I’ve learned a great many skills, hobbies, and athletic activities over the years. With each one, especially those involving speed, I have always wanted to know one thing before I get in motion. And that one thing is “Just Tell Me, How Do I Stop???” From snowboarding or skiing, biking or rollerblading, I enjoy the activity, but I simply insist on knowing how to stop before I learn to get going. In this article you will learn 6 ways to stop a sailboat.
Sailboats do not come equipped with brakes. Odd because you can certainly get them going fast enough to cause significant damage to your boat. There are many scenarios where you need to know how to stop your sailboat. Sailboats cost a great deal to repair and collision avoidance is always at the forefront of my mind when I’m out sailing. Marinas are tight cramped spaces with very little room to make a piloting mistake. Currents can carry you into shallow water or towards a rocky shore. Proper sailboat control means more than just getting the boat going. You need to know how to stop. This article will explain seven methods of getting your boat to come to a stop.
How to stop a sailboat
- Drift to a stop: release the sheets and let the sails fly
- Heave To (if under sail)
- Drop anchor
- Destroyer Stop: power up the motor and full reverse
- Turn upwind 180 degrees
- Increase drag – deploy a drogue, tow buckets, oar backwards
So why specifically do you want to stop the sailboat? Some options are better than others depending on the scenario and the boat in question. It depends on the particulars of your situation. If you need to stop the sailboat on a dime, there isn’t any technique out there that is going to be satisfactory – assuming you want to keep from damaging your boat.
Drift to a Stop
This technique applies when you are under sail. Generally speaking you would be in open water with little chance of drifting into anything. Regardless of your direction of travel, you will want to turn up into the wind for this to work. At the moment you realize that you need to stop the sailboat, simply let the sheets go off their cleats. Releasing the jib sheet and the main sheet will cause the force of the wind to vent or spill out. The boat will gently slow down, but may actually take a minute to come to a full stop. You will not be fully stopped for very long. Once stopped, the wind will begin pushing the boat down wind. Even though you have your sails neutralized, the forces of the wind can still act on your hull. This is not necessarily a safe or wise way to stop the boat, but it is effective in retrieving something from the water such as materials from your boat or even someone who has gone overboard. The sails will be flapping wildly in the wind which may do some damage to the sails or your rigging. A better way to stop a sailboat in this scenario would be to “Heave To”, explained next.
Heave To
Being hove-to is a skill all sailors need to learn. The method is quite simple and the effect is a true stopping of forward motion of the sailboat. The advantage to being hove-to, compared to all out releasing the sheets and drifting, is that your running and standing rigging are kept within their operational tolerances. There is no undue stress on the sails like if you release-of-sheets, because the sails are still an active part of this process.
When you feel that it is time to stop, or maybe you just need a break from sailing for a while, you have the option to conduct a heave-to. This means you will turn into the wind while taking in the foresail and mainsail sheets. If this is already your situation, and the main and foresail are close hauled, the next step is turning directly upwind very gently but deliberately, until only the jib sail backwinds. Backwinding is when the sail is set up to perform properly on one side of the boat, but the wind gets behind it and fills the sail on its opposite side. Backwinding usually happens in error, but in this case, it is critical to the success of the heave to. Now, it is important to ease into backwinding the jib. You don’t want your momentum to cause you to unintentionally tack. In a complete heave to, you will have the main close hauled and full of wind. You will also have your jib sheeted in, full of wind, but backwinded. When the sails are in this balance, they will basically be working against each other and the boat will drift to a stop. Careful tiller adjustments will keep the sails balanced until you are ready to be under way again.
In a heave-to, the wind still acts upon the sails. There will be a noticeable heeling of the boat as gusts come and go. In general, the boat will be relatively stable in the water. You will be able to attend to other business in place of making way.
The telltale sign of a properly executed heave-to is to look at the water on your windward side. The boat will be pushed sideways by the wind in a heave-to. The keel disrupts a great deal of water below the surface as it is tracks perpendicular to the natural path of the boat. The sideways action of the keep will cause an upwelling and back eddying of water immediately upwind of the hull. This will create a smooth slick of what appears to be still water. The smooth water will be about the length and width of your boat, possible about 25% smaller. This smooth surface will be so persistent that you can watch approaching waves actually break on the smoother water.
When you are ready to start sailing again, turn the boat to fill the jib on the same side as the main and proceed with your course.
