Mike:

Do you have the newer STX sail? I have a bit more adjusting to do on this sail than the older sail. I had to finally take the matter to the beach. It seemed impossible to get everything just right while I was sailing. The older style seemed to be okay just to go out and tweek on the water. On the beach, Eileen and I made sure that we had a little wind in the sail for the experiment. Then we both stood behind the sail with our respective lines. She happens to have the downhaul and the traveller. I with the mainsheet. We started by making the kind of adjustments we were making the day before. We saw immediately that was all wrong. We agreed on a coordinated effort making minor adjustments. We were able to go out that day and get a 1,2,3. That was a whole lot better than the day before where we barely broke into the top five.

I have three telltales on the sail. I think that there is one in the second from the top about 30% back from the luff. There are two in the fourth panel. The first one is 30% back from the luff and the other is about 12 inches from the leech. I also have leech tales but I use these way more. The downhaul will really twist off the top of the sail. I found out that with the fathead I had to downhaul more than before in the lightest winds. I never put downhaul in light wind conditions on the older sail. The back telltale (fourth panel) will tell you if you are stalling. Use the downhaul in combination with easing of the mainsheet to try to get those the fly nicely then try to get the front ones to fly nicely. If you cannot get both (front and back) to fly the same pay more attention to the back ones. I think that you will find the top ones (second panel) will be right. I feel it is better to ease a bit and foot some than to point and stall. I am talking about 1 to 2 degrees not like a Hobie 16 type of footing (10 degrees).

Coordination with the front of the boat is essential with these sails.

Also rotation:
Light wind point the back of the mask (rotator bar) at the daggerboards.
Medium wind between daggers and rear Xbar.
Nuking wind go back forward.

See you at Carlyle. Thank you for taking on that task! Hope you can have fun doing it. I had a blast doing the Alter Cup Championships this year. If you have any questions call me.

Later,
Dan