OK, I got a race in yesterday, but I had a DNF thanks to an undoing tramp. bleh!

But anyway, for the first leg, it was a spinnaker run. Here is was my problem. I was unable to sail as deep as the rest of the spinnaker boats. If I did, my speed would drop to nothing, barely keeping up with the main and jib boats.

Here are my settings for that run, spin hoisted, sheeted, NOT TOO TIGHT, not too loose either. Mast rotated all the way, traveler off center by 6 inches, main sheeted in.

If I wanted speed, I had to sail a much higher course, forcing me to jibe two more times before reaching the mark. This cause me loose the ground gained on the downwind run.

Now upwind is another nightmare. In order to keep speed, I had to point WAY too low. I talked to John McNight (our commodore) he asked me what was wrong? He mentioned I Had to be atleast up to 20 degrees down. Again loosing ground miserably. My settings for this run, jib sheeting off center (didnt mess with it) mainsheet almost block to block, traveler off center by one or two inches.

Hulll did NOT fly going upwind, even when other boats were double trapping(tornado, I20 and H20)

Overall that day the wind was between 10 and 15kts total crew weight was maybe at 350lbs

Keep in mind that I am comparing myself to boats that were all the 20ft range. The lineup was a Gcat6.1, I20, Tornado, two H20's and a stilleto 23.

It sounds like you are a reacher -- both downwind and upwind. You like to go fast. But speed will not get you to the mark fastest if you are sailing a longer course to get there. (It's just more fun to go fast.)

Reminds me of the ferry competition here at Put-in-Bay. The Jet Express is a big catamaran people ferry that goes up to 50 mph and brings people back and forth from Port Clinton to the island. They advertise that they are the "Fastest way to Put-in-Bay."

Interesting, and, in a way, misleading, advertising. They may be the fastest, but they are not the fastest way to get to the Bay.

The other ferry is the Miller Boat Line from Catawba Point to Put-in-Bay. It is a big, heavy, barge-type car ferry that goes much slower than the Jet Express, but it gets you to Put-in-Bay much faster because, even though it goes much slower, it is traveling a shorter distance.

So the fastest way to Put-in-Bay is on the slower boat.

Anyway, what you need to do is to follow and emulate the other boats that are going deeper than you downwind and the boats that are going higher than you upwind.

I would have been DIW

Two things come to mind Robi. First is that you might have needed more draft in your jib and especially main sail when running. The other is the ratio of sail area : total weight.

GARY

Sorry, Robi. I thought you were asking for advice. I won't make that mistake again.

I think my question is geared more towards how the settings on my boat are affecting my course. I did what you said, but it did not help at all. I just stopped dead in the water. It was frustuating.

So your advice was already tried Mary, but with no good results.

By your description of spin sheet tension, I can not tell if you might not have been over sheeted. Generally, if the spin luff is not curling to windward every so often, then you are probably stalling the sail.

And how hard is your mainsheet set? Downhaul? Outhaul? The mainsail should be fully powered up with all the leeward tell tales flowing. Don't flatten or sheet hard until the sail begins to luff.

GARY

It is hard to explain sheet tension.

Yes it was curling, NOT as much as it should have though. I will make sure I notice this more often next time, I will also make sure it does curl a lot more than it did yesterday.
Not block to block, But not very loose either. Again hard to explain sheet tension.

Was loose, very small or minor rinkles on the luff.

this was pretty tight, keeping the mainsail flat on the bottom, or on the boom[/quote]

Leeward tells flowing in wich direction? aft correct? It was raining yesterday so my tell tales were flat agains the sail, so it was really hard to tell.

Another thing I forgot to mention and I am sure if it is important or not.

I did change the stock mainsail halyard ring to a hobie 20 ring. In the photo you can notice the size diferent. a 1-1/2". In essence making my mainsail sit a 1-1/2" lower than normal. Is this a good or bad idea?

photo linked for size
Click here for rings comparisons.

Why did you change the ring ?

There is absolutely no need to do this.



You may miss that when it is blowing dogs of chains.

I would put back the original ring.

