Downwind secrets of ocean sailors

TOBY HEPPELL is Yachting Monthly’s Sailing Editor. He has been sailing his entire life and writing about it for many years

How do you choose which sails to set or what course to steer, and can you stop the boat rolling? Toby Heppell talked to sailors preparing for the ARC to find out what works best

Gin and tonic in hand as a light breeze wafts you along, or an unpleasant experience of rolling down waves, worrying about accidental gybes and struggling with wayward sails: running downwind is by no means an easy point of sail. Whether you’re sailing across the Atlantic, or on a short coastal cruise, knowing how to set you boat up, trim the sails and what course to steer can make all the difference.

We went to Las Palmas de Grand Canaria to meet the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers fleet as they made their final preparations before heading off to St Lucia. Part of the appeal of the event, for many, is the variety of crews it attracts each season, from the very experienced with many ocean crossings under their belts to the first timers for whom this will be their first experience of crossing the Atlantic. What is true of every crew is the huge amount of preparation they have done in the build up to the event in order to be ready to sail day and night for at least two weeks to make the 2,700nm crossing.

THINKING DIFFERENTLY

‘I always considered myself a good sailor and have done thousands of miles in my years of cruising,’ remarked Marcus Wool, preparing to set off in a Sima 38 for his second crossing. ‘However, when I started looking in fine detail at all the things you often skim over, I realised that when I’m sailing around the coast I’m mostly just allowing the boat to be blown along. When you start to think about how safe a setup is for downwind sailing at night when there’s only one of you on watch, it really makes you think about the best way to actually go about it. It’s a bit like starting all over again.’ This expression was a theme we came across again and again as crews made their final preparations before setting off. A bonus with the ARC setting off from Gran Canaria is the vast majority of the fleet will already have sailed many miles merely to get there in the first place, so have had the opportunity to test out their sail plans, rigs and tactics on some pretty long passages already. With this in mind we walked the pontoons to see what tips we could pick up from those soon to set off.

1 White sails

A common setup many of those looking to set out on this year’s ARC was to rely on white sails, particularly at night or when the weather was poor. The reasons given for this were usually the same; control, safety