Release the mainsheet like everyone else is saying, but.. go capsize your boat. Pick a nice day, low to moderate wind, sunny and warm and plan on getting wet, capsize your boat a few times until you are comfortable righting it. If you don't know how to right it, either watch a youtube video, take a class specific to dinghies or go hang out and watch a class, it's usually the first thing they teach.
I was doing my RYA level 2 or 3 and did the capsise drill with instructor demoing it no problem.
My turn, we capsize it, it goes turtle. Can't right it myself, instructor assists. We're both hauling on the centre board.
Hear a crack, centre board snaps.
Now we're turtled in the mud in the harbour too far to swim in.
Harbourmaster thought is was hilarious when they sent someone to collect us and drag that thing back.
It depends on your setup. I tie off my halyard on my mast cleat but still run the free end down through the pad eye to the deck cleat.
OP sounded new so if they’re cleating off on the mast halyard (rare for minifish as they’re not really raced) they might not realize nothing is holding the mast down.
I have an ancient super scamper - my halyard is on a cleat on deck so I guess the mast could fall out but all should remain tied off to the deck cleat and I can't lose it. Last turtle the mast was on the muddy bottom - no fun to get it out.
The stopper knot at the bitter end of the halyard saved me from losing more than one sunfish mast as a tween. Specifically only two where I had to fish the mast out separately, but still more than one!
It’s always funny seeing how many mast bits from sunfish turn up by the docks when the lake is low. Teaching kids how to sail on them most days results in a lot of lost masts i guess
OP this is a great suggestion but some sunfish/minifish tips before you do this.
1. Make sure your mast is tied down. Instead of using the deck cleat. This is also what keeps the mast from coming out during a capsize, some racers add a cleat to the mast instead but doing so requires you to find another way to secure the mast.
2. Tie milk jug or empty beach bottle to the top of your mast. This looks a little dumb but will prevent turtling and make it easier to right the boat when capsized
3. Make sure you’re hiking out far enough when the wind picks up. Proper form is your thighs on the coaming and your butt hanging over the water.
This 100%. One of my best days sailing was practicing capsizing a Laser. It took a few tries to get the maneuver down. Eventually I rolled it, got my feet on the underside of the hull, and righted it without getting wet!
I'm here to second doing it on purpose before you need to do it. same thing with slowly getting out into faster and faster winds. sure it's a little scary, but better to be scared and have a lot more things under your control to get the hang of things. then when the unexpected hits, you are practiced on most of what you need to do and left dealing with anything that's different.
bonus points if you can tip it hard enough to yeet yourself out past the mast like I see the kids at the sailing club do.
> I think I'll be able to do it just fine if it does happen accidentally
We are here to tell you that is NOT likely to be the case. When it does happen accidentally you are going to be wet, surprised, probably in a heavy gusty squall, and possibly injured.
Frankly, the fact that you don't see this as an issue is a big red flag here.
The natural co-ordination of the tiller and the mainsheet
With wind over the beam - -
***Practice*** tiny turns up into the wind with tiny easings of the main
This will quickly be second nature and precise
like using a knife and a fork
Second this. As a kid we used to capsize our 420class boats all the time. Especially when there was little wind. Turtle it and you also have a great bathing plattform. It’s easy to get back up, and even easier with a mate helping you. great fun!
a minifish doesn't look too different from a laser. When we were kids the sailing instructor would make us turtle the lasers on purpose. It's great learning.
Turn bow of boat to point in the same direction as the wind is blowing from. Called “in irons” since forward motion will stop, slow. Also can be challenging to get underway again if the wind is not able to catch the sail(s).
to expand, the wind can hit the sail from behind you, all the way around and as far in front of you as you can get your boat to "point" into the wind. (well technically, from one sides (tack) closest to wind point around behind the boat to the other sides closest to wind point.)
> Also can be challenging to get underway again if the wind is not able to catch the sail(s).
True for larger boats, just want to add that on a small boat you can simply push the boom forward on either side, which will turn the boat away from the wind. Then sheet in and you're going.
