The race last night was one of those light air races that was so bad, you remember it for years. It was so light, in spots, I started thinking about rigging new controls with a bungee and the strap off my life jacket or anything that will give me at least foot/min more speed.

On a downwind leg with some Sunfish near that I could use as a reference, I decided to stand up and pretend I was a jib. I have tried it in the past but, without a tiller extension, it is hard to stand by the mast and pretend you are a big powerful jib going wing on wing while steering with one foot. In 3-5 it made a positive difference. Not much but it was repeatable. In less than 3 it was better to sit and control the mast with your feet.

It is something to try. If nothing else, it let's you standup and stretch out a little and you can torture the Sunfish. "just standing up, stretching my legs. Oh, in this wind you are crouched over in the that little ****. That must really suck."

Can you do the Hobie 17 thing?

Stand on the hull, forward of the tramp, holding the tiller and forestay.

Good times...

Mike

On the Wave that would be:

Stand on the front crossbeam, hold the shroud one hand, the forestay in the other and steer with your teeth

Too funny. It's amazing how little boat there is in front of the front crossbar of a Wave!

Mike

I found 2 other interesting thing you can do with a tiller.

Downwind in light air, you can keep your weight forward and over rotate your mast with your foot. (Is it legal to put a foot rest on the mast? I have an old over rotation plate from a A Class, that would be just perfect to rest my foot on.)

When tacking you can move aft to tack, then slide forward and use your foot to help your mast rotate over to the new side. Seems to help you get up to speed a little better.

Why don't y'all plan to attend some of our bigger regattas and see how you do with these "tricks" against some top sailors in the class?

I think basic boat handling and smart sailing will get you closer to the front.

This is humor, mostly. I would love to attend some regattas but home/work/ life makes it difficult to even take Wed night off these days.

The tricks range from known to standard in other Classes. Some are in Rick's books. Others are unique to classes/rigs/rules from days gone by. It just that not having a tiller made it really hard to even try them on the Wave. Adding hardware to a sailboat can have unexpected consequences but when the hardware is as basic as a tiller you are pretty much limited to seeing if it some old techniques will now pay off.

You must at least keep up on the vocabulary. Otherwise you risk sounding like a spectator I heard right after the Tornados introduced the "Wild Thing". When she heard some of the boats were doing the Wild Thing on the course she said "but it must be just the mixed crew…, otherwise they are both men…., they're married…., I didn't think they..., IN PUBLIC!" She got really pissed when people started laughing


If anyone needs info drop me a PM.

I have a hard enough time knowing what to do with my hands and butt (body position), now you're telling me that I need to involve my feet too???

I thought the whole point of adding the tiller was to take my feet out of the equation?


Mike

I understand completely.

However, it is interesting to see the comments on this and the Hobie forum about boat speed and pointing ability improvements posted by folks that never race, particularly against other well sailed Waves.

There is a hugh learning curve that even good sailors in other boats encounter (same is true of the H16, BTW) when actually making a Wave get around a race course quickly. It can be really humbling, but results come quickly.

Tricks and gadgets gain inches. We often see people one or two LEGS behind in a 30 minute race. There is that much difference between "well sailed" and not so well sailed.

Any waves planning to race the summer sizzler in Daytona?

I would do it if you can round up a few more.