spi sailing

I talked to some people about sailing the spinaker, and they did not seem to agree on a question we're asking. We're a light team sailing an Inter 18 with spi. The spot where we are sailing often is having gusty winds. That means that we're making slalom over the water trying to not flip over when the wind comes in.

Of course sometimes the wind comes in a little to quick (or we're sleeping/lack of experience) mainly on half wind, and then the boat is quickly coming up. Without spi you would let go of the main sheet, and my first reaction is always to let go of the spi sheet. But it seems that this action is not helping the situation. Because we're sailing a half wind course, the spi is rather flat, and when letting go it blows up like a balloon, and still flips us over. Some people are telling us now that it's even better to get more power on the spi sheet in that situation then letting it go.

Can anybody explain? What is the best way to go when your already making an inclination with spi?

You should be steering that slalom course in gusty winds, that's normal.

With every big gust, you have to bear off and run deeper, or, as you did, you'll flip, even if you are flogging the spinnaker, it's still a lot of drag up there pulling you over.

So just bear away in every big gust, and go fast with the spin trimmed in.

You should be looking back over your shoulder all the time, looking for the next gust so you'll be ready to bear away when it arrives. Do not wait until you are already nearly flipped over.

Sailing a spin boat (with Spin hoisted) is a little counter intuitive to the new sailor.

One thinks that going slow is "safe" ... but it is not. You need to keep maximum boat speed to minimize the differential between your boats apparent wind and the upcoming gusts.

Example:

Let's say the wind is blowing at 15k gusting to 23k. If you go slow and only achieve 8-9k the difference between your boat speed and the upcoming gust is 14-15k (additional) on your sail plan.

On the other hand, if you achieve 15-17k then the differential between your boat speed and the upcoming gust is 6-8k -- alot more manageable.

Like Tback said speed is your friend.
By dumping the spin sheet you are reducing/eliminating your boats ability to bearaway (go deeper downwind) so by doing so you are powering the boat up by slowing down and bringing your apparent wind more to the beam. Trimming on the kite ,if you are at speed, can increase your speed and get the boat downwind to a safe power zone faster if the helm and skipper are in tune with each other . If not ,often the rudders will cavitate due to the sudden addition of extra power and without depowering to get them connected up again, you will have no steerage.
Blowing your main can break your mast, dumping some traveler may be an option as long as tension remains on your mast in a proper alignment to act as a backstay.

+1 on easing the traveler and driving down in a puff. You can bring it back up once you get organized or the puff runs out

Also, try not to head too high up between gusts... it makes the boat heel further when the puff hits, as well as making it harder to drive all the way back down.

Don't worry about being light. Because you are trying to go downwind as deeply and quickly as possible you don't need to maximize lateral resistance with your weight.

You can fix the rudder cavitation issues if when the puff comes, the crew first eases the sheet then sheets in. Ideally its a 4-6 inch ease followed by sheeting on until the shape is right. This allows the spi to open up to the gust and curls the leading edge a little more. Once the crew sheets on again, the boat will be essentially pushed downwind by the action of the spi flattening back out. The helm will actually feel a pull downwind. The reason is the boat will accelerate slightly because of the increased wind velocity and the sheeting on, which will shift the apparent wind forward. The skipper then turns down in response, sailing a deeper course at the same or a slightly faster speed.

The only other way to smooth out the ride is anticipation. If the gust hits before the skipper turns down and the crew eases then the boat will become overpowered. The goal is to ease the spi slightly at the same time the gust is just starting. Then sheet on as the gust hits. Then as the skipper feels the acceleration and apparent wind shift turn down. This way the boat is constantly in sync with the increasing breeze.

As the puff ends, ease the sheet and turn up until the boat accelerates. Repeat.

Hope this helps. Now i want to go sailing.

Thanks a lot for all the reply's! Very helpfull!

And yes, after reading these comments, I want to go sailing today!

And if you pull your dagger boards up half way, it won't fly the hull as quickly, so if you're having trouble with it popping up in every gust, try pulling the bords up, see how that works for you.