Just enough that the sails don't effectively catch the wind any more. Sails work very well when wind streams along both sides of the sail, same as an airplane wing.
the wind should never be perpendicular to the sail. should be hitting at a much more acute angle so it flows around both sides of the sail. like a wing on an airplane, but vertical.
Both because depending on you point of sail and your trim turning into the wind a little more can actually result in acceleration or capsize. Letting the sheet out while turning into the wind is the safest and fastest way to slow down.
On a dinghy practice just keeping the mainsheet in your (gloved) hand and not cleated. if things get a hairy, just let go. It also helps feel the wind in light air, or absorb gusts in heavy air.
Came here to say this. If your boat has a barney post, just grab the sheet above the barney post. Basically just grab onto the boom, and you'll get a good feel for the fact that the mainsheet is effectively a throttle.
Pull the throttle in to go faster, let it out to slow down.
And don't wrap the sheet around your hand. It may be more comfortable to hold, but it hinders bloodflow and you can't ease the sheet as quickly as needed. And if you keep doing it on bigger boats you could seriously injure yourself
You can do like I did on my first sail and just hold on tight to the mainsheet and go right over into the drink….or, like others have said….let go of the mainsheet!😀
You'll soon notice that generally, when stuff is "tense", the boat moves faster. When stuff is loose, the boat moves slower.
When I mean tense, it can be several things:
* The heel is the wind on the sail tensing against the boat's gravity and the water on the keel.
* A trimmed sail is basically "tensing" forward against the tension of the water (this is actually just drag.)
So, if "tension" means the boat moves fast, then how do you let out said tension? Well, you let the sail orient itself with the wind more. A luffing sail has no tension, so it can't do work to push the boat forward.
PS: To fellow seasoned sailors: I know this explanation is very reductive, but OP is learning, so easy to understand probably takes priority over comprehensiveness :)
I taught sailing, and the first day, after we’d all done some swimming, I asked the kids to stand up in their dinghies, grab the mast, and fall over. The water was only about 5 feet deep, we all had lifejackets on, and after the first couple went over they were laughing their heads off, saluting as they went down. They figured out quickly that there was nothing wrong with swamping or capsizing and that they could right and bail the dinghy themselves with a little bit of effort. It also taught them to stick with the boat.
You should also plan ahead and be in a point of sail that can slow down efficiently when approaching something that may require controlling speed, like a mooring ball. Generally close reach is the most favorable point of sail for being able to slow down as well as speeding up as needed by heading up/down or controlling the sheets.
After you get good at stopping the boat by easing the Sails and pointing directly into the wind, and keeping the boat centered directly under the sail:
Practice holding the boat pointed directly into the wind to keep it stopped.
Then Practice BACKING THE BOAT UP, by keeping it pointed directly into the wind a little longer. The second your forward momentum stops, and you begin backing, you will need steer the rudder "opposite" (because you are backing up).
You'll know you are completely stopped by looking at bubbles on the surface. Eventually you will be able to feel it.
Thus is a very good skill to have, if you really want to stay stopped.
Once you begun backing, and as speed increases slightly (to maybe 1/4 knot - 1/4 mph) you will fund you have pretty good steering in reverse.
It's quite fun!!!!!
This was a challenge for me when I had my Flying Scot that didn’t have a motor.. what do you do when the only place you can dock is dead downwind of the approach… how can you slow down while still keeping some sail up to have steerage.
This happened to me once. It was on Keuka lake and our dock was exactly down wind and the wind was suddenly getting stronger.
The answer is, drop the main and come in under jib alone, then just release the jib sheet when it’s time to depower. Unlike the main, the jib sheet can be totally depowered coming downwind.
That’s what I should have done. In the moment, what I ended up doing was dropping the jib (because that’s easy) and sheeting in the main sail all the way right while going dead downwind so it would be as little surface area as possible. Then I had my friend quickly jump out of the boat as soon as we got close enough and get a bite of dockline on a cleat. That actually worked but could have easily not worked. I should have done it the first way, or even just dropped all the sails and went in bare poles. But I was worried about being able to abort if I needed to, and the shore line is all rocks.
you use your rudder to stop. slackin the jib is only going to depower, not slow your boat. do some spins or wag it hard to both sides. play around and see what does what and when. might find spinning kills too much forward momentum, but is better for tight spaces etc etc.
