"A Pretty Good Run" BY GEOFF PAYNE

Cruising World Outstanding Seamanship Medal winners Geoff Payne and Margaret Hough share some valuable sail handling insights after six years at sea.

In 1986, Geoff Payne and his fiance-now wife Margaret Hough set off from Vancouver, British Columbia, in his home-made 40-foot cutter Skookum. The rugged, steel-hulled boat was designed by Geoffs uncle Alan Payne of America's Cup fame. After a shakedown cruise to Alaska, the pair headed south for a six-year voyage that took them to Antarctica, around Cape Horn and eventually to the east coast of Canada. With no electronics or Longrange radio equipment, the hardy pair personified self-sufficient cruising and in 1994 were awarded Cruising World magazine's Outstanding Seamanship Medal. The pair trusted their stout hull and rigging, as well as their complete inventory of North sails. Following are some of Geoffs thoughts on sail handling techniques and what you can do to get the most from your cruising sails.

Skookam is a 40ft. Alan Payne designed steel cutter built specifically for long range ocean cruising. No hydraulics, no roller furling... all headsails are hanked on. According to Geoff, "Simplicity and strength go hand in hand."

With thousands of miles in the Southern Ocean on our itinerary, we knew everything on Skookam would have to be "good and strong," which is what her name means. We spent two years in the Furious Forties latitudes, a brutal torture test for sails, yet all of ours passed the test handsomely. Our sailmaker Dave Miller of North Sails Vancouver gets some credit, but Margaret and I also worked hard at maintaining our sails' longevity.

Our mast is deck stepped with double spreaders. All standing rigging is 5/16" 1x19 stainless steel bumped up to 3/8" for the headstay and fore and aft lowers. We have no hydraulics. The strong steel hull prevents the rig from sagging. Our main has three slab reefs, short battens and no lazy jacks. We also have no roller furling. All of our headsails are hanked on. Simplicity and strength go hand in hand, and we needed both to sail continually in severe conditions.

Less is more. We had 14 bags of sails on Skookam. Both Margaret and I agree this is too many. Listed in order of most use, they are: mainsail, Yankee, staysail, No. 2 Genoa, No. 2 Yankee, Genoa, 3/4OZ. spinnaker, tradewind mainsail, storm jib, spinnaker staysail, No. 3 Yankee, 1.5 oz. spinnaker, daisy staysail and trisail. The last five will probably stay ashore from now on.

The main is the most abused sail on a yacht. No matter what's hoisted forward of the mast, it's the same, poor mainsail slogging along behind. No wonder it gets beat up! There are long periods of rubbing up and down wire rigging, whapping back and forth in no wind and straining from clew to tack with too much wind. During all this time, the ultraviolet rays are constantly attacking as well. We give our main a rest from time to time, especially in the tradewinds where we bend on a recut, second hand main that gets the job done.

If the wind drops such that Skookam has to continue under power, we nearly always throw a reef in the main. This flattens the sail and reduces flapping and luffing. If the wind dies completely, we drop the sail. As soon as it's furled on the boom, we cover the sail to reduce its exposure to that cancerous ultraviolet light. Most mainsail rips start along a sun-weakened leech.

Our No. 2 genoa, like our tradewind main, performs a stand-in role, taking over for the lightweight No. 1 when we pole out a big headsail for long downwind runs. The stronger No. 2 takes all the rolling and shaking (and sunlight) while the finely cut No. 1 stays in its bag ready to give us good upwind performance when we need it. Our No. 2 is a vintage leech cut with a different color for each panel. During a run of cold, grey weather way down the Antarctic Peninsula, we put the multicolored sail up just to brighten our day!

Enjoying the view. All of our jibs and genoas have high cut clews for visibility. You must be able to see clearly ahead on a cruising yacht. Besides, we were sailing around most of the Americas and we didn't want to have half of the beautiful scenery and wildlife hidden behind a deck sweeping headsail.

We carry spinnakers to save fuel and to enjoy peace and quiet. Margaret and I have raced and we've learned how powerful a big chute can be. We have the confidence to use the spinnaker, but we only do so in light airs. Both of our spinnakers are recut racing sails and have paid us back every penny they cost in diesel fuel. We've also enjoyed many extra hours of gentle downwind sailing.

Skookum is cutter rigged, which makes us very happy in a blow. Our mast is stepped far enough aft to separate the forestay from both the main and the jib. The staysail always gets clean air. The stronger the wind, the more useful the cutter rig becomes.

"It's easy to overlook sail trim amidst the discomfort and racket of heavy weather...we found that a few inches of trim can make a big difference, even with deeply reefed sails."

