I recently received news that the 4 taipans shipped from Oz (3 from South Australia, 1 from Victoria) have arrived safely and are now sailing on a lake near Shanghai. The boats have been purchased by European expats. They have been fitted with Goodall spinnaker systems, but are using the original jib set-up. The lake has predominantly very light winds so the kites will be essential. Apparently their arrival has created a lot of interest where sailing is only just taking off as a sport. The high import duty added to the cost of importation unfortunately.

Our loss is their gain.


Phil.

It certainly made a hole in the Taipan fleet in South Australia and they will be sorely missed. Hope they are as successful in China as they were here.

but with the producer still present, it should not become that difficult to fill your hole with new stuff soon! :-)

regarding activities in Shanghai, I don't know the record of the other boats but regarding mine, my preowner told me that it was lying for three years unused in a shed, so this will be not that difficult to beat with some more activities the boat in future will see... :-)

greetings from a warm east!

The problem for the Taipans here is that one of the sailors of those cats (one very competitive one at that) has already gone to an A class and the one that I think that you are referring to (kept in a shed) has been sailing a 505 but with big problems finding a crew, so his contribution is not missed as much, (although he did bring his boat out occasionally for a few major events and was up there with the top end of the fleet), and I don’t think the third one has shown any action in replacing that cat with anything else yet. So at present it seems that we have lost those sailors from the Tiapan fleet. I can't speak for the cat that went from Victoria, but, the three from South Australia were all very good competitive cats in excellent condition, they could form the nucleus for some close racing in China.

And thanks to one particular expat they ending up with Taipans, even though his first choice was the A-cat. He reasoned better a Taipan than a boat from one of the big builders even if none is an A-cat. It will be a little of a downgrade for him as he used to sail an A-cat with spi and how can you get better than that ? But I fully respect his quick thinking that a small step down is always to be preferred over a big step down. And a compromise was reached over the Taipans.





By now I've probably sailed more in strong winds and severe chop/waves than the bulk of F16 sailors and I think the spinnaker is even MORE essential in these harsh conditions. I really dislike going downwind in these conditions without the kite up. The kite really calms the boat down and keeps the bows up. I find it alot less demanding to steer in blow under a kite. Also the power of the kite just pulls it through any dive (if such a thing still happens). In defense of the orginal Taipan I must say that its bows pop back up nearly everytime but under a spinnaker it just dips its bows in far less often and when it does than less so. I think it is one of the more important keypoints in the F16 framework. The kite simply makes the F16's sail more relaxed on the downwind legs even though they are sailing faster as well.

I find the spinnaker to be the single biggest improvement of the standard Taipan design, ESPECIALLY in harsh conditions. Sure enough it takes some guts to hoist it in such conditions, but not because of what is going to happen but more because of what one thinks is going to happen with such a doubling of sailarea. Once a crew has scaled such a psychological threshold you will see that they will always pull a kite in harsh conditions. Always. Same with the F18's and F20's. Also the F18's can become a bit strenious to control well without a kite.

The perception that a kite is nice for light airs only is only halve the story. Actually the kites worst area of performance is really the "very light winds" region. Up the point of where the kite fills up nicely you stand a very good chance of outperforming the others simply by NOT setting a kite and concentrating on keeping the airflow attached over the mainsail and jib. Nothing is as bad for that as a kite that is limping. But after it fills nicely there are only positive benefits from having a kite. Well maybe the extra lines on the tramp are the single drawback.

Best zone's for a kite are -1- medium winds (huge speed increases) -2- Harsh conditions (noticeable improved control of the boat)




This is indeed very good news. In Europe we are seeing similar rising interest in these 16 foot boats. I just hope we can presuade the builders, and AHPC in particular, to soon do something with it.

Regards,

Wouter

Are you Dirk W.? If so I spoke to you during dinner at the training prior to the ijsselmeer race. I recall you where Charles's crew and talked about importing F16s to China.

A quick tale on this--This past Spring I joined in with the Fresno Yacht Club on one of their Sat. morning races a the local lake just for some fun. I had little time to rig and was already missing the first race. There was a stiff 15-18 breeze with some whitecaps. I decided to just throw up the mainsail and skip the extra rigging time for the spinnaker.

