Well Leo, I can assure you that on a modern Tornado or any modern boat with Cunningham playing it is critical to upwind speed. You can check my race results if you don't believe me...

That being said I still don't know if you have a classic T or a modern T. How the rig behaves is also pretty critical as the modern rigs are stiff side to side and more flexible fore and aft so respond more effectively to cunnigham.

I can see how Landenbergers article is confusing. I would read it twice, but I think the key is basically to rotate the mast between the shroud and rear beam when you start pulling cunnigham on. Cunnigham moves draft forward, flattens the sail overall and increases twist. Mast rotation also controls sail twist, so the two need to be worked together to get an optimum trim setting.

On the water we have found the following:

1) Trimming the mast rotation using the rotation trim telltales a foot or so above the spreaders and a few inches aft of the luff is pretty good. Often you can let the mast float and get reasonable performance, but upwind that isn't always the case.
2) Sometimes you need more diamond wire tension, even without maxing out downhaul. In lighter stuff this isn't the case and can hurt downwind, but in single and double trap conditions where you are thinking about downhaul, you probably should be thinking about diamond wire tension as well.
3) There are modes where you can get the top to blade out instead of twist off (combination of rotation and downhaul) which can be really fast in certain conditions.

Its all time on the water and tuning next to other boats and/or with a coach boat. GPS data helps but doesn't necessarily show the complete picture.


Scorpion F18