on Siandra more comfortable.

You’ve just bought an Adams 12 and you’re delivering it from Melbourne to Batemans Bay. You leave Port Phillip on a fast reach, but 50 miles out the wind shifts to the west and moderates.

There’s a heavy swell running in Bass Strait. With the breeze right behind you, the boat rolls from gunwale to gunwale. Whenever the jib inverts, the sheets whip so hard it’s a miracle the sheet-blocks remain intact. There’s a spinnaker pole forward, but wielding the thing above your head on that bucking foredeck is not an inviting prospect.

Your crew look green. The last brave soul to volunteer a stint in the galley got thrown around so much, he turned the stove off and abandoned the food. Every now and then the boom swings towards the cockpit as the boat rolls, and you’re worried that with darkness coming someone could get hurt.

How can you improve the motion of your boat — thereby increasing the safety and comfort of the crew — but still sail the desired course?

Discussion

Your first priority is to steady the boom. Ideally, you want to pull it in two directions: forward, to keep the sail full and hold it away from the heads of those in the cockpit, and downward, to tighten the leech and stop the boom from lifting. Both forces will reduce the roll.

You have several options. Cast an eye over your new boat. Do you have a vang running from the boom to the base of the mast? If so, cranking this on tight will give you downwards force, so you may only need to set up a forward-going preventer.

Bow preventer

To rig a bow preventer, all you need is a line roughly twice the length of the boat, a turning block shackled close to the stem-head, and a cleat aft for securing the tail. With the mainsail hauled in tight, attach one end of the line to the outboard end of the boom. If you don’t have a suitable fitting to attach it to, you can tie a rolling-hitch (see diagram) around the boom itself.

From your attachment point, run the preventer line forward. Take it outside the shrouds and through the rails as necessary to maintain a clear lead once the boom is pushed forward. Feed the tail through the turning block, down one of the side decks and aft to a cleat. As you pay out the mainsheet, haul in the bow preventer. When the boom is fully eased, snub the preventer line tight and make it off on the cleat.

There are many refinements you can make to this system (for example: stretchy nylon line to give you extra shock-absorption, and deflector blocks on the side deck to prevent the tail chafing your coach-house) but even the most primitive version will make life on board safer.

Toerail preventer

If you have a strong-point on (or close to) the toerail just aft of the shrouds, you may not need a bow preventer. You can either utilise an existing rope vang (by transferring the bottom end of it from the mast base to your deck strong-point) or you can rig up a toerail preventer.

For a basic toerail preventer you need a block and tackle plus a piece of rope or webbing to form a strop around the boom. Attach one end of the block and tackle to the boom-strop, the other end to the strong-point on deck, and lead the tail aft from the lower block to a cleat near the cockpit. This preventer steadies the boat and stops the boom from swinging aft.

Again, there are refinements you can make, such as using a jammer block at the lower end of the tackle, and replacing the rope strop with a wider boom sling (see diagram) to spread the load on your boom. But as long as the strong-point, rope and blocks are hefty enough, the basic version will work well.

A few words of warning. The load on a toerail preventer can be substantial — especially when it’s windy. If you have any doubts about the integrity of your strong-point, you should stick with a bow preventer. Likewise, in very rolly conditions where your boom-end repeatedly hits the water, a toerail system has the potential to do damage. A bow preventer is less efficient as a roll-dampener, but it won’t break your boom.

Poling out

Once you’ve powered up your mainsail by tethering the boom, the boat will tend to screw up to windward on every quartering wave. You need to pole out your headsail to balance the rig and make the helmsman’s job easier. In the process you’ll drastically improve the motion of the boat.

It’s not necessary to wield the pole above your head or do battle with whipping sheets. Ask the helmsman to head up 30 degrees while you’re on the foredeck, so that the boat is reaching with the headsail full. Inspect the pole, its fittings, and the systems already in place for hoisting it. You need the following, all of which can be jury-rigged if necessary:

1 Pole topping lift

This normally runs from the outboard end (or middle) of the pole to a turning block roughly two-thirds of the way up the mast. Since the boat already has a pole, you’ll probably find the topping lift permanently set up on the mast. If not, you can improvise with a redundant forward-going halyard.

2 Kicker

This goes from the outboard end (or middle) of the pole down to the foredeck, and stops the pole lifting as the sail bellies. If you can’t find a kicker system in place, you can rig one up easily by tying a line to the outboard end of your pole and leading it down to a strong-point on the deck. Ideally, the tail should go through a turning block near the stem and down the sidedeck to a cockpit cleat.

3 A mast-fitting for the inboard end of your pole

This will depend on what type of hardware your pole has. If there’s a track with a car-fitting on the front of your mast, slide the car down to the lowest possible position before attempting to connect the pole.

4 Brace line

This is a simple safety measure to ensure that you have total control over the pole at all times, no matter what’s happening to the headsail. Tie one end of the brace to the outboard end of the pole (a rolling hitch works fine). Lead the tail outside the shrouds and aft to a stern cleat.

First lay the pole on the foredeck with its outboard end forward. Next, attach topping-lift, kicker and brace. Visualise the ultimate position of the pole, and check that all lines have a clear lead.

Using a sail-tie or lanyard, dangle the outboard end of the pole from the top of the pulpit, so that it is held clear of the deck but can be still be pulled far enough aft to allow you to clip the inboard end onto the mast.

When the butt (or inboard) end is in place, remove the sail-tie and lift the outboard end over the windward rail. Tighten both kicker and brace to keep the pole steady while you finish rigging it. Clip the lazy headsail sheet into the beak, and check that it will have a clear run when the pole is up.

Before hoisting, free off the kicker, brace and lazy headsail sheet. Pull enough slack out of the brace line so that it holds the pole away from the forestay as you hoist. Haul on the topping-lift until the outboard end of the pole is roughly the same height as the headsail clew. If you have a car system on the mast, slide the butt end up the track until the pole is horizontal, and secure it there. Now tighten the kicker.

Back in the cockpit, ask the helmsman to come away onto a square run. When the headsail collapses in the lee of the mainsail, throw off the leeward sheet, and pull the clew across to the pole by hauling on the windward sheet. Make any adjustments to pole-height and angle, tighten the kicker and give the brace a foot of slack so that fore-and-aft load is all on the headsail sheet.

You will feel an immediate improvement in motion plus a substantial increase in boatspeed.