Off I went. Upwind the Taipan absolutely blazed in pure cat rigged form. Ah, but downwind I had a tough time keeping the bows up. I travelled out past the footstraps and still went Wild downwind. Very fast, but I had to keep my weight way back. Finally I stuffed the bows hard enough to cartwheel. Point is, I've never had that problem with the spinnaker in similar conditions.

hi tony!
yes, i am!
nice to meet you here again!
how is charles doing? his f18-transpac should be on start soon, right?

update from the lake, we thought was so windless and simple to sail on...

today we had 15 - maybe 20 knots in the gusts (a little hard to judge but I would say it was a strong wind but still far away from much harder conditions I have seen so far).

we went out with a taipan 4.9 with a new ashby main, 17.5m² spi and decided to leave the jib at home. was a good choice! we just left the calmness of the harbour bay when the first gust hit us running downwind... I sailed the 4.9 before only alone and did not yet experienced that much wind with the boat, still had the feeling this boat likes pitch poling very much and today my worst expectations were surpassed! this boat is a nose-diving bitch! we (150kg) were pressed as far as possible at the rear beam, traveller 85% eased, quite some twist in the main shape and any small wave we hit the question: will we stay or will we go? with the spi up things (as expected) becalmed, still it was not really possible to press hard as you always got full speed stopped in the next little wave head...

after sailing a lot of different designs (although mostly 18 and 20 ft) this boat is the worst downwind sailor I have in my memories! I would definitely say the boat is missing definitely some more volume in the bows beneath the waterline! I just sailed a hobie tiger in a 7 beaufort wind a couple of months ago and although I would say the hobie has also this ugly nose-diving tendency, with the 4.9 it seems to threaten you already 2 beauforts earlier!

regarding the behaviour of the boat for me sailing today was more nightmare than fun, although I naturally enjoy these kinds of conditions. but here I had the feeling boyer has put something together terribly wrong and miscalculated either the volume of the front sections and/or the position of the mainbeam!? (maybe already less volume in the rear would help) just to not raise wrong speculations: we were using significant mast rake, high rig tension, noticeable brebend in the must and we didn’t' even had the jib with us!

looking at the theory the story gets some reasons: you have a 4.9m short boat (89% of the length of a f18) with a 8.5m tall and quite heavy aluminium mast(95% length of a f18 mast) and a hull shape design with narrow V-shape bows dating back to the 80's cat design times...

still I read everywhere what a superior boat the 4.9 is and just recently an Australian sailor visited us totally convinced (when asked if it wouldn't be time for AHPC to come up with something more modern like a Capricorn F16)that the new F16 hull shapes (Blade, Stealth etc.) wouldn't do better than the Taipan.

Regarding my experiences today, I can only hope they do! In the A-cat the flat underwater shaped (planning) Flyer have replaced all V-shaped Auscat MK4. When Bim developed the Javelin the design proofed to be much more nose-diving than the earlier Bim 2000... so it always depends on details in the lines.

Tomorrow we expect more wind. Will give the nose-diving bitch another try, but already start so see myself in a shed in winter flexing open the hulls to add some volume in the bows beneath the waterline...

at least, I think after wanting to call my boat 'flexcat' (due to the noticeable little stiffness of the platform), 'nose-diving bitch' becomes an alternative... specially when thinking of the big head mainsail I just ordered...

Of course I raised my mainbeam by 25 mm and told AHPC they should really consider this mod.

Having said this, you should really not sail with a full sail like that. Pull it tight and make it flat. Also put your crew on the wire and place him (or her) at the rearbeam or (when needed) at the stern. Have them use the footstraps or have them hang on to your lifevest.

Thing with the Taipan is that when sailing 2 up in a blow on a reach the crew should be at the rearbeam or behind it. Sitting next to one-another between rearbeam and side stay is not what the boat likes. That way you still have too much weight forward of where you want it to be.

On other course you really shouldn't have a problem (upwind) ; or flying the spinnaker will sort things out significantly (downwind).

So learn as a reflect ; reaching in a blow => flat sails and crew in trapeze and behind the skipper or to the rear of the skipper.

Else she will make like a submarine.





Fly the spinnaker on the downwind legs; in all conditions. This will make a big difference.

