“Sailing for balance” is an essential method to increase crew control of sailing boats in stronger winds when reaching across the wind as it maximises speed and reduces the forces trying to heel or tip the boat. This is one of our free online sailing lessons
- Controls heel
- Increases control of the boat
- Increases speed
- Is much more fun.
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- Sailing Upwind with less effort
- Increase confidence in Stronger Winds
- Downwind with less distress
- Gusts, Gybes and tacks easily
- Not hitting other boats and more
Video showing the higher speeds possible by awareness of “Sailing for Balance
Here is what we aim for. The Oz Goose is a boxy boat, but it is light enough and has enough sail to plane downwind in moderate winds. Very nicely.
Video image can take a moment to load.
This method is for REACHING ONLY.
Not to be applied upwind in most boats!
How direction affects boat speed when reaching in a sailboat.
I’m not going to cover every advantage of this method in this explanation, but enough to cover the main points so you can see the value. Start to apply it and you get ALL the advantages anyhow.
Here are two boats sailing in the same wind but they are being steered in different directions. One is sailing high and one is sailing low. Wind is coming from the top of the page for both.
The blue line perpendicular to the sail is the amount of power being generated by the sail and it is the same for both boats. The assumption is that both sails are equally well trimmed – keep the telltales flying!
The boat on the left has the wind more “behind it. The green line is the amount of force pushing the boat forward and is parallel to the centreline of the bat. The left boat has more than double the forward force of the boat on the right 7.5units vs 3.5units
The force pushing the left boat is more in line with the direction it is travelling
But which sail boat is harder to hold upright?
The red line pointing to the side of both boats is the heeling force – the force that makes the boat heel or tip. It is from the same sail force as both boats are in the same wind, just sailing at different angles.
The boat on the left has eased sail AND Pointed lower. The sail force is directed more forward and also has a much smaller red line pointing to the side of the boat compared to the boat on the right. The heeling force is around 2/3 the amount of the boat that has not steered away.
One way of imagining this is when the boat heels and the mast goes to leeward then you steer to leeward. The real pros will be looking upwind all the time and watching the approach of the gusts and lulls. So they are ready in advance.
So it is clear that pointing higher increases heeling force and reduces speed and that pointing lower reduces heeling force and increases speed.
More speed and more control by pointing lower in gusts WHEN REACHING.
But we cannot just sail further downwind or we usually won’t get to where we are going. So how do we keep the boat going in the right direction – neither going up too far or downwind too far and getting to the destination at the left of the screen?
How do gusts appear to sailboats on the water
Gusts are normally darker patches on the water.
Lulls are lighter patches.
I’ve taken that to heart with the sketches below. But here is a photo.
The boats in the middle of the photo are in a gust (water looks a bit darker) and are sailing over to the left near the trees because there is almost continuous dark water. There’s a gust to the right but there is a big lull (light patch) before you can get to the better wind.
Combining sailing high and sailing low to maximise control.
Wind is never constant, but is a mix of lulls (lighter wind) and gusts (stronger wind).
If a crew doesn’t know about this method they will sail straight to the mark at the left side of the screen.
When there is a gust they will have difficulty holding the boat up and have to ease sails which will slow the boat up. Control and speed problems
When there is a lull they will be underpowered and moving slower.
But if they combine the two methods above to zig zag to the mark the boat will be easier to control
Suddenly strong winds are not so scary.
When the wind is light they will sail higher and when the wind is too strong they will steer lower which reduces the heeling force so the boat is easier to hold up. It looks like this.
Something interesting is that the solid line are the angles applied rigorously and they end up BELOW the mark. This means some slow upwind sailing to get to the end.
That is a mistake.
So while it makes a lot of sense to use this method at the beginning of a reaching leg, it must be modified at the end (dotted line). The sailing team doesn’t point as low as normal in the last gust. They accept a short period of slower sailing to get around the mark.
In reality it might have been better for them to sail a bit extra high in the previous lull where they would be moving slower anyhow. But would need to see the next gust coming before the mark
So be brave at the beginning of the leg or journey and more conservative towards the end. And if you need to get higher to get around the mark, go higher in the lulls when possible.
So we can see why it is valuable to go low in the gusts for control.
Is there and advantage to sailing high in the lulls on a reach?
The diagram showing the zig zag course is a bit misleading. It shows gusts that don’t move. But everyone knows gusts move.
We also know that gusts don’t just happen in stripes.
The course might look more like this. The original sailing course is the same and the gusts are the same as the diagram above within the blue dash rectangle. How does this influence our model of sailing for balance.
So in this more realistic situation, there is something new.
I’ll focus in on the detail of the same drawing and add two boats to show the advantage.
- Boats in a gust travel downwind with the gust to stay in the gust longer.
- Boats in a lull travel upwind to meet the next gust coming downwind sooner – so less time in the lull.
By the way … the angles I have drawn are about right for the Oz Goose. Many underestimate the angles required.
Be radical in following the gusts downwind at the beginning of the leg. Towards the end of the leg keep assessing to see if you need to sail higher in the lulls.
If a crazy gust ever hits you ease sails and head downwind. There is an enormous thrill as the speed goes off the dial. And that speed also gives control and stability.
And incidentally it is the way I won the second race of the Philippines Oz Goose Nationals 2019. It was a 10km reach across the lake in a good breeze.
The first two boats were a long way ahead of the rest.
So this explains most of the reasons for sailing for balance when reaching. Speed and security. There are other reasons as well, the most important one is apparent wind. The aim of this article is to get beginner to intermediate sailors to try “sailing for balance”.
They will discover the additional apparent wind advantages if they watch the telltales and luff and keep the sail/s perfectly trimmed when employing this technique.
Previously we put together an article for Using sail trim downwind to control the heel angle of boat (with video) and also some trim tricks for ketches and yawls to get more speed
