Excess wind

In winds of 30+ knots, what is the easiest way to drop the main sail.

Sailing solo it is almost impossible to go up forward to unhook the main halyard, is there a easy way to do this.

I had pointed very close to wind to adjust jib tension to increase mast rake (loosening jib), but with nobody to hold the rudders to keep boat into wind, I could not unhook main.

The advice I was given was to simply capsize and wait for rescue boat, or sit it out till wind drops. I kept cat pointed into wind and sailed that way to shore - chicken run.

Dropping the main would cause steering problems etc but that would have a minor concern to me. Jib was pulling like a freight train, would have liked to have stayed and played.

Modifying/bypassing the main stay hook setup is not an answer as mainsail tension would be lost etc, uphaul fighting with downhaul. What would be the solution. Is dropping the mainsail a solution.

Your best bet may be to go hove-to. You will need a way to hold the rudders fixed in one position (tie them over). Basically, you want to sheet the jib to windward and tie the rudders so the boat is trying to turn into the wind, mainsheet completly loose. The boat will slowly chug along pointing slightly off of head to wind. This would probably give you the opportunity to walk forward and unhook the main halyard and lower the main. Best to try it in light winds first.

sm

Last summer, we arrived at one of our outtings to find winds in the high 20s low 30 + gusts. We stood around for a while and discussed the possibility of going out under Jib only. Somebody tried it and what do you know, they actually had a great time. We setup our boat and went out also. We found you could actually point higher but tacking was harder. We did find tho that you could jibe just fine. High Winds = Jib only

_________________
Sail Like you Have a Pair
Bluish gray 73 - 83 H16
Super Nice Yellow 84 H18

Thank you for your responses

Thinking now I could have used mast uphaul halyard to tie tillers together, at the time I had untied main from traveller to allow more movement thereby using all available rope.

Any way to drop main without having to stand on the bow/decks.

"How long can you tread water? Ha Ha Ha"

Bill Cosby I believe

_________________
Sail Like you Have a Pair
Bluish gray 73 - 83 H16
Super Nice Yellow 84 H18

What ever you do... do not capsize to lower the sails. Once the sail is down, the boat will turtle. The sail is what helps to keep it on its side when capsized. Been there... done that. Not good.

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Matt Miller
Former - Director of Parts and Accessory Sales
Warranty and Technical Support
Hobie Cat USA
(Retired 11/7/2022)

Sorry for continuing with this..

Was advised to capsize with sails up, but waiting for winter to do an overhaul on the cat, rudders, seal mast etc. My cat turns turtle at the drop of a hat, to me recovering from turtle is the easy part. So yes no main in place it will stay turtle.

Tried dropping main in 5 - 10 knots, easy, but could see main would be blown off, so suggest using jib car ropes to tie main to boom, also to try keep boom in mast on swivel, retighten downhaul. May as well throw an anchor down as speed etc is drastically reduced.

The treading water bit was easy but cat kept on running me over.....

What stresses would the mast have running on jib alone, with many powerboats on dam creating waves, causing mast to swing back and forth during lulls.

Amazing to think this machine was designed without CAD etc.

Thanks