I've had my new Wave for about a month now and have a couple of questions regarding controlling the sail shape.

First is I get a crease/wrinkle starting from the Tack and running up to the middle of the second batten (from the bottom). I've tried to adjust the downhaul with no luck. The wrinkle is less noticeable with stronger winds. Any suggestions?

Second, I looked through the forum and didn't see amy mention on sanding the battens to control the pocket in the sail. I used to do this on other cats I've owned and raced. Has anyone done this?

Charlie

Sounds like you are not sheeting in enough, if the wrinkle runs from the tack upward on the leech.

Sail shape is important with the Wave, and basically because the mast is almost round, in designing sails we have treated the boat as if it had a fixed stick. So, we design the draft farther aft that on a wing-type mast.

I don't know what sail you have, but normal battens seem to work well, and sanding has not been on anyone's format. None of the top sailors do any sanding.

I will say this, on several sails I have they have a lot of fullness and I do very well in light winds. However, when the wind gets over 10 I need to stick extra stiffener battens in the bottom 3.
Rick

Rick,

Thanks for the feedback. I'm using a stock sail and battens. Next time I'm out I'll sheet in a little more and see if the wrinkle is still there. I haven't been able to try it out in any significant wind yet, mostly just one notch above drifting.

The good sailing season is coming up and I can't wait.

Charlie

Charlie,

Try sheeting in tight before putting on the downhaul. This will allow you to get more on the downhaul than you will without the mainsheet tension. Feel free to use a smaller diameter and longer line for the downhaul if that helps you get more tension. That should make a noticable difference.

Not class legal for racing however...

Why not?

<<The downhaul line will be limited in length to 8 feet. There are no restrictions on the amount of purchase, as long as the 8' line is used.>>

Exactly. 8 Feet max. I think the factory stock downhaul is 8 foot.

Mine came with about 5'.

8 is all you need.

But 8 feet of 1/8 inch is longer than 8 feet of 1 inch, as far as downhaul; right? I guess that would be called a "loophole."

Yes, downhaul is limited to 8 feet in length, but no diameter is given.
Small stuff goes through the tack grommet a couple times without binding, while larger stuff does not. So, you can get more downhaul with small diameter line than larger dia. line.
I have encouraged Wave sailmakers to use super large grommets for the tack just for that reason. Most don't listen.
Rick

So, Mike. Was this what you did at Duck?

At Duck, I had way too much pocket in my stock sail and there were too many problems for me tweak the boat, flatten the sail to my satisfaction, and feel safe in that kind of wind in order to continue. Especially with the jet skis fishing everyone out of the water.

I think it was you who said, "We got a gust of 37 mph!" on Saturday that made my jaw drop.

I was very disappointed that I missed the opportunity to continue at Duck. It was fun but it was extreme.

Best bet is to add additional battens to the sail, starting from the bottom, 2nd and lastly 3rd, depending on the wind strength.
On the thrown out race, I had stuffed stiff battens in the bottom three and was quickly pulling away from both Mike and Patrick.., that is, until the forestay broke.
Rick

That certainly makes sense. Wish a notice flag had gone up that said, "Stiffen your battens, ye land lubbers, afore ye wander out into the screeching winds."

Notice that you have batten sets in the online store: Battens.

But you are switching out battens or adding battens...?

I just add stiffening battens. On the bottom one, however, I just keep a very stiff batten or two. Sort of makes the bottom batten a boom.
Rick

Hi JJ,

I had not been looking at this forum, hence the delay in responding. I have a confession to make. I was reading my wind speed indicator in KPH instead of MPH when I was reporting those high wind speeds. So the actual wind speed matched what we were reading off the nearest government bouys (low 20s) when we got back to the house we were sharing. It was an embarrasing mistake and everyone felt better that they were handling REALLY BIG wind instead of just windy conditions so I just kept my mouth shut. My experience is that anytime the wind goes above 20, then it is difficult to race well, especially in small boats. I suspected something was not right so on further review the next day, I discovered the error.

The sail shape that I noticed that looked best for the windy conditions and proved fastest was what Patrick was using. It had a tight lower leach that allowed him to point well but quickly opened up on the top third so that he could hold the boat down. I did not ask him how he got that shape but I suspect that he did it the same way Rick did - by adjusting the battens to get the stiffness right in the right places to match his weight to the wind speed. Both of them had several extra battens to use. They may have been able to dial this right in from racing twice a week all summer long with good racers at Put-In-Bay, on Lake Erie. There is no substitute for regular racing to get good and dial the boat in for various conditions. I guess I will have to get a little more ambitious and start playing around with battens myself if I want to keep up with these guys.

