Self tailing winches

[Harris Tweed]

I have to admit I've never once in my life used a self tailing winch. When you're sheeting sails, my normal method is to let it out until it luffs just a tiny bit, then tighten it until it stops. With these winches I can't seem to do that. In order to harden the sheet I need to have the winch handle on, but once that's on I can't release the sail at all. Is this just the nature of these winches? Is there a way to wrap the sheet so that I can both harden and release the line?

[cbaldwin256]

It's a good question. I must admit in real life I have always used the handle on the self-tailer (not being a racer really). On eSail, if you have the line wrapped around the winch, you can quickly go to the handle by pressing Enter twice. After grinding you can return to have the line just wrapped around the winch by pressing Z twice (these are the default keys).

I can see that is cumbersome if you are used to hardening the sheet with it just wrapped around the winch.

In the lower position it IS possible to bring the sheet in, but the hands don't have that much strength (so it works in very light winds only). To really make it work would mean us giving you the option to put the handle on in this position which is not impossible, but needs some thought so we don't confuse how the controls work.

In mid July we are going to be doing some comparisons real boat v. eSail. This is now firmly on the list to look at further.

In the meantime, I hope the keyboard shortcuts help.

[bobster673]

Tailing the winch yourself does work in real life (I do it a lot myself) but you do need three turns & you can’t get as much tension as when using the self-tailer, so when sailing upwind you will likely need to finish using the self tailer to get the sail in tight enough.

The self tailer gets it’s name because the old school method is to have two people, one to ‘grind' & one to ‘tail', hence you are effectively ‘self-tailing’. In a racing boat with a full crew you would normally have two on each winch for speed, but self tailing works perfectly when you are short handed with limited crew.

Rob
RYA Sailing Instructor & Race Coach

[Harris Tweed]

The default keys will help. On my bigger boats I use cam cleats to tail, so one hand grinds and the other hand tails through the cleat. Easing the sheet is just pulling it out and letting it run off the winch a bit. I'd like to be able to do that in the game, using the winch handle but not the self tailer.

Mostly, though, I sail smaller boats now and hardly need winch handles. If I was really having a problem I could just pinch a bit to depower the sail, harden it, then fall off.

Speaking of which, if other boats is in the development future, my vote would be for a smaller, say 17', performance boat with tiller steering and cockpit mainsheet. I've got a Montgomery 17 and a Hartley TS16 and would love something similar.

Thanks for the reply and a great game.

[cbaldwin256]

Many thanks Harris T. Please do leave a review if you have the chance - all helps with the development effort!