You can just tie the halyard to the ring, there is no need to have that small ring inside the larger ring. Best knot to use is a hitch. Make sure that a figure 8 knot is at the end of the halyard and leave it there permanently. Now just make a single hitch to secure the halyard to the ring and hoist the mainsail. The knot will tighten and become very small. When closing in on the hook the halyard will be pushed to the side and thus never be caught between the hook and the baring surface of the ring. This is one area where the KISS principle works very well.

Wouter



Wouter

My brain is just going crazy today. I changed the ring, becuase the smaller one is just imposible to hook and unhook. I have YET to get it to hook when hoisting and unhooking with bringing the main down.

Its a real annoyance to have to flip the boat on the beach ever time I take her out.

When Matt handed over the boat he had the halyard tide to between the ring and the shackle. Dunno the stock system for me, never worked.

You boat is not per se on the wrong course but it appears that it wants to be on that course because somewhere there is something very wrong with your tuning or sail settings.

If the wind is blowing at 15 knots and you can't even raise a hull than for some reason the rig is either stalled OR choked completely or it has been depowered like nobodies business.

Either way, it most likely a crew related error. Sorry, it is not that I wish to be harsh. But the biggest problem of this is that it will be hard to pin point what is going wrong.

Somewhere you are draining all the power from the rig and I expect that you are compounding on it by looking to other boats to much. What do I exactly mean by the last statement. Well, actually nobody starts a spi run very low. Good crews always power up and speed up by sailing high before gently steering down while keeping speed up. When this is done right you can steer low and go fast. BUT ! as soon as you drop of this gentle balance than you HAVE to start all over again. You just CAN'T sit there on the same course as everybody else (who still have speed) and expect to be accellerated back up to their speed. This is the balancing act when going down wind. Now if the sail setting is off to begin with than you may never reach the speeds that will allow you to steer down and sail deep. Such a situation will make you crazy as everybody seems to be flying downwind and no matter how you steer you can't match them.

Now I suspect that somewhere you are choking the mainsail (jib in to tight or slot to small), stalling the main (apparent wind coming from the side rather than front) or depowering the main far to much (far too much prebend, far too much downhaul, a hooking squaretop or a very under rotated mast). And these are just the major influences.

Upwind. This really sounds like choking or hooking to me. On the upwind in 15 knots of wind it will be difficult to sail with a sail that is too flat (flat is fast here). Well in the general sense anyway as you can make it too flat if you really go nutts on the the trim lines.

Where to start ?

Few tips that you may consider trying first :

-1- Seek out a fellow sailor at your club that does well on a modern boat (Don't any H16 or P18 sailors, they won't understand a modern rig like the Blades at all). Ask him to sail with you for an hour or so. And analyse the boat and your sailing skill together. Such a guys will immediately pick up on handling errors and advice you on how to improve on that. Any F18, I-20, F16 or A-cat sailor will do. When appropriet hand him the tiller and let him fine-tune the boat. Note the settings down when back on the beach and use these are a starting point for future sailing and work on handling first.

-2- Search and read all the trim posts on this forum. We have been over this trim/ tuning topic before a few times. Look for a basic setting and use that while working on your sailing skills. I will give a few pointers at the end of this post


Second step ;

It will be bit harsh to take but if the boat is DIW (dead in the water) and you are getting passed by old designs like P18 and H16 than it is the crew who is doing something VERY wrong. It is NOT the boat. No amount of error in the tuning can result in such a big lack of performance, only errors in sail and boat handling (Crew related) can.

Also try to use this to your advantage by finding a general trim (tuning) that is a decent compromise for all sailing conditions and sail with that all the time while FIRST working on your boat and sail handling skills. In time will get a feel for the boat and make relatively large improvements. With this newly acquired feel you can than later start to adjust the tuning and get a few more % performance out of the boat.

General settings for sloop sailing.

Upwind

Mainsheel traveller centred
Main sheet mild
Outhaul, when mild mainsheet tension, the foot must not be more than 2 inches of the boom in the middle
Mast rotation arm pointing to the middle of the daggerboard (not to shroud as is custom on F18's)
Tune both the jib traveller and jib sheet so that the jib does not flap (or curl on the luff) nor touch the spreader arms.