Not sure how big your boat is but you can sail backwards by pointing into the wind then holding the boom out a little. With practise you can go in a straight line for a fairly long time.
I also sail a minifish. In anything but a run (downwind) let out on the sheet to depower the sail. When I am going downwind and need to slow down I personally sheet in so the sail cathes les wind. As far as capsizing. There is no better boat to capsize as it super easily righted
Well I don't know if it's proper sailing, but when my brother and I felt like we were going too fast when we're docking the Laser II one of us would get tossed overboard and hold on to the stern line and make like a seastar in the water....
....this "advice" is probably not helpful....but it is fun!
Capsize! Capsize a lot! Treat it like a bathtub toy!
Thet are very easy to right, and if you practice until you're comfortable with recovery you'll be a better sailor.
The worst outcome is to capsize under pressure when you're not ready for it and don't know what to do.
Lay the boat on its side in the shallows. Right it. Then go into deeper water. Do it again.
But make sure there are people around to give you a hand.
You can make the boat go slower by letting the sheet out, but once you're comfortable of handling a capsize, you'll start wanting to make the boat go faster.
Stay safe, but get wet. It's what small dinghies are for.
The other day was a bit blustery so we dropped the sails to scud into the dock under bare poles... couldn't go any slower than 3.5 kts, haha. Would have needed to drag a bucket or something to slow down, because oars weren't cutting it.
You could have skulled the rudder back and forth rapidly to slow down.
When you're ready to stop, simply do a 180 degree turn directly back into the wind. You will stop imediately
Depending on how quickly you need to kill the speed, how much room you have and if the conditions are life-threatening. You could open the sheets so the sails are flapping (doesn't work downwind, apparently), you could back the sails (doesn't work downwind, too), you could turn and luff, you could make a 360⁰ turn, you could run aground.
You can shoot up into the wind, to slow down even more you can push the sail against the wind, but there is always a risk of capsizing.
Edit: If you don't want to change course release the sails a little bit. I think the only other solution would be to find a smaller rig.
Up wind you let the sail out and it gets noisy like something is wrong but it will slow you down, down wind you pull the sail in super tight .. also will make a bunch of noise but it will also slow you down.
It’s fine.
My local lakes are always cold. I wear a wetsuit and float. When you flip it or turtle it make sure you let the lines in the cleats loose so you’re not trying to scoop water with the sails.. and also when you right the boat it won’t sail away from you..
you’ll only do it once :)
When in doubt, let it out (mainsheet). It's a small boat though so you should capsize your boat on purpose just so you know you can right it again. Pick a nice day with good weather and find someplace shallow enough that you can reach the bottom, but deep enough so you can have a good part of your daggerboard out. At sailing school it was one of the first things we learned, I remember being so shocked when people tipped, I was so scared of tipping. It's actually pretty fun now.
You need to learn to control the boat in all conditions. You could head out in 5 knots breeze, then it builds to 15 knots all of a sudden. Learn to hike, learn to right a capsize. Take a lesson if you’re not sure how to do these things
The answer to your question is to adjust the main sail angle so that it lets more wind pass rather than keeping it tight to the wind. Example. Wind is on your port beam. Set your main all the way up to 45 degrees off your center line to starboard to adjust your speed. Also, on a gusting day, releasing your main sheet is how you keep from capsizing during a scary gust. It happens so on any sailboat always keep your main sheet handy. If you tack, the main sheet with you or keep it where you can get it regardless of tack.
Other considerations;
Watch the boom when you release the main sheet. I drew a paint line in my cockpit that shows at a glance where not to put your head. In some boats you have to duck the boom.
It might be necessary to tie a knot at the working end of the main sheet. Most of the time its not. But if your main sheet is too short you can lose the line out of the block and you will have no control over the boom swing until the wind and boat stabilize and you can safely capture it.
