Hey guys,
I`ve been looking at the pic Wouter posted a while back somewhere of Matt & Jennifer going upwind (Think it was the Squaretop trimming post ?). Now I have me confused, I know it`s a good thing to twist off the main when overpowered to get the top to fall away & depower the rig, but how much is right / too much / not enough ? Looking at the pic, they hardly look overpowered (wave state etc says about 8knots, maybe 10.), but Matt has much more twist & fullness than Jennifer, who looks to be pointing higher than Matt., which would confirm my thought, ie that too much twist & you struggle to point. In my opinion even Jennifer has much more twist than I`d be happy to sail with, I`ve been coached to believe that the leech should be a straight line, in line with the mast, when viewed from directly behind the boat, for optimum pointing ability. Any tighter and you hook the leech, but any looser and you are spilling power higher up and negatively affecting your pointing ability. I know some twist is good, something to do with laminar flow & wind higher up going faster, but inducing that much twist leads me to believe the wind higher up would be travelling at a much different direction to that lower down, is that really the case ?
Any answers that don`t add confusion would be much appreciated !