When you speed up you may gently pull the main sheet tighter, if the boat accellerates noticeably than pull it in some more. When she decellerates then sheet some out, when she stays at the same speed than just hold it where it is. Sheet for speed ALWAYS ! NEVER to keep the crew on the trapeze (sheeting for power). The last is a sure way to oversheeting the main and even stalling it.

Possible the jib will start to flap when you speed up. If you pointing angle is good (the same or a just little lower than the others) Than pull the jib sheet a little bit tighter till it stops flapping. If the luff is curling instead of the leech flapping than move the jib traveller just a little in, just enough to stop the curl. (curl here means the luff of the jib being pushed to WINDWARD as a result of the apparent wind backwinding the jib).

Every action should be small and measured and lead to more speed or higher pointing angles. If it doesn't than reverse the action.

If you are going slow and nothing helps than steer lower and try to speed up that way. Often when you have more speed you can head up a little bit again and stay there. So speed will help you point. Don't just steer the boat to the heading everybody else is steering when you are still DIW. The boat will NOT accellerate to the right speed like that. You will have to point lower to pick up some speed first before you can try to approach the heading everybody else is steering. If you ever decellerated to a point that you are going very slow, like when you head up to far for too long, than you have to start all over again. Keeping steering S-curves and try to stay on the egde.

Downwind.

Let out considerable jib sheet but not as much as to make it flap.
Mainsheet traveller out by indeed 6 inches
mainsheet just a little less tight than when going upwind OR the same. (never too loose)
Leave the outhaul in its upwind setting.
Release the mast rotation fully.
Hoist the spi
Sheet the spi and then HEAD UP to gain considerable speed

When you have achieved considerable speed than steer down in a controlled way. All the while the crew trims the spi so that it is very close to collapsing but never actually collapsing. The crew will be sheeting and working continiously, if he doesn't than HE is screwing up the boatspeed by not doing what he should do. The skipper continiously steers S-curves and optimizes speed to point low while NEVER letting the boat stall and fall of the groove and decellerating to a DIW state. If you do come in a DIW state than start ALL OVER again. There is no quick fix so don't try to find one; start all over. So head up high, power up, speed up and than steer down in a controlled way and continue your S-curves again.


Also learn to not look TOO obcessive to your competition. The crews that point highest on the upwind (and lowest on the downwind) with the best speed are all masters of riding the egde, riding the groove. They are very skilled in doing these S-curve manouvres. Speed is the key to pointing high and low. Without speed you WILL be pointing lower on teh upwind and higher on the downwind. If you are going much slower than you the difference in pointing angle can be very big indeed.

Sail boats are not car that just point to where you want to go and press the peddle deeper if you want to go faster. Sail boats require to be optimally positioned and coached into speed. Maybe it can best be compared to car racing on a bendy track. It is not always the driver with the most powerful car that wins here. Some drivers are very skilled at approaching a corner in the right way and keeping the speed up. Instead of just chosing the inside line and using alot of power to speed up again. As a result they go through the corner faster and come out out the corner faster. Sailing is very similar to that. You'll need to find the best way of steering that boat and finding that optimal groove.


Hope this helps

All right.

Some things seem to work on my boat just fine while on others they don't ! Ask Sam for more details


Wouter

ahhaha Yeah, on my downwind leg, I totally forgot about the JIB, that must have been my problem. When we rounded the mark, we did not even had to sheet the jib. By then it was TOO late. LOL Oh well next race.

As far as my post, I am absolutley convinced that the errors are mine and my crews. Not the boats. Thats why I ask the questions.

Robi,

One the best advice ever given to me was to get a little notebook and make a short sailing report each time after I went out. Note down boat trim and settings and how the sailing went. Only change 1 or 2 things to the boat between reports and test sail it thorough with the new settings. This way you hone in on the right way of sailing and tuning the boat in a quick and easy way. This way it is very methodical. It really works.

You should try that as well.

Wouter

Ive been wanting to do that, but I need to get a log book, and I always forget. Hopefully I will get one and start logging.