I can name a few other makes both 17 and 18 foot that have the same issues when sailing downwind in a blow.





I found that you really have to flatten the Taipan rig or else she will take a run with you. Also you should really be more sharp in steering here. When sailing in blow on these legs without a spi, you really need to start baring away as soon as you feel her accellerating. If you do it ride and with care you can ride her on the groove. But it must be said that the groove is definately a fine line when not flying the spinnaker.

Personally, I'm always pulling the kite no matter what the conditions or wether I'm alone or with crew. These 16 footers really do like sailing with a set kite, it makes a huge difference in my experience. The boat just calms down significantly without losing speed.

When under spi then learn to use the main traveller to quickly depower in the gusts.





Sail her differently then you are used too. Sure enough all points you raise will help and will/are incorporated in the newer designs, however the Taipan can be driven hard when you build up enough skill.





Do the math yourself and see that the "enertia to hull length" ratio is exactly the same as on the F18's. You are looking for easily ways out. The hull shape is definately less refined than what can be had with newer designs but that is not the whole story.

A said earlier, part of the trick is to get the crew weight behind to skipper (crew needs to be on the wire). It differs from the F18's here because, well, most of the shortening of the hulls is down at the sterns. So rearbeam and such are closer to the centre of bouyancy than on a F18.




Well, I don't agree with the Aussie sailor on this aspect although you may find that the difference is less big than you think (or hope for). There is actually a quite powerful rig on the F16's and the wingmast rig results in a sail that is cut relatively full. If you don't flatten it with leech tension and downhaul then it will develop lots and lots of power in big wind.

Derotate the mast fully if you feel out of control (and aren't flying the spi). Let the mast top bend away to lee, this will really depower the boat when the sails are pulled flat. Don't worry about the large deflections, the mast can take it.





Ohh, I do have a larger squaretop main instead of the standard Taipan main. I can actually flatten my mainsail with my mainsheet when sailing in big wind without worrying that I'm hooking or sailing without twist. The fat head will just move leeward in such big winds no matter how much the leech tension.

Maybe that is helping too (in my personal situation).





I can tell you right now that you'll gain less by this then by giving your depowering techniques and weight placing techniques a workover.

Also I found that you can bury her without pitchpoling if both of the crew stay were they are. My crew and I sometimes just jam the boat through the waves after having found a secure hold. Alot of spray will be thrown-up but we keep up speed. It is a big scare/thrill, I'll admit too that. It is not my most beloved way of sailing the Taipan, but sometimes the off set mark is quite some ways away and you just have to blast on a beam reach to it.





Alright !

Well, we'll just let you spend some more time on the boat in these winds and discover the tricks. Actually, I also do some landyachting and when a gust hits there then you better be quick with steering or you'll hit the beach flat with 80 km/h.

So in summary (when not flying a spi).

Pull sails really flat, don't sail with too much twist.
Derotate mast rotation.
Put crew on trapeze behind skipper or to the rear of skipper. Fit chicken lines or footstraps when prefered.
Carefully steer up till you see the upper leeward tell tale starting to stream, the boat will immediately accellerate, start baring off as soon as you feel the boat accellerate. Get a feel for the dynamic of this, when you do you can keep the boat on the groove with small s-curves without burying the bows.
Learns to steer properly when passing wave. The boat will seriously accellerate when running down a wave, more than F18's and such. You'll NEED to compensate for that by baring off slightly. When climbing up the next wave you'll have to luff a bit again. Try to get the right rithm here. Learn to steer by inspection and mental prediction of what will happen and not only steer to correct an occuring mishap. By then you are too late.

OR !

Pull a spinnaker and sail with that.


And ohhh, when sailing the Taipan. Time your baring off from upwind to downwind carefully and synchronize with the waves and gusts OR CREW. This is the most difficult manouvre on a Taipan in a blow and rough conditions. Mostly because you have too little speed and a too sharp increase in drive when baring off to a beam reach.

I'm trying to train me crew to instictively move to the rear of me while staying on the trapeze after I get in and steer to a beam reach. This should work. Up till now however, my crew was too unstable on the wire to try this trick.

Give it a try,

Good luck

Wouter

Wouter,

Excellent post, lots of great input.

