Dirk,

Thank you for your reply. Indeed I'm converging strongly on doing something with the spreader rake.
I think I will stay close to the current settings when I go out as 2-up sloop, maybe increase rake just a little to get a little bit better accelleration in gusts. But for 1-up catrigged sailing I think I will really increase spreader rake while keeping the same diamond tension. Thus try to get the pumping action going in the gusts and get accellerations instead of lifting and thus hold back a little more on the downhaul tension. Should make the sail flatter (especially in gusts) and still make the leech stand-up better (less downhaul)



I'm throroughly abandonning this "story" too. I don't believe as well.

Actually I'm converging more and more to the believe that diamond wire tension is a non-issue. If both spreader rake (pumping in gusts) and prebend (settign draft and leech tension) are things you adjust first to their optimal level than diamond wire tension is a given as you don't have enough degrees of freedom to also adjust the wire tension for a given optimal combination of spreader rake and prebend.

I remember landenbergers sailing tips and yes, good idea, I will reread them.

Thanks for your post Dirk.

Wouter