It was a beautiful winter day in December, we had a nice (chilly) North wind on Lake Union, and we were taking out a Blanchard that was docked deep in towards the South end of the CWB waterway. There was no dock space to move our boat up toward the North end, so we knew we would have to "short tack" our way up the narrow channel between the docks to get out. We had already practiced one-right-after-the-other tacking in open water a few weeks before, so we decided to give it a try.
"Short Tacking" means beating upwind through a narrow waterway, where you have to tack multiple times in quick succession. Catherine from the Livery took a great video as we sailed out, and here's what we did to make it a success and make ourselves look good at the same time:
(1) As the boat is pushed off the dock, we only had 15 feet or so of sailing distance to build the good boatspeed you need for tacking. We quickly had to get the boat moving fast. So, instead of trying to sail a standard closehauled 45 degree course, we pushed off the dock smartly to get our bow a bit farther down, to a 50 degree "footing" angle, or even 55 degrees - much better for quick speed-build.
Sailing closer to the wind at a standard 45 angle was tempting, because a sailboat can do it, and it would seem like 45 would angle us out of the waterway better. But a boat takes some time to get up to full speed, and while she's still going slow, the boat makes a lot of leeway (side-slipping to leeward). Plus, with slow speed we might not even be able to tack successfully without getting caught in irons in the no-go zone.
Footing for speed at 50+ was the way to go. Matt, the forward crew, shoved our bow away from the dock with a good push before stepping on (for safety, consider having a livery hand push the bow away for you). Then we trimmed both sails in pretty tight as we continued to turn and started to exit the no-go zone. Check out how our Blanchard's boat speed rockets up when we hit about a 45, then a 50 degree wind angle. Sailing that 50+ angle is a little counter-intuitive, because it meant we were aiming even more right at the other dock that we were planning on not hitting! But that 50+ angle really got our boatspeed going, quickly.
(2) When it was time to tack, we turned slowly during the first half of the tacking turn (from 50 to zero degrees/head-to-wind). Jamming the tiller over to try to turn fast would just kill our speed. Since we had been going fast, we had enough momentum to actually "coast" up into the wind a bit extra during our tacking turn -- that's free gainer progess right up the channel.
In the second half of the tacking turn (zero to 50 or so), we turned the boat just a bit faster than in the first half of the tack, to get the bow down to 50 quickly and fill the sails on our new course. Tacking always loses you some of your boatspeed, but a good rate of turn minimizes that speed loss.
After you've tacked, keep the boat footing at 50+ for speed again - don't try to sail closehauled 45, unless you have surprising speed on a day of great wind. You have another tack coming up again in 10 feet or so, and you need to continue speed-building to accomplish that next tack.
Shampoo, Rinse and Repeat as necessary to keep footing and short-tacking until you are out of the channel! It's totally correct if the 50 degree sailing angles that you are sailing, means it takes a bunch of tacks to make it out -- that's way better than trying to point too high and thus going too slow, never really building up the speed you need to tack, getting caught in irons, and ending up drifting backwards. To short tack a narrow channel, definitely foot for boatspeed -- like me and Matt did in the video -- especially in lighter wind which is tougher conditions for getting the boat moving!
Hope to see you on Lake Union!
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The Right Way to Dock Under Sailby centerforwoodenboats1,190 views
Excellent sailing as well as the description.
Reed3665 1 month ago
Amazing sailing...takes lots of skill and confidence with many obstacles and strong wind. I have a lot to learn!
JDMilleons 1 year ago