Talk:Heeling (sailing)

Preventing Heeling

What is heeling? Heeling is the boat “tipping” to one side or the other; it is caused primarily by the force of the wind on the sails; although it can be caused by weight such as crew or excess cargo. In our class, we will be referring to heeling as a result of the force of wind on the sails. Some heeling in inherent in sailing; as the force of the wind is transferred into forward motion, any excess is transferred into sideways motion – some of which is slippage and some of which is heeling.

When a boat is heeled, the center of effort changes. The center of effort is the pivot point of the sails and is related to the center of lateral resistance, which is below the waterline. One way to reduce heeling is to move the center of lateral resistance upwards by raising your centerboard or daggerboard. The boat will have less resistance below the waterline and consequently less heel.

Crew weight can be a factor on a small or light boat. If the helmsman and/or the crew shifts their weight to what is known as the “HIGH” side of the boat, their body weight will overcome some percentage of the heel. On a larger boat, this is largely immaterial, although we have all seen the maxis with everyone on the rail!

Sail trim is the primary cause of heeling; the most common way to reduce heeling is to reduce the amount of wind in the sails. There are several ways to accomplish this 1) “Spill” the wind by easing the sails 2) Come up into the wind, thereby putting less wind in the sails 3) Flatten the sails which reduces the fore of the wind

Unbalanced helm is a by product of excess heel. The design of the sails and the hull of the boat combine to cause the boat to “head up” into the wind. As more force causes more heel, the boat “pulls” as it tries to head up, causing a difficult helm called weather helm. This condition is exacerbated by excess heel; the same solutions as above will reduce weather helm. Lee helm, the opposite of weather helm is actually corrected by some additional heel, one of the few cases in which excess heel is beneficial!

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Heeling (shoes)

 Done I added a small piece regarding Heelys shoes. The action of rolling on them is called heeling, hence this addition. (unknown unanon user)

Actually it needs it's unown full length article. But this current page is of the correct length to be a disambig page. Jon 16:23, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

And once created, the article can be included on the disambiguation page Heeling. --Una Smith (talk) 19:38, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Done. See Heeling, Heelys and Roller shoes. --Una Smith (talk) 19:52, 21 November 2008 (UTC)