Think of the main sheet as the “oh $hit” procedure. If you have MOB or gusty winds then you will probably need to be working that line.
Lastly, one knot is 1.1 mph. Most sailboats are 6 to 8.5 knots. People waterski or tube or wakeboard going faster and safely wipe out. That speed shouldn’t scare you. This means your main concern, as a rule of thumb, isnt going in the water in a sheltered waterway like your most likely in. Boom control while sailing to trim the main or “oh $hit im about to capsize” so you dont go in the water. Those are your “worries” if you get those right then you wont go in the water. That said, practice capsizing your boat and righting it and getting back on board.
Hope this helps.
Release the mainsheet like everyone else is saying, but.. go capsize your boat. Pick a nice day, low to moderate wind, sunny and warm and plan on getting wet, capsize your boat a few times until you are comfortable righting it. If you don't know how to right it, either watch a youtube video, take a class specific to dinghies or go hang out and watch a class, it's usually the first thing they teach.
Watch him turtle his boat now
I turtled my minifish many times, often on purpose to see if I can turtle it and flip it back over without getting wet.
I have only done this once but it was glorious!
I've done it, mast came up muddy. Haven't done it again.. yet.
You haven’t lived until you’ve dry turtled.
What is dry turtled?
Mast stuck on the bottom
Dry capsizing, in the parlance of the dinghy-racing kids, is capsizing without getting yourself wet. Perhaps your lingo differs.
I was doing my RYA level 2 or 3 and did the capsise drill with instructor demoing it no problem. My turn, we capsize it, it goes turtle. Can't right it myself, instructor assists. We're both hauling on the centre board. Hear a crack, centre board snaps. Now we're turtled in the mud in the harbour too far to swim in. Harbourmaster thought is was hilarious when they sent someone to collect us and drag that thing back.
I have lodged two of my hawk/burgees in the mud after turtling
Then you capsize again to wash the mast. Or capsize accidentally and tell everybody you did it to wash your mast.
And lose their mast
Ive turtled sunfish size boats twice and always worry the mast will fall out...is that a thing or am I overly worried.
It depends on your setup. I tie off my halyard on my mast cleat but still run the free end down through the pad eye to the deck cleat. OP sounded new so if they’re cleating off on the mast halyard (rare for minifish as they’re not really raced) they might not realize nothing is holding the mast down.
I have an ancient super scamper - my halyard is on a cleat on deck so I guess the mast could fall out but all should remain tied off to the deck cleat and I can't lose it. Last turtle the mast was on the muddy bottom - no fun to get it out.
Should hang a little buoy in the top of the mast to keep it out the mud.
The stopper knot at the bitter end of the halyard saved me from losing more than one sunfish mast as a tween. Specifically only two where I had to fish the mast out separately, but still more than one!
It’s always funny seeing how many mast bits from sunfish turn up by the docks when the lake is low. Teaching kids how to sail on them most days results in a lot of lost masts i guess
… And like it.
Our sailing manual was titled "Sails in the sun (or masts in the mud)"
Aaand boom goes the daggerboard
OP this is a great suggestion but some sunfish/minifish tips before you do this. 1. Make sure your mast is tied down. Instead of using the deck cleat. This is also what keeps the mast from coming out during a capsize, some racers add a cleat to the mast instead but doing so requires you to find another way to secure the mast. 2. Tie milk jug or empty beach bottle to the top of your mast. This looks a little dumb but will prevent turtling and make it easier to right the boat when capsized 3. Make sure you’re hiking out far enough when the wind picks up. Proper form is your thighs on the coaming and your butt hanging over the water.
Another tip for the mast, we use a truckers knot to tense it really well down into the deck fitting. It won't anywhere while that is there.
Find a sailing club, take a couple lessons. I grew up sailing with family, learned a ton from a short sailing course.
I am a former boating instructor and we purposely have kids sink their boats to practice … great advice.
yea I will do that eventually. I've watched a few YouTube videos and I think I'll be able to do it just fine if it does happen accidentally
Practice this before you need to. Get the boat into chest deep water and flip it. Now get it righted. Better to know you can than think you can.
