Jib & jigger

[Graham W]

In the interests of scientific enquiry, I tried sailing my BR20 upwind without my mainsail at various wind speeds.  It worked surprisingly well at 15 knots and above but I couldn’t get the boat to point at all at 10 knots - it just yawed about uselessly across the wind.  A bit of a pointless exercise (no pun intended) but has anyone blessed with a mizzen managed to get this sail combination to work at low wind speeds?

The yard recommends jib and jigger as the ultimate and fastest form of reefing for BR’s to get out of trouble in a sudden blow and it’s reassuring that you can make good progress to windward in such conditions.  Has anyone done it at much higher wind speeds?  A group of us once sailed the entire west coast of Mull after a storm under jib and jigger but that was downwind.

[graham2burton65@gmail.com]

Hi Graham,

jib and mizzen only

I have used this combination a lot in other boats, particularly the Salcombe yawl and the Devon yawls.

Both in the 80s, at the time, they were older boats with poor sails.
They acted pretty much as you describe.  You need more wind, for more power, to create headway sufficient to steer the boat and persuaded it to go upwind.  we did not have instruments in those days so I cannot tell you precise numbers.  I do remember we had to gybe them, when tacking failed.  importantly we did get them upwind if it was blowing..

We used this combo when it was too windy to teach in wayfarers and the 14ft clinker one designs we had.