Why does twist in heavy air create more power/drive? Normally I think of twist as spilling air from the leech so effectively depowering. I also think of twist and sail fullness as two relatively independent things since you can have a relatively flat sail (prebend + DH + derotated mast + OH) with twist (eased mainsheet). So in a power spectrum why is the order of decreasing power not: 1)full sail + no twist, 2) Full sail + twist, 3) Flat sail + no twist, 4) Flat sail + twist?

Also, doesn't the sheeting angle becomes more narrow (twitchy) with a flat sail with no twist? The relative lack of drive combined with wind shifs and gusts just adds to that problem (instead of accellerating in gusts doesn't boat just heel more)? Now I have no experience with the wingmast or a mast that flexible so maybe automatic depowering makes things behave somewhat differently than I've experience. If you still advise sailing with a flat sail with no twist in heavy conditions (no spi) do you primarily stay in the groove by steering (continuously trimming the traveller doesn't seem like it would be an option since on many boats the traveller sticks under load)?

If you're sailing a Taipan singlehanded in those conditions, will skpper weight all the way back still keep the bows up? Would you sail with spi singlehanded in those conditions?

Finally, regarding burying the bows without spi, I'd appreciate if you could share your experience/knowlege of how much differently the more modern designs such as the Blade behave in these conditions compared with the Taipan. With the Blade is it necessary to sail the boat as you described (flat sail, little twist, weight all the way back)? Is that true both single and double handed?

Thanks,

Jerry

Dirk,

You may want to investigate the structural integrity of your particular boat. The 4.9 is...should be...very stiff unless something is loose, soft or broken.

to save the reputation of the taipan (we were not sailing my boat that day, but the one of my friend (who wanted to learn spi-sailing which was the reason we left the jib at home to give him more overview and clearance what the spi is doing)), while it looked that he was using the same mast setup as me, sunday I measured his rake again and it became obvious that it was much to less (10 cm BEFORE the aft beam instead of 10 cm behind!). when changing this crucial setup for sailing on sunday (we had less wind in the gusts)already we could feel a much better balanced boat with much less nosediving tendencies. still I believe more modern designs (which are well balanced (ex. hobies fx one as well as bimares javelin are good examples of how not to do it! ) which put the volume in front of the frontbeam AND below the waterline have surely a significant better behaviour in those conditions.

regarding the 'flexcat'-issue, I think it first depends to which boat you relate it to... a glued beam full carbon A-cat (and surely the nowadays new generations like the new 2005 a+e flyer or bimares carbon jx and specially bunkenburgs honeycomb nikita) offer a much stiffer less torsioning platform compared to the 25 kg 60 cm shorter but also several years older glassfibre taipans 4.9 where its aft beam seams already to be a big part allowing it. (the frontbeam is also a bad profile for handling torsion moments)

but furthermore I really discovered that the outside screws of the aftbeam started to untight themselves... which is a little scaring... and of cours a reason for much more movement of the platform. how hard do you tighten them?

in principal you already can test the torsionstiffness of a platform on land when the platform is lying on a plane surface with the afts supported and than you lift one bow and watch how many cm you have to lift it till the other bow is moving up also. surely forces with one or two crews are much different but a platform already not very convincing in this simple platform test will not impress you later...

Loose bolts will certainly make the platform flex alot. I noticed this on my own platform. I now keep the bolt really tight and have good stiffness now. Pretty much as tight as you can get them with a ring wrench (?name) without risking damaging the head. Now I don't notice any flexing at all when on the water.

Wehn you do the measurements on flexing the way you suggested than the Standard Taipan should flex less than the A Tiger of Nacra F18, but just a little more then a Tornado and very stiff platforms like the Cirrus F18's. Both Stealth F16 and Blade F16's are stiffer than all others except the Cirrus F18 and Blade F18. The Blade Blade F18 is of course the stiffest boat that was measured this way (25 mm flexing).

In principle the Taipan is certainly not the stiffest boat but a still in the middle of its competitors. If it is noticeable less stiff then this then something is causing this. Maybe excessive sealant kit between the beams and hulls ? Or as you yourself noticed, loose bolts.