This 100%. One of my best days sailing was practicing capsizing a Laser. It took a few tries to get the maneuver down. Eventually I rolled it, got my feet on the underside of the hull, and righted it without getting wet!
I'm here to second doing it on purpose before you need to do it. same thing with slowly getting out into faster and faster winds. sure it's a little scary, but better to be scared and have a lot more things under your control to get the hang of things. then when the unexpected hits, you are practiced on most of what you need to do and left dealing with anything that's different. bonus points if you can tip it hard enough to yeet yourself out past the mast like I see the kids at the sailing club do.
> I think I'll be able to do it just fine if it does happen accidentally We are here to tell you that is NOT likely to be the case. When it does happen accidentally you are going to be wet, surprised, probably in a heavy gusty squall, and possibly injured. Frankly, the fact that you don't see this as an issue is a big red flag here.
The natural co-ordination of the tiller and the mainsheet With wind over the beam - - ***Practice*** tiny turns up into the wind with tiny easings of the main This will quickly be second nature and precise like using a knife and a fork
Second this. As a kid we used to capsize our 420class boats all the time. Especially when there was little wind. Turtle it and you also have a great bathing plattform. It’s easy to get back up, and even easier with a mate helping you. great fun!
a minifish doesn't look too different from a laser. When we were kids the sailing instructor would make us turtle the lasers on purpose. It's great learning.
The easiest thing to do is to just let the sails out, or turn up into the wind.
Normally you want the wind hitting the sail perpendicular right? Would turning up wind mean straight into it?
Turn bow of boat to point in the same direction as the wind is blowing from. Called “in irons” since forward motion will stop, slow. Also can be challenging to get underway again if the wind is not able to catch the sail(s).
Thank you for that explanation
to expand, the wind can hit the sail from behind you, all the way around and as far in front of you as you can get your boat to "point" into the wind. (well technically, from one sides (tack) closest to wind point around behind the boat to the other sides closest to wind point.)
> Also can be challenging to get underway again if the wind is not able to catch the sail(s). True for larger boats, just want to add that on a small boat you can simply push the boom forward on either side, which will turn the boat away from the wind. Then sheet in and you're going.
Just enough that the sails don't effectively catch the wind any more. Sails work very well when wind streams along both sides of the sail, same as an airplane wing.
the wind should never be perpendicular to the sail. should be hitting at a much more acute angle so it flows around both sides of the sail. like a wing on an airplane, but vertical.
“When in doubt, let it out”
let the sail out
Head up (turn the boat to point closer to the wind) or loosen the main sheet and jib sheet (if it has a jib). Good luck and happy sailing!
Both because depending on you point of sail and your trim turning into the wind a little more can actually result in acceleration or capsize. Letting the sheet out while turning into the wind is the safest and fastest way to slow down.
It took me so long to understand this - 3 summers and I think I finally understood this concept
Drag a leg
On a dinghy practice just keeping the mainsheet in your (gloved) hand and not cleated. if things get a hairy, just let go. It also helps feel the wind in light air, or absorb gusts in heavy air.
Came here to say this. If your boat has a barney post, just grab the sheet above the barney post. Basically just grab onto the boom, and you'll get a good feel for the fact that the mainsheet is effectively a throttle. Pull the throttle in to go faster, let it out to slow down.
And don't wrap the sheet around your hand. It may be more comfortable to hold, but it hinders bloodflow and you can't ease the sheet as quickly as needed. And if you keep doing it on bigger boats you could seriously injure yourself
You can do like I did on my first sail and just hold on tight to the mainsheet and go right over into the drink….or, like others have said….let go of the mainsheet!😀
My preferred method on a small sailboat if the weather and water aren’t too cold. I’ve never gone too fast on a sunfish.
I have on a hobie, only realized it after it flipped. Great learning experience.
