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I do not agree that you are trying to maintain constant apparent wind. You are trying to go as fast as possible and as deep as possible. As you accelerate the first thing that happens is that the apparent wind moves forward, thus you need to (maybe) sheet IN. If the hull rises (it may not) you then need to eaither let some sheet off, or bear off. IF you bear off, the apparent wind moves aft, thus you may need to sheet out, but as you bear off, you may continue to accelerate and so you may NOT need to sheet out.

What we are trying to do is stay at max speed and also drive down on any gusts which allow you to sail DEEPER and FASTER.

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[quote] Also be very aware that buy easing the sheet or traveler in conjunction with bearing off in a gust, you open up the sail and present a big flat area of sail dirrectly in front of the wind 8.5 meters up in the air. This is the perfect recipe for stuffing the bows in every big gust.


is not how I see it. When I've been sailing 2 up (Hurricane 5.9) and the bows dive in, the quickest way to get the bows out was to easy a few inches of mainsheet - this opens up the top of the mainsail and dumps a little bit of power just where the most torque on the bows is coming from. This is what I think Bundy was doing in the onboard video from the medal race at the ollies, ease the mainsheet to pop the bows out of each wave they went into.



You could write 5 books on how to do this. Nothing is ever straight forward, at least technique witten in a single sentence. I have seen a lot of new guys (myself included) get distracted by procedures like playing the main down wind.

FASTER is the goal. The DEEPER part only comes from bering off in order to maintain a more constant apparent wind. My take on this is that the proper technique for maintaining you weight placement, and your steering are by far the more important functions for going fast. Playing the main sheet is a very fine adjustment (so you keep your back stay pressure at a min) and while, if done correctly, will help, is way down on the list of skills to master.



This is OK --BUT -- The typical reaction by the driver in a gust is to bear off. This moves the apparent wind back, add the nose diving and the boat slowing down and it goes back more. Let out you sail top and you are going swimming. Note Bundy was maintaining a forward apparent wind, and by easing his sheet and letting off some top he was doing as you say, but this was only sucessful, becuase he had forward apparent and he did not attempt to bear off.