Actually, now that I'm always sailing with a spinnaker I've reraked my mast back to 10 cm in front of the rearbeam ! As I'm now depending on other techniques to keep the boat under control. I think I like the current setup, but indeed you will have to pull the kite in big winds, not pulling it is not really an option unless you accept sailing really deep with mediocre speed.

Wouter

Jerry,




Because in order to have this twist you have too lower the leech tension (mainsheet) and as a result your mainsail become fuller than you want it too.

I can't overstate it enough that the Taipan sails are cut relatively full (luff round) because of the flexible mast. You really have to bend that mast to get the sails to flatten out. Just prebend and downhaul aren't enough, certain not when prebend is set at a good average for all conditions. This is one reasons why the Taipan mast likes the larger squaretop sails. Now you can really use the mainsheet to flatten the mainsail without worrying to much about sailing with the wrong twist.

So yes, Twist in itself will reduce heeling and drive, but the methode used to induce it (lower sheet tension) has an opposite effect (increasing fullness) than full compensates the positive effect of twist. In the end you win nothing or even make things worse. Note, other boat types my have a totally different characteristic. I'm only talking about the Taipan and Superwing wingmasts here.




I never encountered this as a problem.





Not really. You will have to find the right trim but when you do then all things go well. As a matter of fact, if you do it right you will find that the boat accellerates better and sails alot faster. Almost nothing makes you go as slow as when you are fighting to keep the rig under control. Of course we are talking about big wind here. Tuning and trim may well be different in other windstrengths. (and in my experience they are)

How can I explain this best ? Speed is everything. If you loose it then you can get into trouble. I found that lots of twist will bite when you drop of the groove and slow down. The sail will then try to broach the boat. It can get lots of weather helm right at a time where you DON'T want it. Same for a loose outhaul. I actually took a while before I found a setting that I was happy with.

Pretty much when I'm sailing without a spi on a downwind leg I increase twist when I'm looking for drive. In the moment I see the upper tell tale on the leeside stream the boat will power up noticeably.

Does this mean that I never dump the main ? No, when I have too I have too and will do that, but I always found that the effect is less than what I'm looking for and often I make the safe with only the smallest margins and often the boat does a breaching turn on me. I can really feel the fuller mainsail loading up the rudders. So I've learned to keep the sail flat as it can be in such strong winds and be in time with baring off. Because frankly if you are not then you are really too late. Under spinnaker this whole thing as described above vanishes, at least in my experience. Here you just the maintraveller run out and have the spi sail induce some leehelm that in combination with the rudders steers the boat down quickly. Of course by using ONLY the traveller the mainsail stays very flat indeed.

This is one of the reason why I think a spinnaker sail it an absolute requirement on a Formula 16 boat. This just completes the package so well.

If you don't have a traveller that runs smoothly under load, then get one asap.




I didn;t say "no twist" : I said "not too much twist" . A little twist is good, about 200 mm to 300 mm at the very top when using a large square top (less when using a small head) but not more. From the trampoline this amount of twist will look like a little twist. But if you have a choose then choose a flat mainsail over the right amound of twist. You rather have to top of the mainsail stall and loose some speed than have it fully powerup and pushing you over or inducing alot of weather helm.




(again without a spi downwind in heavy winds) Yes I primarily use steering to stay in the groove. I only slack the mainsail when I need to safe the boat (dump the mainsail) in a last ditch effort or when I want more power (increasing twist and draft of the top). When I strongly accellerate and am able to bare off in time than I pull the mainsheet in to flatten the top in reaction to the decrease in angle of atack and the increase in apparent wind.

So I do trim my mainsail continiously on these legs (without a spi) but I ONLY use the rudders to control the boat. I seriously don't think any other control is available in these conditions. If you fail with steerage then your are in trouble and only last resort options are then available to you. You must be aware that F16's are high performance boats with lots of speed and quick accelleration. Just as with sports cars you don't have much time or margin for anything else than get it right first time. Example; If I bare off strongly in these winds when both of us are on the trapeze than I can have both of us waterskying along side the boat at some 1 to 2 mtr distance from the luff hull. At these speeds the boat just arcs into a turn that quickly. Sometimes we do this for fun, but I have lost a crew that way once and one time even lost myself overboard that way.




