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it has been 23 years since i sailed my last sail boat, enough with high price of gas lately so i purchased a 2003 26x. my wife has never sailed before but is eager to learn. it would be nice to know for her sake and me trying not to scare her if i had some idea on what wind strength would be needed to make our vessal heel more than 20 degrees while i have the orignal main and jib deployed and let's say properly trimmed. considering my weight is 200lbs and her's 140lbs, don't tell her i gave her weight out. not that i will push the limits so i will error on the side of caution. what i am trying to accomplish is to be able to cleat the jib and manually control the boom to spill out power when i may get a gust. say the weather forcast says 20km winds, 12mph, is this very safe, when is it starting to get too strong 40km??

You may find that these boats are rather touchy at heel angles under 10-15 degrees. It other words, it won't take much to get 10-15 degrees of heel. Any significant gust can easily momentarily give you 20 or more degrees of heel...

So, if your goal is to keep heel less than 20 degrees, you're going to have a hard time... You could just ease her into it by running...

My admiral gives me a hard time about the heeling as well. Probably the best you can do is sail downwind as much as possible and when you have to go upwind reef your main a bit before you would normally do so

Kelly

12 mph is perrrrfect for this boat but with a touchy admiral you might want to reef so;s not to scare her.

7-8 with full canvas up is not so scary for newbies.

We are on an M and I don't know the difference between how the two sail.
But 15 knots of wind with 2 to 4 ' waves is getting to be either fun or time to think about dropping sail and heading in. Healing is what you want it to be . Trim the sail go slower, and sail flat. Its that easy, and I am NOT a sailor. Once Audrey saw how much fun it was to sail like the boats in the magazine's LOOK! Even though I showed her on the GPS we lost speed , she like the feeling and the sound . You hear more woooosh of the wind across the sails and more water slipping along the hull. She now loves the LOOK of our boat from the helm with both sails Up . . .Full and PULLING !
Know this about Audrey . When she first started to dive , she said she would dive only 40 ' then after a few dives 60' then maybe a little more as time went on. 3rd dive with so much to see 15 minutes into the dive I pointed to her gauge panel and said with hand signals. I'm OK are you OK ? She smiled sooooooo big and now she regularly goes 110 to 140 fsw . Hundreds of dives later we laugh about the trickery.
Know too Audrey has among other problems Multiple Sclerosis. So it is all about what you want out of life. Even Aud will tell folks now. If we wait for perfect days to sail , how good will we ever get at sailing?
I held us back Sunday . Audrey and Zack wanted to Give her a shot....

Scott nailed it exactly on the best wind speeds to begin a new, apprehensive 26X sailor in. When reefed at higher wind speeds, easing the main alone may not be sufficient to prevent significant heel and you'll also need to ease the jib sheet. Save that for when she's more experienced and willing to do jib sheet duty. That will also give her a feeling of control over the situation.

DLT is right about how quickly these boats heel initially. In fact, the speed at which they heel in a gust may scare someone more than the amount they heel. Easing the main is faster at reducing heel than steering upwind because they respond so slowly. Installing a ratcheting fiddle block on the mainsheet will make holding rather than cleating the mainsheet (faster than releasing a cleat) much less tiring.

Just release the traveler , 1 tug .

Just release the traveler , 1 tug .

Probably no trvaveller on an X.

On our 2001 X, we first extend only about 3/8 of the CB line, raise the main, off the outboard and sail a bit, to determine which , if any, headsail to raise for boat speed and heel angle comfortable for the people aboard at the time. Our X sails well with main only, if the CB is only partway down (CB line about 3/8 let out, as mentioned) and if there is wind enuf to keep boat speed above 2-3 mph.We do sail without a headsail from time to time, eg in boistrous conditions, or with little kids or nervous first time sailors aboard, or when really lazy.

However, if conditions permit, I prefer to add at least a small headsail, which I think may help the X point a few degrees higher. Our dinky 25 sq ft storm jib (leftover fom my old Venture 17) adds very little heeling angle and when backed aids positive tacking. About 1/2 to 5/8 CB line out balances that sailplan.

Given less wind or a more adventurous crew, we raise the 130 sq ft working jib or even the 200 sq ft nylon drifter, as appropriate, with 7/8 or all CB line let out for upwind work and a bit less let out for downwind.

If caught out in really big winds, the reefed main alone limits heel but is not big enuf to make the boat point very high. Adding the little storm jib helps that some. Adding the iron genny helps more.

Thus, rather than using a particular predicted, or even measured, windspeed number to determine sail area, we first put up a full (or reefed) main, judge comfort level, and add or subtract sail area to suit.