Geoff and Margaret's six year voyage took them from Vancouver to Antarctica, around Cape Horn and eventually to the east coast of Canada.

When the wind's up, Margaret and I don't wonder how much sail we can carry but rather how little. We often have the third reef tied in the main before the wind reaches gale strength so we can jog along at five or six knots. We're always conscious of conserving and preserving what we've got. Snugged down to her smallest sails, Skookom ran steadily before the Roaring Forties for days on end and the windvane had no trouble holding course.

Hanging tough. Returning from the Antarctic Peninsula to Cape Horn was another matter. We clawed our way to weather across Drake's Passage through six days of gales and snow. In the strongest winds we used the "Teatowel" storm jib and a triple reefed main. Without pace, we would have been swept downwind to South Africa, so at the slightest ease in wind strength, we changed up to the staysail. We preset the jib sheet before hoisting so the sail would fill early rather than flap on its way up. A 5/8" sheet on a madly flogging sail either tangles up wickedly or belts you across the face like a steel rod. A loose sail in a gale also jolts the whole mast in a way that will surely snap something aloft.

It's easy to overlook sail trim amidst the discomfort and racket of heavy weather. We hardly felt like experimenting, but we found that a few inches of trim either way can make a big difference, even with deeply reefed sails. By softening sheets slightly, for example, we found that we could increase our boatspeed by almost 50 percent!

Unless we are forced to {as we were in Drake's Passage), or our destination is within reach, we don't drive into gale force winds and seas. The strain on us and the boat just isn't worth it. Skookam heaves-to beautifully under small sails while we retire below for some soup and rest.

For sails, a rolling calm is worse than a gale. Bang, flap and Ka-boom go the sails as they rapidly chafe away. The noise is also maddening. We reef again, flattening out the main and guying it off with a boom preventer. We also lash the tiller and adjust the main until it quiets down, and await the return of better wind.

Downwind tricks. Our spinnaker pole holds out jibs more often than kites. A little longer than our J measurement, the pole easily jibes through the headstay. (The inner forestay is disconnected downwind.) The pole has its own topping lift and foreguy, which allows us to raise and lower it independently of the sail it's going to support. Once the pole is up, we do one of our little "downwind dips" and the headsail practically pops itself onto the pole.

The weather sheet should also be able to run free through the pole's parrot beak so that the jib can be doused quickly. We conducted a man overboard drill one afternoon while running wing-and-wing. We simply let the weather sheet run, headed up to a beam reach, trimmed the sail with the leeward sheet, re-lead the weather sheet and tacked back to our cockpit cushion bobbing in the waves.

Skookam's helmsperson can reach every halyard and sheet, which are all led to winches on the cabin top. When doublehanding, this arrangement leaves the other crew free to work the foredeck. On jib changes, the helmsman bears away with the jib halyard in hand. As the main blankets the jib, the halyard is released. Nine times out of ten the sail dumps smartly onto the deck inside the lifeline. The foredeck person stows the sail, hanks on the new jib and attaches the halyard. The sail is then hoisted from the safety of the cockpit. Even if we're beating, we often run off to change the headsail this way because the deck work can be done on a stable and dry platform.

We have no baggy-wrinkles or other anti-chafe adornments. The spreaders are capped and any bolts are taped over. The mainsail seams were coated with TUFFSEAM and they have stood up remarkably well. Piston hanks eat into jib luffs, though, which meant a great deal of hand-work reinforcement en route.

Despite all our care, we had some sail rips. A squall in the steep sided Chilean channels blew out a clew and the foot of our lightweight spinnaker. Later, in a biting cold wind off the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia, we jibed awkwardly and split the main. Both sails were completely repaired onboard with our hand cranked, heavy duty zigzag sewing machine while snow fell on deck. Our mended sail set perfectly, though, and we've used it ever since. Also invaluable for repairs was a 1000-yard spool of Dacron thread and a collection of scrap cloth from our North loft in Vancouver.

We sailed three times to Cape Horn, down to the Antarctic, all around the Falkland Islands and over to South Georgia, almost always with reefed sails. When we reached the Atlantic tropics, we missed our daily gale! Finally, we put Skookam ashore for a rest in Eastern Canada. As we folded the sails on the dance floor of the marina, I figured they were over eight years old and had carried us 50,000 miles. That's a pretty good run.

"On jib changes, the helmsman bears away with the jib halyard in hand. As the main blankets the jib, the halyard is released. Nine times out of ten the sail dumps smartly onto the deck."