If I sit inboard then I cramp myself up against the rearbeam and pin myself to the trampoline by resting my rearfoot on the traveller mount and having the other foot stand on the toe strap. When needing extra control I sometimes throw the tiller extension overboard and steer by the crossbar or the little tillers that are on the stocks. Sometime I hook on as well so I can suspend my upper body overboard. This seems sufficient for most of the time although in teh really rought stuff it can be a really wet ride.

When trapezing than you should really be behind the rearbeam with a chickenline or a foot strap.

Trick here is that by sitting inboard you reduce the righting moment and thus the boat will heel noticeable sooner and therefor sooner than the bows are really pushed down. In this situation I steer the boat so that the luff hull is just clear of the water and that keeps me away from a dive. Think of it this way, I'll encounter heeling (and a capsize) sooner than a full head-on dive. Although when overtaking a wave the wrong wave you can still bury the bows all the way. Although it must be said that you will survive pretty well if you stay where you are and not let the boat head-up too far. Right now I'm at a stage where I know exactly how far I can bury the front part of the hulls without any serious decelleration or trouble. It is actually pretty far and I'm enclosed in a cloud of spray as long as you don't allow yourself to be slid forward or go into a broach. And of course if you got heard enough to keep the mainsheet relatively tight. I sometimes let out a little bit of mainsheet, just a little, but I'm not sure wether that is during the dive or right after it, during the recovery phase, to accellerate up to speed again. Of course I'm covered in water spray so I don't really know in what stage of the dive I am. By now I largely steer and trim by feel. And again I wish to underline that flying the spinnaker changes this whole situation and very much to the better.






Most definately. I really prefer the behaviour of the boat under spinnaker over the behaviour without it. No matter how strong the winds, when I racing, I will pull the spi on the downwind legs.

The only exception is a squall coming through so that I decide to abandon the race altogether and limp back to shore in survival mode while sailing really deep.

The first times when pulling the spi singlehandedly in those conditions you will be really nervous and maybe a little bit scared. But quickly you'll appreciate the improved balance and control that you'll have because of the spinnaker. One note though. Make sure that you are really comfortable with singlehanding the spi in medium conditions before you try it in the really rough stuff. Because in the rough you really don't have room for any serious errors. Make sure your snuffer system work well without hangups. Because a hangup in the rough conditions is really something you can do without. Although when you are really comfortable with the spi in medium conditions you will have the skills and peace of mind to sort such a hang-up out when it occures in big winds. At least I was.





Stealth F16 with T-foils is just dandy, no problems at all. The bloody fins works excellent in these conditions.

Blade F16, I haven't sailed that boat nearly enough or in such strong conditions to comment on that. But I expect it too be more relaxed, although less so than one may think. I've learned on my own Taipan F16 that a big difference can be made by handling the rig in the right way. This difference is large enough to fully overpower even the improved modern hullshapes when handling your rig the wrong way in the really strong stuff. This is something that is often forgotten by sailors. A lamborgini diabolo maybe the best the car in the way of road stability but if you do not handle the gaspedal in just the right way then you will most certainly spin-out the very first corner you make and roll the car. These high performance machines just have sufficiently powerfull engines to do that. Every car racer will tell you that pedal control is essential in cornering. F16's and their rigs are exactly the same. If you try to overtake a wave with a rig that is still fully "ON" then you are simply asking to bury your bows and mainbeam.

I'm getting long winded here but I really want to say the following. I'm really coming to the realisation that an F16 must be flown like a very agile little vehicle. You must steer and steer and steer your way around obstacles and challenges presented at different locations. On other vehicles you can just steer to a straight line and crash through such things like superman. F16's must be riden for more elegantly. Far more like an old martial art artist who is never at the place where an attack is directed too. AWho always steps out of the way just in time. I'm really beginning to enjoy this way of sailing her as well. Man, a few times now I've sailed through the lee side of boats like the I-20's to overtake them. You must continiously look forward and plot a path through crashing waves and oncoming gusts and steer to that. And the F16's really do have the sharpness of steerage and accelleration to do just that. Also of decelleration, I can fully stop the boat within one and one and a halve boatlengths simply by jamming her upwind when I'm at full speed. Almost like a surfboard. Then when I want too I can accellerate back to a high speed in about the same distance. This annoys the [censored] out of my fellow sailors on the start line.

