Basic sailing techniques

Pete,
You can always invest in a speedpuck. It will show you when you are pinching, slow, fast, etc. I was amazed at some of the findings when I started to use one. Use it as a learning tool. Try different setting and you can see the results. Plus its fun just to see how fast you are going. The large display makes it easy to check and keep your head out of the boat.

I know, but it's expensive and some of the other classes have prohibited them.

I won't buy one unless they are universally accepted. And we're back to that

time on the water

thing. It won't show me squat unless I go sailing! <img src="<>/laugh.gif" alt="laugh" title="laugh" height="15" width="15" />

Frankly, I don't have a lot of time for sailing right now. Maybe in the new year.

Don't get me wrong, if you have a GPS/speedpuck, etc. it's definitely one more arrow to have in the quiver.

Even if your class doesn't allow it for racing, it might give you more incentive to get out and practice (an excuse to get out on the water to use the new toy).

Mike

You guys are F’d.
If you got beat on the start line or around the course it had nothing to do with tuning.
When you sail you have a tiller, sheet and then the downhaul rotator. Unless you boat settings are completely screwed up, like being upside down, these 4 controls which you have on the water will be what makes you fast.

Also why in the world would you want to adjust things constantly and have your boat potentially feel different? Learn what you have and how to make it go fast. If it is always different, how do you learn what is fast? If you boat does not seem to point, quit trying – there is where people lose big time. Do what you need to do to go fast and it will equal out in the end.

You want to truly train get a buddy. Lots more fun to not sail alone anyway and we need more people sailing. Forget the speed puck if you are serious. If not you might as well just look to a forum for that miracle mast rake setting that let you start winning races.

One more specific question:
How much initial tension you want on the jib halyard/jib luff?
I like to rig with just enough tension to transfer most of the slack from the shrouds to the forestay, but have been wondering if taking all the slack would be better.

what kind of boat?

I'd say that happens with 90% of sailors, and pretty much anyone who comes from leaners to cats (at least for the first bit of time on the new platform). And if you're sailing close to another boat, it's very hard not to start pinching.

I used to crew on a guy's Tartan 31 who was a gnat's eyelash away from being in irons every upwind session. He'd always say

look at all that real estate

between us and the leeward boats, but they always managed to sail on past us and we'd be the last boat at A. He bought a 135% genoa thinking that would solve the problem. It didn't. If it wasn't so fun to lose races with him, I would have jumped ship years before I actually did.

You've got windward helm most likely, so any time you're not paying attention your boat is probably going to head up. And you said it yourself - when I get resettled. Head

out of the boat

is always faster.

Your jib telltales are the quickest way to find out if you're pinching or not without having to look away for long. I guess the benefit of a 2-up boat is that the driver can focus on stuff like that, while the stringer could make the proper sail adjustments for the course being steered.

The helm is fine. You were on the boat with me. Did you think we were pinching? I'm guessing not. That's because you were there to tend the boat and let me drive so I didn't become distracted.

It's easier to sail it that way. Face it, these are demanding boats. I find myself pinching from time to time too - especially when I'm getting tired and particularly on the a-cat.

At the bottom of linked page there is a percent draft, position, and twist for light, medium, and heavy air.
Any sailmakers have a similar table for beachcats?
http://www.wb-sails.fi/news/98_11_PerfectShape/Main.htm

the best weather performance I've ever had was on the H17. I've considered replacing the wing mast with a Hobie stick and having a sail cut similarly.

Ker-what-itstan? You will not get better weather performance with the old technology. The wing mast provides a much more efficient profile to weather and the current (mylar) sails work better than the H17 sails. I switch back and forth between a-cat and F18 and I think the extra power and complication of the F18 lulls me into pinching. I promise the H17 wasn't better than your F16 to weather - you were just more comfortable with it.

If I might suggest something - for your next regatta, plan to be the guy that foots too much and not the guy that pinches too much. Get a feel for it and bust out of your comfort zone. Be the guy that sails slightly lower than everyone else. You might even be surprised at the result. Perhaps spend a day doing nothing but jib reaching in good breeze and trying to get the speedo as high as possible. I find that the odd points of sail (get a lot of this in distance races), give me a lot of experience to feel that happy zone between good speed and good pointing ability - although I need a reminder every now and then (helpful when sailing with crew). This might help you retune your upwind speed by starting to get the need for bow sizzle. Pinchers are in a safe comfort zone and have to forfeit that

safe

feeling and start sailing deeper. Footers just need to learn to refine their upwind approach.If you're a footer, learning to sail higher is much easier than a pincher learning to foot.

For some reason, I had to really fight the urge to pinch upwind since I got back into F18 recently. I did what I prescribed above and decided to just experiment for one regatta. I was the guy that footed that weekend and, though we had several mechanical failures on the (new to me) boat, we were getting to A-mark 30 to 50 yards in front of the entire fleet (when the boat held together). I was footing mad in good breeze and sheeting till it bleeds. I was astonished. Go the bow sizzle.

I agree, particularly about getting out of my comfort zone. I hadn't thought about footing to that extent but what the hell, might as well go big.

One major key to stop pinching does involve setup. As previously mentioned, if you have weather helm, your boat will pinch when you're not actively working against that. And, generally speaking, any time you are using the rudder to make the boat go a way it doesn't

want

to, you are bleeding speed (rudders double as great brakes).

The biggest contributors to weather helm are mast rake and rudder rake. You need to experiment to find the best settings for your boat, crew weight and conditions.

Mike

I did have an issue with the rudders but that was resolved some time ago. Recently, Matt went over them with me and I'm satisfied they're good.

The problem seems to be that practice makes permanent. I was really happy with the way the H17 went to weather and seem to be trying to sail this boat the same way.