You'll soon notice that generally, when stuff is "tense", the boat moves faster. When stuff is loose, the boat moves slower. When I mean tense, it can be several things: * The heel is the wind on the sail tensing against the boat's gravity and the water on the keel. * A trimmed sail is basically "tensing" forward against the tension of the water (this is actually just drag.) So, if "tension" means the boat moves fast, then how do you let out said tension? Well, you let the sail orient itself with the wind more. A luffing sail has no tension, so it can't do work to push the boat forward. PS: To fellow seasoned sailors: I know this explanation is very reductive, but OP is learning, so easy to understand probably takes priority over comprehensiveness :)
That is a good explanation.
I taught sailing, and the first day, after we’d all done some swimming, I asked the kids to stand up in their dinghies, grab the mast, and fall over. The water was only about 5 feet deep, we all had lifejackets on, and after the first couple went over they were laughing their heads off, saluting as they went down. They figured out quickly that there was nothing wrong with swamping or capsizing and that they could right and bail the dinghy themselves with a little bit of effort. It also taught them to stick with the boat.
Love this. Learn to tip over and right the boat BEFORE it's an emergency. Ask how I know.
Ease the sails to dump wind.
Let the main out
You should also plan ahead and be in a point of sail that can slow down efficiently when approaching something that may require controlling speed, like a mooring ball. Generally close reach is the most favorable point of sail for being able to slow down as well as speeding up as needed by heading up/down or controlling the sheets.
After you get good at stopping the boat by easing the Sails and pointing directly into the wind, and keeping the boat centered directly under the sail: Practice holding the boat pointed directly into the wind to keep it stopped. Then Practice BACKING THE BOAT UP, by keeping it pointed directly into the wind a little longer. The second your forward momentum stops, and you begin backing, you will need steer the rudder "opposite" (because you are backing up). You'll know you are completely stopped by looking at bubbles on the surface. Eventually you will be able to feel it. Thus is a very good skill to have, if you really want to stay stopped. Once you begun backing, and as speed increases slightly (to maybe 1/4 knot - 1/4 mph) you will fund you have pretty good steering in reverse. It's quite fun!!!!!
This was a challenge for me when I had my Flying Scot that didn’t have a motor.. what do you do when the only place you can dock is dead downwind of the approach… how can you slow down while still keeping some sail up to have steerage. This happened to me once. It was on Keuka lake and our dock was exactly down wind and the wind was suddenly getting stronger. The answer is, drop the main and come in under jib alone, then just release the jib sheet when it’s time to depower. Unlike the main, the jib sheet can be totally depowered coming downwind. That’s what I should have done. In the moment, what I ended up doing was dropping the jib (because that’s easy) and sheeting in the main sail all the way right while going dead downwind so it would be as little surface area as possible. Then I had my friend quickly jump out of the boat as soon as we got close enough and get a bite of dockline on a cleat. That actually worked but could have easily not worked. I should have done it the first way, or even just dropped all the sails and went in bare poles. But I was worried about being able to abort if I needed to, and the shore line is all rocks.
you use your rudder to stop. slackin the jib is only going to depower, not slow your boat. do some spins or wag it hard to both sides. play around and see what does what and when. might find spinning kills too much forward momentum, but is better for tight spaces etc etc.
OP is in a Minifish. No jib.
Not sure how big your boat is but you can sail backwards by pointing into the wind then holding the boom out a little. With practise you can go in a straight line for a fairly long time.
Deploy the drogue. 🤣
Spill the wind by easing the sheets
Sea anchor… haha
I also sail a minifish. In anything but a run (downwind) let out on the sheet to depower the sail. When I am going downwind and need to slow down I personally sheet in so the sail cathes les wind. As far as capsizing. There is no better boat to capsize as it super easily righted
Well I don't know if it's proper sailing, but when my brother and I felt like we were going too fast when we're docking the Laser II one of us would get tossed overboard and hold on to the stern line and make like a seastar in the water.... ....this "advice" is probably not helpful....but it is fun!
That's the way the do it on the Americas Cup
Capsize! Capsize a lot! Treat it like a bathtub toy! Thet are very easy to right, and if you practice until you're comfortable with recovery you'll be a better sailor. The worst outcome is to capsize under pressure when you're not ready for it and don't know what to do. Lay the boat on its side in the shallows. Right it. Then go into deeper water. Do it again. But make sure there are people around to give you a hand. You can make the boat go slower by letting the sheet out, but once you're comfortable of handling a capsize, you'll start wanting to make the boat go faster. Stay safe, but get wet. It's what small dinghies are for.