For me it really was changing into another state of mind. And together with my crew I'm still changing the way we sail this boat. But one thing is certain. Both skipper and crew are continiously working to sail her and she likes that. I always did like the team effort that underlies the sailing of skiffs and other true high performance monohulls and now I have that feeling on a beach catamaran. I really enjoy that.





Hard to say for me. I don't really expect much difference here between the two makes actually. In the handling of the rig I mean. I do expect the fuller hullshape to help out. But like I said earlier, the wingmast rig is powerful enough to overpower any improvement in the hulls when the rig is handled in the wrong way. It is a high performance boat and 20 knots of wind or more is alot.

In defense of the rig I must really underline that it is really easy to depower if you know which tools use. Often these are handled differently from more conventional rigs. To name one example : mast rotation.

I really should write up my experiences in a trim/tuning article some day. When I have enough spare time that is.

Regards,


Wouter

Wouter,

Thanks so much for sharing so much great information.
I really learned a lot (as always) from your post.
I've got a lot to look forward to learn!

Regarding the twist vs flat sail vs power issue:

I understand what you are saying and was trying to extrapolate from my experience with a stiffer mast (Hobie 17) which is totally different; in that case tensioning the leach doesn't really flatten the sail at all, it just powers up the leach. I look foreward to experiencing what you describe on the superwing mast.

The only thing I'm still trying to come to grips with is that in windsurfing (whose sails share a lot in common with square top bendy mast catamaran rigs) in high wind, after applying a lot of downhaul, what you get is a bent mast which flattens the sail AND produces a lot of twist and it is this combination that gives the best control, CE stability, lowest drag, highest speed, and best gust response. So I'm still not clear on why with a high performance catamaran rig why you wouldn't be best off using DH (+/- prebend) to bend the mast and flatten the sail and still allow moderate twist. On windsurfing rigs, the twist does not add power and in fact it reduces power significantly along with lowering drag. It also effectively reduces sail area since as you bend the mast the twist increased both further into the body of the sail from the leach and also further down the sail, which really is analogous to reefing in a sense. Plus, it lowers the sail's CE reduding heeling forces in big winds. Have you tried getting a flat sail with just DH (+/- prebend) in big winds while using moderate twist and if so how did it compare?

Thanks again for sharing so much great experience and insight.

Jerry

Let me first start by telling everybody a little story.

Last year I thought I knew a thing or two about sailing a beach catamaran. Sure enough I wasn't a great sailor, but had no issues controlling a boat.

Then the DCC came along and Daniel van Kerckhof proposed to do a trim/tune/sail clinic on a day that was unsuited to make a long distance sail away. I was stressed out beyond believe, for other reasons, but in hintsight this was the most valuable day of 2004. We had eatern (off shore) wind which were fully thermal, overhere that means it contains massive gusts and serious shifts while the seastate is rather flat. Boat control in these conditions is everything. So here I am with a national champ on my boat as crew and we score what thought was good speed, although the gusts were hitting us like canonballs. Boat went from flat on the water to raising its luff hull to the vertical in 2 seconds. Had to dump the main many times to save the boat. Then Daniel gets on board with me, and my crew jumps [censored] to sail with Daniels girlfriend. He says to me pull the mainsail tight, what I do or at least I think I do. Boat is jumpy and hard to control. He says to me :"pull it really tight !" So with the help of my pride I manage to pull another little bit out. Boat feels really powered-up I think we are doing well but my mind is really with the next gust that will make our lives very interesting. Daniel says give me the sheet, what I do, and he pulls out another 2 feet out of the mainsheet. The boat settles down and accellerates. But apparently not enough to Daniels tast as he hands back the sheet and starts to tighten the outhaul (which was very difficult to do with the system I was using then), the downhaul and he brings in the mastrotation in more. He gets out again and I hand him the mainsheet. And to my amazement were doing 150 % of the speed we're doing before, at least it felt that way, with the boat much calmer then before. Sure enough we get hit by a few gusts and shifts and when I was quick enough to head-up we kept up speed. When I wasn't, then Daniel only sheeted the main out a little bit just enough to give me time to react. This was all when going upwind, but it opened my eyes. The remainder of the DCC event I kept asking questions of everyone (also Greg Goodall who was there as well) and I tried to learn as much as I could about how to handle this rig.