Mike

Thank You

This and the other hints in this thread made a big difference. I am trying use an old stock Hobie sail, for the Wed Nights in Houston, until my new sail gets here.

For a downhaul I used some old 3.5 mm spec 12 that had been treated with silicone to make it slick. It was almost like having real downhaul. I remember a Laser sailor showing me how to make a cascading system by tying loops in the line. I may have to talk to him.

I raked my mast back until I could just barely tension the leach on shore. I found that this not only helped pointing but changing the sheeting angle got rid on some big old wrinkles and only added a small new one. I still need to get rid of some stack height in the blocks. I have some old downhaul hardware that lets you put the blocks in the sail grommet. I will look at it this weekend.

I played with the bottom batten and found that an old TheMightyHobie18 batten and a tapered tubular batten marked "extra stiff" from a old Tornado sail to be about right.

It paid off. I am still slow compared to the dinghies when the wind is below 10 kts but not as slow as I used to be. I pulled off a 2nd by beating up on a Laser driven by a little girl that looked to about 12 with braces.

Don't laugh she was ahead of all the other Lasers and the boats that started 3 mins ahead of us and we were catching the ones that started 6 mins ahead of us.

I think it was more fun sailing that race on a Wave than an A-Class. With an A-Class the main rule is overtaking boats stay clear. With a Wave you can interact.

Hi Carl,
Glad to see you are still in the Wave. But, what has happened to your lovely wife? She was really gung ho for a while there.

On the downhaul, class rules allow for 8' of line. I use small dyneema which is quite slippery and can easily get three wraps around the horn, using the middle and the outside of it.

The Lasers used to almost have a macrame thingy for their vang, but finally have legalized real equipment. I guess our class wanted to sort of emulate that. I get plenty of downhaul with the three wraps, but it would be easy enough to throw in a couple of small bowlines for extra purchase.
Funny, but with the Laser, they were not allowed to lube the line. So, everyone would apply lots of bullfrog on their exposed skin.., and then accidently mess with the vang afterward.

Raking back is an absolute must, it seems.
Also, almost everyone is going with really stiff battens at the bottom (acting more like a boom than a batten). And with the good aftermarket sails, are using pretty stiff battens in the lower sail, softer in the top. If it howls stick in some extra battens in the top for stiffeners.

Against the mono crowd (Force 5, Laser and Sunfish) here we are usually ahead of them most of the time unless it is very light and shifty -- OH that is right, you are in Houston..., silly me.
In any kind of wind we leave them in the dust.
Gotta get you to come to some of our events around the country.., great competition and great people.
Have fun
Rick

Thanks for remembering Rick

Several things happened with Cyndi and the Wave. Her health has not been that good and we lost most of our sailing locations to Ike but there was an unfortunate incident a couple a year ago. We were racing A-Class at HYC. I rigged the Wave and left it for her. All she had to was raise the main and the hooter. Unfortunately some Tornado sailors helped her with the boat. It would not point(there was beer involved too). We thought she was cruising the bay. She could not point high enough to get to the beach. When she got back she claimed she would never get on that "plastic bathtub toy again" and she hasn't.

yes we live in Houston. If I can fly a hull, the other boats are in the dust. On a normal 6-10 kt night, I am fighting it out with Olympic level little girls who tack on every puff and on every tack always seem to gain not quite enough speed to be protested.

What do you mean by stiff lower battens? Big boat black Magic battens stiff, Laser boom stiff, or for really stiff I have section of Marstrom aluminum/carbon rudder crossbeam. It does not flex, it just breaks? I have a huge selection of old battens other things.

Extra stiff batten in the lower pocket? Or a second batten in the lower pocket?

If you use a second batten, don't you run the risk of damage to the sail?!

Because you can't cram two battens into the batten pocket protector?!

Plus, who actually sells a stiffer batten?

Earlier, Mike said:


Yes, but... Flattening the sail and twist-off and other sail shaping techniques are just good basics. Not something special, but something everyone ought to know how to routinely do. True?

For the bottom batten I use two of those old Hobie battens that were really stiff. I measure stiffness by pushing down on the batten on a scale. The heavier the reading, the stiffer.
Rick