Anyone ever gone really fast nearly dead down wind with the boom on the wrong side?

Sounds stupid but last Wed night was the 2nd time this has happened.

The first time was 8-10 years ago on a NACRA 5.5uni. When the boat finally gybed, it was so violent, it ripped the main blocks from the sail.

Last Wed night the wind was 6-10 shifty and fluky. With rainstorms all around us. I was on my 14 and was getting killed by the V15's. I rounded the windward mark about 300 yds behind the V15's and got hit by a puff. I sheeted in and started moving well at about 170 degs (it's not a real cat). Then I got hit by a really big blast. The kind that blows spray off flat water. I sheeted in to a beam reach and closed the 300 yds in what felt like a minute. As I was closing I sheeted out to nearly downwind but still going really fast.

When I closed on the Fleet (V15, Sunfish, J24's, J80's) I realized 3 things 1) my cassette tape wind indicators were all going in different directions including circles 2) all the other boats had the their booms on the other side (port) and 3 the Sunfish had opened a BIG hole in the fleet for me to go through. I ducked behind a J24, gybed and went on the win

I know relative wind and by simple vector kind of calculations what I did was impossible. The only thing I can thing I can think of is the Lasers sometimes do this on purpose. They actually flow the wind backwards across the sail, the leach is the leading edge and claim it's faster.

I have seen some indications of this on my 14, gybing nearly dead down wind. You get a shift that should force you to gybe but you seem to be going faster.


I know most cats don't go this deep but has anyone else seen this.? Maybe on a Wave?

This is sort of fun it 3-5 kts. I do NOT recommend it except a desperate attempt not to pitchpole and break your mast in 20 kts.

Carl

Sailing by the lee is pretty common on Lasers (as you pointed out. I don't think the Waves can do it because they don't have a boom.

In my Sailing Seminars for Laser and Sunfish my last two guests experts have been on the Olympic team and all the hot shots sail by the lee, then by the luff, and back. The zig zag down the course without tacking and it is very fast.

The idea is to always keep a flow across the back of the mainsail.., no matter which direction.

I have found that it can sometimes work on the Wave, but not with the success of the Laser.
Rick

Bethwaite's "High Performance Sailing" touches on this. Here is my take on it:

Sailing by the Lee allows you to present the leech (knife edge) edge of the sail to the wind, instead of the mast end. This avoids the normal "separation bubble" behind the mast, and can therefore generate 10-20% higher lift than mast-first trim. The problem is that the trailing edge needs a 0 to 7 degree angle of attack to not stall the airflow or jibe. Doing this optimally, with the correct trim top-to-bottom requires reverse-twist, which isn't practical, so it's only likely to pay off in conditions so light you can't get the the correct twist in the main by normal methods.
(It also requires light conditions so that puffs don't change the twist in the mast and stall the sail.)

Anyway, in the really light flat stuff, it can theoretically pay to adjust the *top* leech of your sail to have a 0 to 7 degree angle of attack to the apparent wind aloft. If you do this, you can theoretically get better performance than the mast-forward case.

But it's never paid off for me... since I don't sail in flat light conditions.

Another advantage to sailing by the lee on a laser. It is considered faster to sail downwind with a slight windward heel. So if the boom is let out past 90deg, and the boat is heeled to windward, the sail will be held out by it's own weight. Very convenient in light wind and a very efficient configuration for death rolls.

sm