Like I said for me it was a really entlighting time and it taught me to see the mainsheet and downhaul really as a combo that need to be handled simultaniously. Considering my prebend was waaay off back then and that my rudders were wrongly alighned it will be no surprise that over the last months I found new and even better settings.

Maybe the single thing that I was taught at the DCC was that you mustn't allow yourself to think that you have reached the maximum a Taipan can do. It sure helped that both Daniel and Anna-liese wooped out behinds with such margins that we fully realized how many years and years of fine-tuning and building up skill we have to do to get to their level of speed.

Actually this all made me remember a thing I once said to friend when a Dutch Formula 1 driver hit the gravel again. He said that this guy was not racing to his potential because the car was inferiour to the others, I said that all the best drivers grew through the ranks because they could make an inferiour car excell beyond itself. That at this level it was rather a question of having the right driver over having the right car and that this Dutch driver just wasn't good enough and his frequent spins were proving that. Never suspected that I would be subjected to the same critisism and that it would help me personally so much.




Please note that I'm personally not there yet myself. I fully expect to spend a few more seasons to get really down with it. So I will tell what I think is right at this current time, or at least what works for me. However everybody should investigate themselfs whether it will work for them. And I would love to hear alternative ways of doing things, certain there are a few methodes that are better still.





This is the biggest "new thing" I had to get my head around too, but It has been nothing but discoveries and thrills for me. Please forgive, me but I really do love this mastsection.




can't comment on that.

Good luck sailing Jerry,

Wouter

Hi Jerry,

I would like to add my comments on Spinnaker Up High Wind Sailing. My F16 Altered use to be a fat bottomed A class. The first few months of sailing with kite up I found the same nosediving problems you describe as a Taipan problem. Guy's on this Forum kept telling me to keep the mainsheeted tight with the spinnaker up to keep control, but I didn't realise they meant REALY TIGHT!!!!! so I kept easing main out as you would if you didn't have spin. up, result nosediving and dumping kite to save it, have some great photo's that have been on this Forum to prove it..

After watching another F16 sailing comfortably downwind as I struggled I realised, his main was in REAL TIGHT! So now I set main with twist until I am overpowered, then I pull main in tighter so it stalls, at this point the bows just pop up and control is possible. Getting good speed in this mode is very tricky and involves some very rapid bearaways, but survival is the first step and it is definetly possible with this set up.

I hear what you are saying regarding sailboard sails, I am a old sailboarder myself, but I also know there was a limit to depowering sailboard sails eventualy you have to change down a size. The spin. is 17.5 m2 more than ample in 20 kts. so stalling main reduces your sail area. It is better to reduce mainsail drive and keep spin. working as the head of the main drives bows down, the spinnaker lifts bows or at least is neutral. So I believe if you let main twist it keeps the head working, even if you let it out alot as I tried, much better to stall it.

Just my thoughts happy to be proven wrong.

Regards Gary.

Wouter and Gary,

Thanks for the additional comments.

Wouter - great story!

Gary - I hadn't been thinking about trimming the main to stall it but maybe in high winds with spi that's what you're after. Originally the comments on trimming the main were made in the context of no spi. But maybe in overpowered conditions, a partially stalled sail with low drag is faster than an overpowered sail which keeps trying to bury the bows.

Wouter - it's stil amazing to me that you get good drive with a sail as flat as you described since on my monohull dinghy, when I flatten the sail (DH, OH, and vang) in higher winds the boat is SLOW (I assume since the sail is generating no lift). However, when I add some draft down low via OH but keep the sail flat on top using the vang and DH, I find the boat drive and speed really improves.
When you flattend your sail at DCC, with mainsheet and DH really tight, how flat was the mainsail down low (ie, how far off the boom was the foot of the sail)?

Jerry

Jerry,

I had an interesting conversation with Glenn Ashby when I was having him make me a sail. One of the things he kept saying was that he was trying to make sails with low drag. Once you're fully powered up and then trying to depower, drag (from having too full of a sail) is what slows you down. After a certain windspeed, you're trying to decrease lift and increase aerodynamics to decrease drag.