Hi Robi,
Wouter`s comments on finding the groove downwind are great, nothing much to add. You need to set the spin, sheet in, sheet in main & jib, as if going upwind, then head up until the boat accelerates so much that it forces you to bear off, in 15knots this shoud definitely happen. Then need to steer up or down to just keep the weather hull dry. It could be that you are not heading up ENOUGH to start with, apparent wind should push you down so you are reaching deep, but it feels like you`re beating. If you don`t head up at the beginning of the leg you will not build enough apparent wind to accelerate, and will just sail along slowly relative to someone who has got it right.
On upwind, I find that I can`t point much like some of my opposition, but I foot for speed and often get to the mark ahead, some of us are just 'footers'. Suggest you call up Matt and ask for some advice on settings for mast rake etc, that can make a big difference. Also ask Phill, I`m sure he`ll give you some basic numbers that will work. Then you need to just go out and try different stuff at different times, noting how it changes the power.
Mast rotator slightly out of the right setting can kill your pointing upwind, suggest you lead all controls out to the beam ends, remember my previous post when I was asking the questions ?
If things are not working well, need to change ONE setting at a time and see if it helps.
Sounds like you lacked power, need to use a bit less prebend with that much weight on board, a bit more mast rotation.
You could also be hooking the leech, this kills upwind pointing and speed. Try ease off the mainsheet a foot or so if you are struggling with this again.
Also need to get your crew to lose 40lbs .

You sail downwind differently depending on the wind, and the boat will feels completely different depending on the mode you are in.

For me there are basically 3 modes, low and slow, high and hot, and one in between.

Low and slow, you are running deep, for me this is the toughest mode to sail down wind. I have a masthead fly that keeps me where I need to be (apparent wind directly off the beam) most put tell tails on the spin bridles and sail it just like a sloop. You can sneak it up a little higher to the get hooked up on a wave, but get back in form when things settle. It takes a lot of patients and discipline because it feels like [censored]. Trim the main until the backside of the tell tails are flying perfectly. Keep the main in trim, it will KILL you if it’s not right. Keep in mind in light air you don’t need a lot of mainsheet tension (backstay).

High and hot – this one is easy. Put the skipper and crew on the same side and wildthing it. You need a fair amount of breeze for this mode. Depending on your team weight, you may want to have the crew trap off the back of the boat. On the F18 this is critical at times because the F18 tends to dig for the bottom in some conditions. I don’t know if you’ll have the same issue on the F16. If you find yourself digging for the bottom down wind, stick the crew or the skipper on the trap and see how it feels. Again you don’t want to ignore the main, keep tension but don’t stall the sail!

The third mode is a combination of the two above. You are in a wildthing mode but the crew is still low. The trick is knowing when to switch gears. Typically for me, I’ll pull the crew to the high side if I’m having to drive off sharply when hit by a puff to keep the boats attitude correct. If you find yourself pulling down hard, think about getting the crew on the high side or on the trap. Don’t ignore the main keep it in trim, I may have mentioned that before.

In ALL modes the crew NEVER looks away from the spinnaker. The crew is constantly trimming the spin. If you ask your crew for anything other than to bring it in or let it out then your only hurting yourself. Bottom line is; if the crew looks away for one second and the spin doesn't colapse then it's over trimmed and you're going slow.

The crew is king downwind!

That’s how I do it.

Dave

The way I explain downwind settings in my seminars is condensed to the following:
Put wind telltales on the tip of the bow sprit, on each bridle fly and on the sidestays.
1) Start sailing downwind with the bow sprit telltale at about 90 degrees to the boat. Trim the spin so the spin telltales are flowing (for sure the leeward side)
2) Trim in the jib until it stalls (backside telltales not flowing aft) and ease until the backside telltales flow.
3) Bring in the mainsail traveler until lower mainsail telltales stall, then ease until they flow.
4) Sheet the main until the upper telltales stall, then ease until they flow.
5) Use a laundry marker and mark all sheets. That way you already know all the settings and can easily get your rig in the ball park. Minor adjustment from there.

When sailing you will see the bowsprit telltale is still at 90 degrees, the bridle telltales will show a closer reach and the sidestay telltales will appear as a close reach or even upwind.

Once the sails are set that all the sail telltales will react the same way. So, you simply have to read one set and you are reading them all. Now you simply have to sail by the sail telltales.

Good luck,
Rick