Hi All,
I hope you will find new Altered pictures here. If I can cope with the technology? They were taken at Beaumaris Y.C. two weeks ago, of course only when blowing 5 to 12kts. As usual, as wind came up amateur photographer put camera away, rescue boat may also have been busy.
Hopefully you will see my preferred downwind technique, sitting inboard and flying hull to sail as deep as possible. I find this the most succesful way to sail, downwind legs of windward and returns, not as fast as trapping but way more consistent for one up, much easier to avoid wipeouts.
Regards Gary.
Another one.
Anoter One.
Last One.
Those pics are way too cool, Gary, thanks for sharing them.
"Hopefully you will see my preferred downwind technique, sitting inboard and flying hull to sail as deep as possible. I find this the most succesful way to sail, downwind legs of windward and returns, not as fast as trapping but way more consistent for one up, much easier to avoid wipeouts."
Seems to work well on the Mozzie too, even 2-up. In light winds I`ll try near damn everything to get one hull out, she accelerates quickly into apparent wind and you sail much deeper. I seldom send anyone out on the wire downwind, you just have to sail higher to keep the hull out then, and the speed difference is hard to justify, sometimes it works, sometimes not. Maybe it works better on higher-aspect rigs ?
Steve
Gary - Great action photo's...are you happy with the irwin main ?? & is the mast an A carbon mast ??
Steve - We also thought that getting the hull up & going low with the apparent wind as much as possible was the ultimate method. Just lately on the Tornado we have discovered that when you find yourself constantly driving low to wash off excess power by going low ( and both on the wimdward hull) it is actually much faster getting the crew onto the wire ( starts around 10knots of true wind speed) & the boat just takes off & there are great gains to be made.
Now on a F16 this could be different. All I can say is that my thoughts were exactly the same as yours about 6 months ago & now we have discovered more downwind options.
What do you think ?? Doesn't hurt to try. To evaluate you experimenting you do need other boats of similar configuration to establishing any gains.
Marcus 
Hi Marcus,
I`m sailing the Mozzie with spinn, much lower aspect ratio rig than Tornado or full spec F16`s. What I`ve found is that in order to keep the crew on the wire you need to head up quite a lot, you do gain speed and apparent wind does push you down again, but not to the extent of the Hobie Tigers, for example. We can match them for speed but are sailing a few degrees higher (Hope they aren`t reading this, they HATE it !). In some conditions, around 10 knots, we can match them for speed and depth. If it picks up above 12-15knots they put the turbo on and we lose them, but more upwind than down. So I think what works on one boat might not on another, and high-aspect ratio rigs will respond to one way of sailing while a low-aspect rig might be the opposite. As you say, doesn`t hurt to try. I was the first to start trying the "wild thing" in SA with the kite, and it works well, so now that others are doing it my advantage downwind is disappearing !
Next time we have enough breeze I`ll do the wire thing, probably end up in the drink again 
. At least I can blame you ....
Hi Marcus,
am still very much in tuning stages with rig. Upwind it seems to work very well overpowered, but I struggle to power up as early as other cats, have started to try and remedy this hopefully will know more after this weekend. The mast is an A carbon, OZ made Applied Composites I think. Cut .5m. of top and left all fittings where they were. Glued cedar crossways inside mast from bottom to above spinnaker point to strengthen and increase weight to class specs. Certainly seems to have made it strong enough couldn't believe the flogging it took last Sunday with gusts to 30 kts. and boat buried to main beam. The traveller was out to side of hull and mainsheet not real tight, kite flogging all the things I know you shouldn't do but had to to keep boat upright and it took it all.
Regarding downwind technique I hear what you are saying. I think the limiting factor for me and mossie sailors is the amount of pressure you can put on leeward hull in rough water. With beams hitting water, bows going under etc. we reach terminal velocity of hulls sitting on side. Boat can not handle going through water any faster so it's quicker to take shortest course to mark, add to this handling problems one up.
I would expect Blade to not have these problems and be well capable of sailing as you describe, as hull volume and beam height is so much greater it will allow you to power up more and not get thrown of trap one up as easy,with beams clear of waves.
Regards Gary.
Gary, what is (was) Altered? It looks like an A Cat cut down to 16' with a spinnaker? How much weight did you have to add to make F16 min. wt.? Thanks. Tim