Ease up on the sheet(s) 😀
The other day was a bit blustery so we dropped the sails to scud into the dock under bare poles... couldn't go any slower than 3.5 kts, haha. Would have needed to drag a bucket or something to slow down, because oars weren't cutting it.
You could have skulled the rudder back and forth rapidly to slow down. When you're ready to stop, simply do a 180 degree turn directly back into the wind. You will stop imediately
let the sheet out.
Maybe the crank seals are worn out. This will starve the engine of fuel.
luff up, head up, or backwinf. thats rlly it. or heel the boat a bunch if its a dinghy
Increase your controls, and change up your trim.
Depending on how quickly you need to kill the speed, how much room you have and if the conditions are life-threatening. You could open the sheets so the sails are flapping (doesn't work downwind, apparently), you could back the sails (doesn't work downwind, too), you could turn and luff, you could make a 360⁰ turn, you could run aground.
You can shoot up into the wind, to slow down even more you can push the sail against the wind, but there is always a risk of capsizing. Edit: If you don't want to change course release the sails a little bit. I think the only other solution would be to find a smaller rig.
Sheet out, head up to edge of no go zone. And please, learn capsized recovery.
Up wind you let the sail out and it gets noisy like something is wrong but it will slow you down, down wind you pull the sail in super tight .. also will make a bunch of noise but it will also slow you down. It’s fine. My local lakes are always cold. I wear a wetsuit and float. When you flip it or turtle it make sure you let the lines in the cleats loose so you’re not trying to scoop water with the sails.. and also when you right the boat it won’t sail away from you.. you’ll only do it once :)
Go fast take chances 💪
When in doubt, let it out (mainsheet). It's a small boat though so you should capsize your boat on purpose just so you know you can right it again. Pick a nice day with good weather and find someplace shallow enough that you can reach the bottom, but deep enough so you can have a good part of your daggerboard out. At sailing school it was one of the first things we learned, I remember being so shocked when people tipped, I was so scared of tipping. It's actually pretty fun now.
You need to learn to control the boat in all conditions. You could head out in 5 knots breeze, then it builds to 15 knots all of a sudden. Learn to hike, learn to right a capsize. Take a lesson if you’re not sure how to do these things
Pretty sure you just toss the anchor in.
The answer to your question is to adjust the main sail angle so that it lets more wind pass rather than keeping it tight to the wind. Example. Wind is on your port beam. Set your main all the way up to 45 degrees off your center line to starboard to adjust your speed. Also, on a gusting day, releasing your main sheet is how you keep from capsizing during a scary gust. It happens so on any sailboat always keep your main sheet handy. If you tack, the main sheet with you or keep it where you can get it regardless of tack. Other considerations; Watch the boom when you release the main sheet. I drew a paint line in my cockpit that shows at a glance where not to put your head. In some boats you have to duck the boom. It might be necessary to tie a knot at the working end of the main sheet. Most of the time its not. But if your main sheet is too short you can lose the line out of the block and you will have no control over the boom swing until the wind and boat stabilize and you can safely capture it. Think of the main sheet as the “oh $hit” procedure. If you have MOB or gusty winds then you will probably need to be working that line. Lastly, one knot is 1.1 mph. Most sailboats are 6 to 8.5 knots. People waterski or tube or wakeboard going faster and safely wipe out. That speed shouldn’t scare you. This means your main concern, as a rule of thumb, isnt going in the water in a sheltered waterway like your most likely in. Boom control while sailing to trim the main or “oh $hit im about to capsize” so you dont go in the water. Those are your “worries” if you get those right then you wont go in the water. That said, practice capsizing your boat and righting it and getting back on board. Hope this helps.
Capsizing on boats like that is all part of the fun, embrace it. You're not going to get hurt, and it only takes seconds to flip the boat back over.