Heaving-to- a simple skill that needs practice

by Grant Headifen, Nauticed on 15 Aug 2011 Have you ever had to heave to? If your answer is 'yes', then you will have been glad that you had practiced first. If the answer is 'no', now is the time to practice, BEFORE the need arises. Here Nauticed's Grant Headifen offers some great hints about the subject:

The books simply say to tack the boat and leave the headsail cleated to windward and turn the wheel all the way to windward (tiller to lee). While that’s correct, there are a lot more things to think about to pull it off correctly.

First, here are a few reasons you might want to heave to.

- Lunch, simply taking a rest,- and this is a great opportunity to practice!
- Storm Tactics and Reefing
- Man over board recovery
- Boarding by another vessel (safety inspection maybe)

What is Heaving-To?
When you are successfully hove-to, your sailboat will be in a stable situation with the mainsail and headsail still up. Your forward speed will be minimal and you’ll be sliding downwind slightly. This makes it an ideal strategy for the situations above. Essentially you’re under full sail but nearly stopped!

How Heaving-to works:
The mechanics of the heave-to situation is that the forward speed of the boat has dropped to a minimum because the head sail is back winded (aback) and the main sail has been eased out far enough to reduce nearly all of the forward driving lift on the sail.

The backwinded head sail creates a large turning moment on the boat to turn it downwind. As the boat turns downwind however the boat tends to pick up a little speed. As the boat picks up a little speed, the windward locked wheel causes the rudder to turn the boat back upwind, killing off the speed. It creates a little see-saw action. You can adjust the see-saw action by adjusting the set of the headsail, the mainsail, and the rudder angle.

Each boat will see-saw a little differently in differing wind conditions and due to the distances of the rudder and the headsail center of pressure positions around the hydrodynamic pivot point of the vessel. Once the boat is settled, by making small adjustments to the angle of the rudder, the amount the mainsail is eased, and by the 'depth' or flatness of the headsail, a skilled operator can make very useful adjustments to the exact way in which the boat is lying to the wind and seas. Practice practice practice! When that storm comes, you’ll be glad.

How to Heave-to:
Once you’ve got it down, you’ll enjoy having this little skill under your belt but you’ve got to practice it a few times.

1. To enter into a hove-to position, if practical, start out on a on a port tack with the headsail sheeted in tight.
2. Tack the boat slowly onto a starboard tack (bleeding off some speed while head-to-wind) but leave the headsail cleated (ie don’t tack the headsail).
3. Turn the boat so that you’re on a close reach (60 degrees off the wind) and let out the mainsail most of the way out so that it is luffing.
4. Now wait until the rest of the boat’s headway speed bleeds off. That’s the key part. If you turn the rudder to windward (the wheel to windward or the tiller to leeward) before the speed bleeds off, the momentum of the boat may carry it through another tack.
5. Once the speed has bled off, turn the rudder all the way to windward (wheel to windward or tiller to leeward) and lock it in that position (lashing the tiller).

Heaving-to in a Storm:
It’s really important to realize that this is a completely wise thing to do in a storm. With a huge caveat, make sure you have plenty of sea-room distance to leeward on the track of your hove-to reckoning, avoiding shoals, or the other hard stuff (like land!).

Heaving-to in a storm gives you and your crew a rest from the elements. And it can be a safer means of riding out a storm rather than trying to sail it out. The boat is in a completely stable position. You should probably lower or deeply reef the main or raise a storm trisail (very small mainsail) as well as a small headsail to reduce loads on the rig.

Finally, here's the part of hoving-to that is really cool – since the boat will be slipping sideways, a wake is left to windward. Any breaking waves hit this 'slick' and flatten out, thus reducing the wave action on your vessel. Now that’s really cool.


Using Heaving-to in a Man Overboard Situation:
Heaving to can be a very effective crew over-board recovery technique. The very moment the victim goes over the side you can crash tack the boat and go into a heave-to position. You must be sure that the victim is able to swim, that they did not sustain injury whist falling.

It’s your call on this one but it’s a technique not often taught and so isn’t considered in the panic but, it will keep you from getting too far away from your friend in the water which is clearly the biggest danger. Me? I’d still get the engines on.

On that topic, the biggest danger from turning on the engines they say is not chopping your friend up (you’re smart enough not to do that)is getting a line wrapped around the prop in all the panic. So just make that part of your 'engines-on' routine in crew over-board practice.

There you have it, you’re now a heave to expert in theory, but you won't be any expert at all until you've practiced it, and practiced it and practiced it again.

And while you’re out there practicing it, have fun. Or should it be the other way around?

For learning to sail online, there is no better place to go that www.nauticed.org!Nauticed! Try it now.