Everyone was so helpful in their responses to my "beaching in a blow post," I thought I'd ask another question. You'll see there is a "new guy swimming" theme permeating my posts here.

I tried trapping out under spin for the first time. I ended up heating up too much, flying a hull and then got hit with a puff and took a swim. I think when I pushed off, I didn't keep a steady tiller.

Any advice for getting out on the wire while maintaining boat control?

Practice on dry land before you go for it on the water. (seriously)

When you go for it on the water, dont start out in hull flying conditions. Choose conditions where you have more time to correct and react to changes in pressure/direction/seastate. Repeat "this is practice, not a regatta or a style show-off event with grades" to make it easier mentally. Nobody cares if your windward hull lies deeper in the water than the leeward when you practice.

Remember that trapping downwind dont mean that you have to fly a hull. If there is too much wind or chop/steep waves, keep both hulls in the water.

I consider the above general advice, not F16 specific. Have fun

Thanks. Any advice on the tiller?

I think I let the stick slip through my fingers as I trapped out, but let it out too much, and turned up causing the hull to fly.

Trap height is very important when doing this. Setting proper height will enable you to trap out without having to use the handle on your traps. Setup the height where your butt will just be below the deck, slowly put your body weight on the trap system after you have hooked in, once the trap is loaded, push yourself out with the forward foot. Using the forward foot will decrease the chances of you flying forward.

Have fun! Its awesome traping out with spin up.

AS Rolf states work it out on land first!

As for going Out I have the SPi sheet in my front hand and tiller in the rear hand; I can then grab the trap handle with my forward hand.

Get your bum over the sie and, hold the tiller fairly far out along the extension so your arm is bent. When you go out, you can just un-bend your arm and you should be stable.

Some boats have cleats for the spin sheet. This allows the uni sailor to cleat the spin when they need another hand to get out on the trap or make other adjustments.

I learned that what works well is to have the tiller in your hand but also put the same hand on the hull or foot strap or something so that you can keep the tiller steady as you are going out. I have the tiller in my hand but some fingers on the hull. It serves as a reference point as to how you are moving the tiller as you push off to go out on the wire. I find that works great and once I started doing it I have many fewer capsizes. What I would do is inadvertently pull on the tiller which would cause the boat to turn down, slow down and have me fly forward which usually ended in the boat gybing and me pull the boat over on myself.
I agree with Robi... trap height is key so your hands are more or less free. You obviously need the boat to be on a steady course with some speed before you start to go out.

There is nothing like finding the groove from the wire with the spin. I keep the hull about a foot off the water and adjust the fore-aft balance as the conditions dictate. In good chop you can't get back far enough. But in the right conditions you can really feel the boat get up and go. I am not in the sailing shape I used to be to really push it these days when I can actually sail my Blade.

"If possible you will sail much faster if you can get onto trapeze, however if you are unstable and keep falling off it might not be worth it."-from the AHPC site.

http://www.ahpc.com.au/Brett_Viper.htm

Cheers!

I have been experimenting here on my lake, I find it only pays off in medium wind, say, 10 knots + or - a couple. The agravation of getting out is nothing compared to coming back in while trying to get ready to jibe. You may find yourself swimming as the boat can jibe without waiting for you.

In light air, of course it's too light, and in heavy air, you will be swimming the first big puff that you bear off hard and bury the low bow. -don't ask me how I know- Better off to sit on the back of the boat and try to keep the bows up and get it planing when it's blowing hard.

Does your boat has weather helm with the spi up?

That's the "other thing", you have to get the spinnaker up and drawing, get the mainsail set right, let go the mainsheet and keep the spinny trimmed right, heat it up and then, when the hull starts to lift, you drop your butt over the side and get out on the wire as the hull is lifting, and you are trimming the spinny with one hand, and steering with the other. Once you get out there and under control, it's a great ride, no doubt. I get my butt to the back and get my foot in the footstrap as soon as possible, then work the boat up and down to keep the hull up about 2-3 feet out of the water.

Now, think about this. You have now put the entire weight of the boat, (240lbs. + or -) plus your body weight, plus the drive power of the main and spinny, all on the one hull. Think about it. Got the picture?

OK, Along comes a mighty puff and what are you going to do? You are going to bear off of course, putting even more downward pressure on that one little, low, bow. Where do you think that bow is going to go? To China, that's where! And you will be flying around the forestay, foot strap or no.

