A little for the Novice

[bearmcnally]

Having learn to sail at the age of 5 I have been lucky to experience the Manly Junior, Cherubs and Skiffs mainly 16 footers. This led me into yachts with inshore and offshore racing. This experience is in no doubt what taught me some of the dos and don'ts of sailing and the understanding of how different yachts behave.
For those who haven’t this opportunity getting confidence and comfortable with a Top Hat can feel a bit daunting when it comes to sailing your own boat especially if the Top Hat is your first . I believe it pays to go down to your local yacht club and jump onto a slightly bigger yacht, say no bigger than a 30 – 32 footer because if you go to big you lose the perspective of the size and handling difference between the two yachts .Once you experience some inshore round the buoy racing on a larger yacht, even twilight racing is a fun experience in getting the feel of a yacht which carries more sail and bigger rig than the humble Top Hat .The reason I suggest a 30 footer say a Carter 30 is the yacht is more lively the gear is bigger and their behave very differently to a Top Hat. If you want a skiff like ride, try an ex I.O.R yacht very non-forgiving when things go a little pear shaped around the bottom mark especially while trying to get rid of a kite, yet very exciting to sail. You don’t have to jump on the gun-ho yacht in the club as most of these guys are on some sort of ego trip. You want the ride on the everyday yacht looking for crew who are normal blokes who are quite happy to show a novice what to do and most have vast experience in racing themselves. Once you have done this, and you jump back onto your Top Hat you should find the whole Top Hat experience a lot less overwhelming and then you will understand just how docile these great little yachts are.
There is a level of common sense that is required when deciding to have a great day out on the harbour .Firstly it’s the weather forecast, if they say it’s going to be a fine sunny day with light to moderate winds great happy days. If it says 10 to 15 knots N/E with an afternoon seabreeze that could take the wind up to 25 knots plus not that good if you are a beginner and even worst if they say 20 knot southerly in the afternoon . This is an example of common sense not “rocket science” Now you here talk about storm jibs and trysails? Give me a break! Unless you are going to do serious offshore cruising or days at sea, or maybe your just a” keep up with the Jones’s” Then I don’t believe you need this type of gear for a sail from Sydney to Pittwater.
The Top Hat “Jilpanger “ only ever had a main with one row of reefs a working jib and a #1 and #3 Genoa .My “Egret II has the same but with a very big wire luff spinnaker and one small. And she has cruised the east coast of N.S.W for many years prior to my purchase .My Fathers cutter rigged Swanson 38 has a trysail and a storm jib and these sails have never been used or even been out of their bags once in 30 years. I suppose this is because we have never let the yacht get into a situation where these sails are required especially when sailing only on weekends or short day sails off shore.
Most yachts will comfortably handle most winds up to 25 knts plus with one row of reefs and a working jib, again if you aren’t comfortable with strong winds you shouldn’t have got yourself into that situation. That is called ‘stupidity “I think some wise person said “you sail to the conditions not to a time “
With reefing, and I know people will differ to my opinion? But here goes .I believe you only require one row of reefs in a Top Hats main ,that is if your reef points are in the right position? The Top Hat main isn’t a big main and most of the sail area is down low so once the main is reefed this should bring the head of the sail just above the spreaders. With a second row it means more unwanted sail to stow and that can be a big hassle if the seas picked up. Again, not a good positions to be in if you are a novice!
My Advice to any newbie yacht owner is to motor your yacht around and get the feel of her, knock her out of gear and see how long she takes to stop for example. Then put her main up and play with it, put a reef in shake the reef out .Gybe her, sail her under main only and see how she sails and points .Then add a headsail, start with the working jib and as you get more confident change up .If it’s a furler do the same start small a work out from there. Understand the purpose of a topping lift.
You’ll read, be told stories of the fearless Top Hat sailors and their weekend adventures, a little bit like the comic strip “Hagar the Horrible”10 knots of wind turn into a god almighty gale they get their storm gear on and go fight the mighty seas while the auto pilot steers the Top Hat to safety....and this all happens going from “Yachters Cove “(Store beach) Manly to Bantry Bay, Middle Harbour and that includes the opening of the Spit Bridge!!!.
You need to take into mind, when you scare yourself, what in the hell have you done to your crew (normally just land lumbering friends) sailing should be a relaxing fun experience, not a hair raising experience. If you are new to sailing I would always recommend that you choose when you take your Top Hat for a sail learn how to read cloud formation etc .There was thing that an old yachtie told me many years ago was?, if you saw the fishing trawlers heading in earlier than normal, that was a sure sign something was going to come through in the form of a change. Another one is, in summer if you look up to the N/E in the morning and it is hazy that is a sure sign of a good nor-easter in the afternoon. One thing to keep in mind is when you are ready for the harbour sail in steady breezes, always leave yourself enough room between yourself and dry land, just in case thing’s do go pear shaped, that way you will have time to get your act together without the worry of running out of water.
Bear

[Miker]

Brilliant Bear!

I'm sure there are a few new Top Hat owners who have just joined, who will really take this on board. Thanks for taking the time to write this, I know it would have taken some time using just two digits

[storm petrel]

Ditto Bear, all sound advice. You must have been housebound in the rain today to spend so long at the keyboard.

Mark
Storm Petrel

[Irishwolf]

Bear,

Let All throw the proverbial brown stuff, but Sounds like GOOD, Helpful even logical advice for people like myself, new and green to Sailing.

Thank you,

Russell (Irishwolf)

[Troppo]

Very helpful tips Bear. From my limited experience, I have found the following to have proved useful:

. . . .
My Advice to any newbie yacht owner is to motor your yacht around and get the feel of her, knock her out of gear and . . .

As a newbie to sailing a bigger boat but with decades on water in kayaks and canoes and rowing boats, I agree totally with Bear's advice seeing as I've done pretty much the same thing and it worked for me. When I first got a sailing boat I did heaps of 'mucking around' type stuff but I was not mucking around, I was just trying to get a handle on how she behaved. I even did things like imagined a wharf five metres to the side of a deserted real one and practiced a few run ups to the imaginary one as if I was gunna tie up. Hitting an imaginary wharf don't do as much damage as hitting a real one. A half hour practice repeated on a few days with differing wind and currents gave me heaps more confidence when I needed to go into a marina and tie up on the visitor's pontoon, with the outdoor restaurant filled with people overlooking the visitor's pontoon.

. . . always leave yourself enough room between yourself and dry land, just in case thing’s do go pear shaped, that way you will have time to get your act together without the worry of running out of water.
Bear

A big 'yes' from me on that one. I practice it. Like the time I anchored for overnight and the wind blew up during the night at 90 degrees to where it had been coming from. It was blowing me straight toward the shore, waves thumping, but I thought since I was a long way out in the bay I should be right. Ah, no actually, I checked the depth and found it was down to 1.7 metres which was enough as it was low tide. Enough but not okay as I reckoned I had no room if the wind worsened and I drifted back or if I let out more anchor rope or whatever. Not enough room between me and possible trouble. So I started the motor, upped anchor, moved in the pitch black night avoiding pitch black boats with no lights and re-anchored. I slept easy then. Big buffer zone. I could have stayed there and had no trouble but as Bear says, if things go pear shaped then ya don't want to have to worry about running out of water.

Louis