Designing to sail astern

[Hebridean]

Sailing yachts are designed to travel as near to the wind as possible, but now and again it is useful if you can back out of a tight spot such as a marina under sail without the engine. If nothing else it makes for an interesting challenge! Have any of you tried to design a vessel with this in mind, or do you know of any yachts which have good ability at sailing astern?

A conventional one-masted rig is difficult to sail backwards while keeping good control, the rig obviously is optimised for sailing forwards. The key to overcoming this problem must then be linked with the set up of the rigging. Also the hull should perhaps be more symmetrical fore and aft, and careful thought needs to be given to the rudder and keel position and shape.

If you have any thoughts on this I'd like to hear from you.
Thanks

[tspeer]

Proa's are pretty good at sailing astern! ;-)

When I sailed a landyacht with a rigid wing, I was impressed with it's ability to sail forward and backwards. You could parallel park with it, no question. A ballestron rig would give the same kind of control, as would the free-standing wishbone-boomed rigs.

I'm not sure you'd want to change the hull shape, though. I think it would be too much of a compromise for the few times you need to use the capability. Of course there are plenty of double-ended boats already, so it may not be that much of a compromise.

[betelgeuserdude]

I've had great fun sailing cat rigged dinghies backwards simply by backing the sail, and maintaining attention to the helm. Once the boat starts coming around, it will happen in an instant. I used to do this in marinas quite a bit. Beat in and back out.

While cruising aboard a monohull cutter, I have on occasion, dropped the headsails and either backed the main with a shove of the boom (light wind only, of course), or by employing an end boom preventer.

Attention to steering is really the key, as it is rather like jumping out of a car, and onto a forklift; rudder aft vs/ rudder forward.

DC

[PAR]

Multiple mast boats are at an advantage in this respect. Schooners are well known for the ability, the biggest sail aft being rather helpful. I use to back a CCA era 35' yawl out of it's berth for the year I didn't have the Atomic4 working.

Knowing your boat and lots of confindence built on plenty of pratice is the trick.

[Eric Sponberg]

One of the reasons I like cat ketches is because of their ability to sail backwards, at least, to drift backwards. You let the forward sail loose, and tighten the sheet to the mizzen, and a good cat ketch will drift straight back. This is great for setting an anchor without using the engine.

Cat ketches equipped with free-standing rotating masts can also sail dead downwind, with no fear of broaching, which most other sailboats cannot do. This is because the masts and booms can rotate way forward of the beam wing and wing (no shrouds in the way), setting up a naturally stable sail arrangement. The boat will always track downwind this way no matter the wind and wave conditions. This is great for trade wind cruising.

Eric

[SailDesign]

Knowing your boat and lots of confindence built on plenty of pratice is the trick.

Too true. Most boats can be sailed backwards. Very few people ever practice enough to do it well in their boat - most end up making complete fools of themselves at the dock, usually with a tide flowing the wrong way, and a good audience, with a faulty engine :)
This, of course, is why they never practice....

Steve

[See Tee 249]

My old Spencer half tonner sails backwards quite well, even upwind and tacking. It does have a big rudder and a fractional rig set well aft, but there doesn't seem to be anything that makes it really special. As Betelgueseuserdude points out, you can do the same thing in a Laser. A Laser, and even a Sabot (in a strong wind) can plane backwards. It's a good way to indicate to your local Laser fleet that they may as well not bother trying to out-handle you on the startline.

The ability to sail backwards to set an anchor is also pretty common, I thought; just hold the main out against the shrouds and reverse.

It's impressive that PAR could do it with a CCA yawl, which I assume had a long keel and loads of displacement. I wouldn't have the guts!

[PAR]

That Yawl was an Arthur Robb design from the 50's. Plenty of keel, but well cut back also rather narrow being 7' on the water line in a 35'er, post hung rudder, wonderfully shaped sections, etc. I loved that boat, she was all teak and I used to embarrass the local plastic 'round the buoy's guys all the time in her. Made a bunch of money off her in the late 80's when I sold her to an OBGYN, after I saved her off the bottom of the Delaware river after a sinking. The previous owner tried to split the gap he saw, at dusk, between the light at the end of the rock jetty at the mouth of the C & D canal (red right returning?) and the entrance itself. Took two weeks with a shop vac and a shovel to get what the a couple of tides left in her out of the bilge.

She didn't seem all that overly displaced at 7 tons, but was moderatly so by today's standards. The sinking didn't help a tired Atomic 4 any so . . .

[Paul B]

My old Spencer half tonner sails backwards quite well, even upwind and tacking.

The Santa Cruz 27s and Olson 30s have rudders that can rotate 360 degrees, so sailing backward is even easier since the rudder is pointing in the right direction. You can even scull the boats backward. There are a lot of hoists where you want to back in to pull the boat, so this trick is used quite often.

I do want to know how an old ply half tonner sails upwind backward.

[magne]

would a high aspect ratio una rig be any use here, i.e. would it help to improve the balance of the yacht when sailing backwards?

[CT249]

would a high aspect ratio una rig be any use here, i.e. would it help to improve the balance of the yacht when sailing backwards?

My boat goes backwards well with a high aspect main up only, the Laser goes backwards well with a low aspect main, windsurfers go backwards well with a variety of aspect ratios. No pattern from my experience.

Re "I do want to know how an old ply half tonner sails upwind backward."

Same way as the Laser; hold the boom a few degrees to windward with the vang on, and go! I wouldn't try it over 5 knots or so, though; it's sorta hard to hold the main when tacking leach-first!

She has a very narrow stern for a lightweight half, which would help. But our old Paul Whiting fat-back 1/2 could motor for miles backwards, which sometimes had to happen due to a temperamental prop!

PS the Spencer is cold-moulded although designed for ply. I've only heard of 1 of the design in ply, all the rest were 'glass or cold moulded. Very strange, and planking the chine must have been interesting.