A belated addition or two - -



The CE/CLR balance to windward is vastly different than the CE/CLR balance downwind. The sails are eased considerably, the "E" vector is way forward of the beam, and the CE itself must move forward too; and to leeward, no? As a matter of fact, I wonder if rig tension, and consequent variation in how far the mast falls off to leeward, does as much for helm downwind as Mast rake does upwind.



I'd sure love an expert opinion on that one.



Speculating here, and inviting debate:



You can make distance "good" two ways on a DW course; by making headway, and by making leeway.



Within certain limits, headway seems a more effective use of the wind's energy than allowing it to push your boat sideways, turbulating and swirling etc. But clearly, impeding your forward progress to eliminate all traces of leeway isn't likely to be too good either. Also, in heavy air, do we care about squandering some of the wind's energy on leeway, since we've got so much to spare? Conversely, in light air, don't we need to resist leeway as much as is reasonable (ie, w/out creating more drag than tolerable), to create some apparant wind in order to go deep at all?



(Under *really* light force, my cat will move sideways almost as easily as forwards. Next time you're waiting in a dead calm for the wind, try pushing gently with fingertip pressure only on the side of your cat, then on the rear crossbeam. I infer that the slower the wind, worse the leeway/headway ratio gets.)



So I infer a continuum, where wind strength, wave conditions, individual boat config, crew weight etc all play a role in deciding how much board (if any) to put down, how desirable lift to windward is. Whether or not you're wild-thinging it probably is more important than most of these factors. A click or two of mast rake, just enough to cause you to deflect your rudders a hair on the upwind leg (a quarter inch on the crossbar is much less on the blade), probably isn't an enormous impact on downwind, especially given the first paragraph's speculations.



Or is it? I'd enjoy hearing from the experts out there.