[quote=kbcatman]Here's what worked well for my Hobie-18 in mixed fleet racing (and a bit heavy crew). Worked for me on my boat, may run counter to other advice, and of course your mileage may vary...
I set my spreaders forward and my diamonds tight. Not tight enough to pre-bend the mast on their own, but tight enough to keep the mast in column side to side. Then used the downhaul (upgraded to max class legal) to bend/depower. This will be controversial - the traditional H-18 mast set up uses soft wires to allow the mast to bend sideways that with rotation flattens the sail (and the sails are not cut for a pre-bent mast). The traditional method will allow the main/mast to close off the slot. Try both ways, wee what works for you. Once I did the tight wire thing I never went back (again tight, but not pre-bend tight).
Mast rake - always forward unless you are light and/or it's blowing. Rake may help a bit upwind but it kills your power, especially downwind. Rotation for upwind somewhere between the shroud and rear beam (look up the back side of the sail and see how the mast and sail blend, adjust).
Jib cars - all the back when going upwind. All the way forward for downwind. For other points of sail adjust as mentioned before - to get an break between upper and lower telltales. Tweak that advice a little if your jib is breaking unevenly top to bottom, but it was an easy rule of thumb for us. Moving the cars back helps the jib twist off opening the slot and improving flow on the main. I've seen articles suggest the opposite for upwind, and they even show a top-down diagram on how the job moves outboard with the car forward - but the picture only represents the foot of the sail - doing that that tightens the leach of the sail and cuts flow through the upper part. Flow on the back of the main is king, don't hurt it with the jib.
Outhaul - tighter than downwind, but leave some shape in the bottom of the sail.
Downhaul - tighter than downwind, but adjust to appropriate power. If you don't have an upgraded downhaul, get one.
Main - tight, but be very careful you don't stall the top of the sail. The upper outer telltales must be flowing, and if you have leach telltales up high they should mostly flow too. If they are not you are over sheeted and loosing power. Often you will sheet harder as the wind builds, ease slightly in the lulls.
Weight - forward. In light stuff crew on the lee foredeck kind of forward. The 18 is a tail dragger, get the bows down and sterns out. I'm also convinced those big tall flat sides of the bows kind of worked like a bit of a center board going upwind - make them work for you.
Rudders - if you have the standard Hobie molded bendy plastic rudders get rid of them as soon as you can. Any of the fiberglass or carbon reinforced racing rudders from Hobie is a great improvement, find a set of EPOs if you can (not sure what the current Hobie offering is). Just get rid of the bendy ones.
Some things to try...[/quote]
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