Handling backstags singlehanded
While girls sleep under the deck I make some rigg modifications.
This is for bakstag lines which can cause trouble when one sails alone with the wind and needs to gybe (pass wind-line with akter of the boat).
With heavy wind, like today, this may be tricky. If not done according to the book the risk is that you break the mast and/or lie the boat on side in heavy waves.
On racing boats, like my "Motoko", the mast is rigged in a way which enables lots of adjustements: tilting the mast, bending it, tensioning standing rigg etc. All this to adjust sail shape to existing conditions.
That's fun but when you lack hands on deck some manouvers require perfect timing and quick actions to make them safe.
Gybing in strong wind is the most tricky. Forces in the main sail are so big that if it flies uncontrolled from one side to the other most of the time you loose a mast.
And head or teeth.
Procedure to gybe is to stay in the line of wind for a moment, take the main sail to the middle possition (parallel to boat) which de-powers it and holds the mast. Then in the same moment tension the "old" backstag and release the "new" backstag on the side where boom will go. And finally loose the boom to go quickly but controlled to the new side. All that while controlling the rudder in bumpy sea.
Sounds dounting? Yep!
My way of tacking this problem is to rigg backstag lines to the mainsail skott position so that at the same time when I take main sail (red rope in the middle) I tension also "old" tack bakstag (left or right white ropes).
Then it's just to open blocade on the new backstag and let the sail fly to push the backstag loose.
Nice and easy.