Keeping the ship under the sails

The FS is a very stable boat and, in many ways, is more stable than keelboats of similar size. While capsizing is a rare but manageable event in a Flying Scot, it can happen in any centerboard boat, and most crews prefer to avoid it

The best way to achieve this is to keep the boat under the sails, naturally. We teach this principle on deliveries and are surprised at how many vetern sailors find it to be a new concept. Preventing a capsize upwind is relatively easy – just ease the mainsail until the boat flattens out.

Downwind is the tricky part. Steering to keep the boat under the sails can be thought of as keeping your feet under you as if you were falling over. I always demonstrate this by having the student put their feet together, and then I push them. They step back, and keep their feet underneath themselves. Steer the sailboat the same way downwind in a blow. If the mast is healing to leeward, then steer the boat that direction by easing the mainsail and steering the hull underneath the healing mast. Visa versa, if the boat is healing to windward, then come up with her, and trim in as you go, steering the boat under the mast once again. Note the sail trim. We’re keeping our sails trimmed properly, because, when our mainsail is too far in then it’s either forcing the boat up, or risking an autogybe. Having the main too far out when broad reaching can cause the sometimes scary windward heel. The key to downwind sail trim is to just keep our boom perpendicular to the breeze.

Finally, when you do have to gybe in a blow, don’t worry about gybing the spinnaker pole (if the spinnaker is up) until after the gybe. This frees the crew up to get the sails properly through the gybe as fast as possible. Speed is your friend, and so is whipping the main across quickly. Make sure the main is ready to ease after the gybe, because if it get’s stopped abruptly then all of that energy is going into the boat and can cause more heal than desired.

We do hope that this makes sense. It’s advanced stuff, and it does take practice. Please reach out to [email protected] if you have questions.

“The only way to get good in breeze is to go sailing when dogs are blowing off chains.”

-some sailor sometime in the last 3000 years-