Some how the old dog will have to learn a new trick.

Rudder rake has nothing to do with weather helm, though it has a big influence if the rudder feels heavy or not. Mast rake has some subtle influence, but on a boat with boom and dagger boards it is pretty much the last thing I would think to touch. Finally the theory of rudders brakeing is wrong too, since the rudders provide the lateral resistance if the boat has weather helm. That makes drag, but since the daggerboards has to works less, the total drag balance is quite neutral.

A very important factor is proper longitudianl trim on light single hander boats. You have to be close to the front beam to keep the stern out of the water. Another key is to pull enough mast rotation. Indeed a wing mast is more sensible to that. Ihe difference between a conventional and a wing mast is huge. On a conventional mast you pull it somewhere to the daggerboard and can forget about it the rest of the sailing more or less. On a wing mast you pull it to end of the rear beam. In strong wind you may rotate out a bit (to open the top of the sail). Keep the sheet tight and the sail flat with the downhaul.
As Jake said, go for speed. Once you have speed you will automatically go higher to keep the boat flat. Once you loose speed, bear away again.

Cheers,

Klaus

Yes, Pete, you were pinching, but in that light air up until about the hammerhead hole, there wasn't a lot of breeze at all, which usually makes pinching habits worse.

And to mirror prior comments, that wing mast can way outperform the H-17 setup, but the peak performance goove is more narrow which means you can't get away with bad angle or trim as easily as you could on your old boat

You can also try locking the rudders centerline and steering with the sails (in light air) to help get a feel for good sail balancing. Getting it to sail straight takes time, but really helped me establish a good first step on how all the sail controls work together to influence the boat.

As I moved my fat butt around on the boat, I'd have to go and readjust everything again to sail straight for a few more boatlengths.

Turned out to be a great way to spend two hours in light air not going anywhere in particular. Haven't tried this off-wind (only close reach angle), but it may work...

Yes, Pete, you were pinching,

Is it too late to blame the crew?

You should!!!! <img src="<>/grin.gif" alt="grin" title="grin" height="15" width="15" />

I crewed on an N20 recently and had a much better view of the jib and was not preoccupied with steering the boat. The skipper could retire if he got a nickle for every time I warned him that he was pinching......the result - 3 straight bullets!

BTW, it IS easier to see that you are pinching when sailing with a jib.

Absolutely not! I blame my a-cat crew all the time.

You may have misunderstood my point about the rudder drag. If the boat has weather helm, and you are pulling the rudder constantly just to go straight, that is adding drag to the equation.

Not sure that it matters, but my experience is based on Hobie 16s. Mast rake makes a huge difference in pointing ability. If the mast rake is set up to pinch, and the rudders are not set properly, they will add drag as you try to steer down to a faster angle (and the boat won't go as fast as it could, because of the drag from the heavy rudder).

These factors are so important on a H16, that I have a hard time believing they are not important on other designs.

The fastest settings (for getting around the course) seem to be either neutral helm, or a very small amount of weather helm. Lee helm is slowest.

I do agree that (all things being equal) the crew weight needs to be forward to foot.

Mike

I have only sailed my F16 solo once vs duals. (whatever)
It was way overpowered, for the double traps conditions, and I had to let the traveler out,
because traveler centered had to much leech twist: could point but poor speed.
Traveled out, I could not point, but could foot (straighter leech) with the lead pack but loosing gage.

If I were to try it over again, at a minimum I would double batten the top third of sail,
let out some outhaul, maybe some diamond wire tension, and center the traveler.

That is a probably the single most important part of crewing, and that's feeding the idiot with the stick information. In double trap conditions I'm steering off of just hull height, and its easy to start pinching and backwinding the jib when over powered If I'm pinching its time to dump some power so I can foot off again and keep that train rolling.

I think not having a jib to steer to is the single hardest thing about sailing the F16 one up.

And pete- I blame my crew more often singlehanded for sure.

The mainsheet is your elevator. Driving all over is slow. Constantly having to sheet in/out more than a foot or two means drop traveler a bit and try again.

So if pinching on a uni-rig is that much easier to do, is it easy to tell when you're footing off too far and stalling the backside?

Going to weather depends on the wind speed, but if it is blowing +18kn, the weather hull will raise way before the lee telltales break.

In conditions with constant wind direction and speed? Yeah. In the real world when your trying to maintain VMG, you're doing both. Steering and sheeting constantly. Now its very small changes in direction, but its still happening. Heck, you're constantly steering just to maintain a direction, either wind angle has changed slightly, speed has changed because of wave angles, wind speed has changed, changing your apparent wind. Like I said little changes, not necessarily

driving all over

. <img src="<>/smile.gif" alt="smile" title="smile" height="15" width="15" />

There's a lot going on that needs constant little trims.

Yes it matters. That's way I said

on boats with boom and daggerboards

. I agree that rake is important on a H16 and even more on boats without boom like Dart 18, etc.

It is very easy to tell, because you lose all your speed. It adds to the pinching tendency, because you are afraid to stall the main. The jib protects the main sail from stalling, even if itself is stalled. You loose some speed but not all. On a uni rig it is like running out of gas. In stronger winds you arn't able to stall before capsize or pitchpole. Light wind single handed with a uni rig is the most difficult to keep the boat moving. I guess we (uni sailor) are all pinching, apart from the really good ones.

Best way to sail upwind is to drive it.., that is, keep up speed by not pinching and yet not footing off. As your speed goes up, you can step the boat up to weather a few feet at a time, thus seemingly pinching to the boat behind you. Yet, you are not. Object is to keep trying to step it up a lane without losing speed by pinching.