Now, let's say you are good, and you saved it. But now you are approaching the layline and it's time for a jibe. Think it through. Here's what usually happens to me; As I come in off the wire, I have to bear off a bit of course, put the high hull back in the water, ease the spinny sheet a little as you are now running deeper, pull on the tiller a little (which is hard to get just right while you are moving in off the wire) And get my fat butt back up on the tramp with no hands, as one is sheeting, one is steering. The truth is, I usually grab the trap handle with the sheet hand and let the spinny flog if it comes to that. Anyway, now you are on the tramp, unhook, finish the steer-down for the gybe, duck, jump to the other side, drop the spinn sheet, throw the tiller over, pick it up, grab the spinn. sheet on the new side, get it trimmed in, sit back, hook up the trap, sheet in, lift hull, jump out on the wire agian. Yeah, right.

The potential to F-this up is great, and swimming is slow. I would only consider doing this if I were at the back of the fleet with nothing to lose by crashing, and I thought it would make me catch up to someone in front.

Now, that being said, if you want to be "Great", you should practice this often, to the point where you can do it all in one fluid motion, and you -might- be faster for it. If you don't crash. I did it on one local fleet race at GYC a few months back and watched the entire fleet, most of whom were behind me at A mark, sail by, as I righted my boat...

The moral of the story, don't do it if it's not necessary to stay in front. In my case, it was not necessary, but I did it anyway, because I thought it would be faster. And I lost about 10 places for my efforts.

The boat gybed as I was coming in off the wire (poor steering on my part) and I had not yet jumped to the new side. Of course the main was cleted and my hands were full of trap handle and tiller, so I couldn't let it go, and over I went.

Turns out, swimming is not as fast as sitting on the tramp downwind. The "fastest" way downwind for me, is as I described above, and I usually throw the tiller over the back, Aussie Style, and steer with the rudder arm only, as I am sitting on the aft beam, one hull up and charging downwind. To gybe, all you need do is get to the other side and trim in the spinn. No muss, no fuss, and no swimming.

Note: Careful coming into the beach like this ... as you'll be heading downwind, you'll snuff the spi and then want to round up into the wind and "drift" back into the shallows...if you don't lift your tiller extension out of the water (onto the tramp) it'll dig into the shallow bottom and get "tucked under your boat ... putting alot of pressure on the tiller crossbar. Do this a time or two and you'll put undo strain on the single weak spot--the bolt hole for the tiller extension.

This happened to me--at GYC sailing to the first race under spi (tiller in the water, steering by the crossbar). Crossbar failed at the bolt hole and my hot stick was lost to sea. The rest of the story was fun while I tried to figure out how to douse my spi while the boat wanted to round up ... and two half tiller crossbars trailing behind each stern of the boat....

Fortunately, I made it to shore, got replacement parts (thanks Matt) and made it out to the first race just in time!

My tiller cross bar broke at the same spot a while back, luckily Matt had another! I'm seriously thinking of replacing the whole mess with the Ronstan A cat system, carbon crossbar with the clip on tiller extension. I had this on my Bimare Jav 2 (fiberglass, not carbon) and the only problem was you had to tape the cip on part from the tiller extension into the clip on the cross bar, because it was prone to popping out.

I don't think the breakage is only from doing the back over it thing as you described above, although that doesn't help, but every time I jibe I tend to put downward pressure on the crossbar as I steer and cross under the boom. That was when it broke on me, during a jibe. I also lost my tiller extension to the sea, but finished the race by steering with the stump that was left.

I'm going to the ronstan tiller extension and hardware. If I stayed with the "thru hole" I think I'd add a 2-3" aluminum tube around my tiller crossbar at that point to beef it up.

I know some carbon stuff is not legal for F16's, like beams, spin pole, etc. but are carbon rudder cross bars and tiller ext. legal?

I see no mention of building materials in the rules, only considerations for quality and seaworthiness. I think, as long as it makes min weight, you can build anything out of anything.

Correct.

I have a carbon pole (as do most stealths) and carbon beams.

The spin pole, cross bar, tiller extension, rudder arms and mast are all carbon on my boat. More recent Stealth have carbon booms and carbon rudder castings. Some even have carbon beams. Nothing in the rules puts any limitation on materials. Are you sure you're not mixing us up with F18 ?

I think I am mixing it up with Wouter's original proposed rules from about 5 years ago actually. I thought he wanted to have as much stuff be aluminum as possible to keep the costs down? Why isn't the Viper using more carbon then, if it's about 30lbs. over wt.? Seems carbon beams, boom, pole, etc. would help there.

Can we get back to the title of the thread now?