My wife and I were out for about 4 hours today in very light air, and we did a lot of roll tacks without difficulty, only once having to resort to backwinding.



I made up a set of notes from Rick White's Catamaran Racing for the 90s, pulling several descriptions together and trying to be explicit about what is done when, memorized them, and told my wife what to do when. It really wasn't that hard.



By the way, here are my notes - please let me know if I got anything wrong, and if it benefits anyone else, that's great.



Roll Tack



1. Start tack from close haul, with mainsheet in tight. Don’t tack from a reach! Skipper says “prepare to tack”.

Crew says “ready” (or “wait”).

2. Skipper says “tacking” or “hard alee” and steers into the wind, starting gently, applying increasing pressure to half the throw, and moving aft. Once the turn is started, keep turn going until on new tack.

Crew moves aft with skipper after the turn starts.

3. Crew takes up slack from the lazy sheet, uncleats the burdened sheet. This must be done before the jib backwinds, or it will be difficult to uncleat the burdened sheet.

4. As boat goes through head-to wind, Skipper releases 2 feet of sheet.

5. When the wind catches the back side of the jib, Crew eases the burdened sheet and pulls on the lazy sheet, watching the telltales and keeping them flowing, letting the boat “turn underneath the sail.”

6. Main goes over. (If the air is too light, the crew pushes it over after going through the eye of the wind).

7. Crew crosses to the forward diagonal side, pulling the jib sheet along (by now, 6 to 8 feet of sheet has been fed).

Crew trims the jib.

8. Once on the new tack, skipper moves directly across facing aft, flipping the tiller over, then moves forward to the main beam, accelerating on a close reach and sheeting in.



Thanks, folks!



Jonathan