Drop Anchor
Use anchor to stop the sailboat, and stop it immediately. The scenario for this would be in shallower water, where you are certain that you have enough rode to make it to the bottom. You may be heading towards land in a current and need to act in desperation in order to save your boat. The process is a straightforward as anchoring your boat anywhere else. Except in this scenario you are trying to stop the sailboat, not anchor for night.
The first thing you do is lower your anchor (don’t throw it). Get the anchor on the bottom quickly but no so fast as to make the chain wrap around the anchor as it descends to the bottom. This is called fouling your anchor. It is crucial that you cleat off your rode before attempting to set the anchor. This is best done by estimating the amount of rode you will need, securing the rode to the bow cleat, then releasing the anchor. If you don’t cleat off the rode before lowering your anchor, you will need to somehow secure the rode around some part of your boat as you hold on. A general rule when handling most ropes under tension is to always have the rope around a weight/tension bearing part of the boat so that you can apply friction against that part. You should not rely on arm strength or your own weight to counter or hold the tension on the other end of the rope. Also remember, the boat always lines up behind the cleat that the rode is secured to. It is best to use the cleat or cleats at the bow.
As you travel along, the anchor will drag a bit on the bottom. You are hoping there’s a nice size rock or crevasse it can get good purchase on. Once the anchor catches, it will jolt the boat to a halt. You and your crew should be hanging on and of course all crew should wear a lifejacket. If you chose to hold the rode, and it is running through a horn of your cleat, the way to gradually slow the boat to a stop would be to let out rode slowly. This will increase the load on the cleat, but limit the tension a great deal as you pay out the rode. Using this method will not upset the crew or cargo nearly as much as having the boat jolt to a stop in one go.
In this scenario, there is a good chance that the cleat will be pulled from the deck of your boat. As the skipper, it is your responsibility to gauge the likelihood of this and mitigate damage based the sturdiness of the cleats on your boat.
Destroyer Stop
The destroyer stop is about as close to brakes as a boat gets. Performing a destroyer stop is best done at already very low speeds. I have only used this technique in harbors or marinas. The first thing you do is power up your motor and have it idling. While the boat drifts towards a dock or mooring buoy, or any other stationary object, be ready to put the motor in reverse. Just as you arrive, throttle up in reverse hard. Observe the forward momentum of your boat and how the motor is countering it. Wait for the boat to stop, throttle down, and put it in neutral. Proceed with tying up your boat. Once it is secured, power off the motor.
Turn Into The Wind
In order to stop the boat while on a tack upwind, simply turn the bow directly into the wind. The boat will go into irons, and the sails will flap like a flag. This is a very temporary way to cease forward motion. In a few seconds, the wind will turn the boat, the sails will fill, the boat will heel over significantly and you will be under way again. To ensure you stay in place, lower the jib, then the main, as quickly as possible.
If you are not under sail and making way by motor, the best way to stop is to turn hard. Obviously you will need to power down the motor. Your turn will need to be 180 degrees as quickly as possible by turning hard to port or starboard. If your forward momentum is not absorbed by the turn, then continue to a full circle.
Increase Drag
Friction is the enemy of efficient travel. Increasing the friction or drag can be utilized to stop your boat in conjunction with nearly any of the other options in this article. The simplest way to increase drag is to tie a line to a bucket and toss it over the side. It helps to weigh the bucket down with something heavy in a bag tied to the bucket. This is actually a great prank to play on other boats when racing. The tough part is boarding their boat and setting this prank up. But I digress…
You can also get some oars in the water and haul against the direction of travel. This is probably the most labour intensive strategy for stopping the sailboat, and has its own set of dangers. Please ensure that you are properly secured to the boat before attempting this method of stopping the boat. Also make sure you are attentive to the stresses on the oars as you work against the direction of the boat. Oars are built fairly sturdy, but with the right leverage placed on an older or weakening oar, you will likely snap it as you increase the forces acting on it.
Summing Up
The process by which you commit to stopping your sailboat varies greatly. Many options above will suit your purposes, many will be out of the question. Use good judgement and always consider safety factors along with practicality. In general, there should be no need for emergency stops. With most things regarding sailing, proper planning prevents poor performance. Understand how your boat performs at low and high speed. Test how long it takes for your boat to come to a stop using the ideas in this piece. Each boat will differ in how it responds to stopping techniques. There will no doubt be ways to modify each idea to suit your specific boat as well.