Also this year we're still working on the spi control. I think it's realistic to say that we experience no problem what so ever in a wind up to 18 knots. But when the gusts are getting bigger or the basic wind is increasing, there are still moments that we are loosing the control once in a while. Last saturday we went out sailing again, and it happened a few times again, but we caught it on video. I made a video of that day, and left two moments in on purpose, to show you. I hope you can tell me what we are doing wrong here. Two times after eachother we experience a gust of around 20 knots. You see the cat's diving in the water with the bow. Of course the hull is getting up, and therefore my natural reaction is to let go of the sheet. We already were sailing with the traveler far out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KYCMV1yFIk (see at approx. 1 minute)

The questions we have:
1) Of course what are we doing wrong here. Should we anticipate better/earlier, or do we anticipate in the wrong manner?

2) We've been told that we should keep the sheet at such length just before the point that the spi collapses. When the wind increases the length of the sheet increases. But just that is making that the spi will sometimes collapses hard. (hope my English is explaining right) Is it right to lengthen the sheet when the wind increases?

3) And probably the most stupid question of the day: In September we participated in a long distance race, where we eventually sailed 40 km to the wind, and 40 km downwind. The wind was 5 bft, and when going back the wind force was increasing with gusts of 6 bft. We were tired, and had multiple moments where the spi was taking off with us. Also the new spi course was not very helpfull, so we decided to take it in, and proceed without. However we were not used at all to sail downwind, with this kind of windpower, we never did it before, and had to figure it out when tired and water was flying around our heads. We managed to get back, but lost a lot of time (and places) the last 20 km. We didn't know if we should sail the main with the traveler wide open with such wind, and if we should keep the sheet tight, or let is go? In trapeze or not? Can anybody explain these basics to us?

Thanks in advance, and I wish you all many good sailing hours in 2014!

It could be an effect of the camera but it looks like your spinnaker luff is too loose. This will cause you to have to sail higher into the wind in order to get wind into the kite and cause it to be more powerful over a wider range of wind angles. With the luff too loose, it will be less powerful on deep angles leaving you slower when you are trying to sail deep to get around a race course efficiently. The soft luff / fuller kite will also carry power over a wider angle of apparent wind which makes it less sensitive to helm corrections as you change your course reacting increased wind pressure and additional boat speed. The fuller kite means you have to steer more dramatically causing lost speed and distance. Tighten the luff and you can sail deeper and make smaller changes in the helm to accommodate the changing wind / boat speed.

When setting up the spinnaker on shore, you should hoist it fully and with the sheet loose, you should grab the luff of the spinnaker making a fist with the luff on the interior of your fist and rotate your hand 45 to 90 degrees before the spinnaker is tight and prevents your hand from rotating further. You want the spinnaker luff to be almost tight when hoisted fully. I bet this will help make the boat easier to sail downwind.

x2


and at the 0:38 mark (no spinaker) and onwards the entire rigging is flapping about, the leeward shroud looks to have 10" of movement mid length.

it might be my eyesight or the camera view, but the mast looks to move as well as the shroud slackens and tightens, I think that's also visible as the guys on the trap seem to momentarily bob up n down in the heavier chop

Everything looks too loose to me......

ok .... I gotta ask....


how does lifting the daggers alter the speed in which the hull lifts

X3, it looks to me like the spinnaker was not fully hoisted. If you mark the halyard at the block when it is fully hoisted on the beach, you will know on the water if you have it fully hoisted. I have on many occasions thought that I had the spin fully up due to pressure when I was still 2 feet short. The skipper then had to go lower to release the pressure so that I could hoist the last bit. I'd personally pull that tack line a little tighter, too.

-Rob V.

It raises the center of rotation of the boat higher. With boards in the water resisting the sideways motion of the boat, the boat hinges around a point somewhere under the water where the lateral resistance of the boards resist the side force from the sails. If you raise the boards, you raise that pivot point closer to the surface of the water giving the sails less leverage to heel the boat. When you raise the boards, you trade off a little resistance to sideways travel for a higher center of rotation and less wetted surface. This helps increase your speed potential downwind because of two things: 1) your speed increases so the boards are generating more lateral resistance and 2) a ~little~ side slip downwind isn't hurting you as it is taking you deeper down the course*

*you might think that a ton of side slip downwind would get you to the mark faster but you also have to consider that a hull sliding sideways in the water is MUCH more draggy than a hull traveling in a straight line. If you raise your boards completely out of the water you will get a lot of side slip and speed will be reduced.

@ Jake, Pirate and Redtwin, thanks for the comments on the luff. To be honest we also got a comment from a fellow sailor during the earlier mentioned competition. He was asking about the "full" sail, but we never got to the part of how to check it on shore and on the water. We will most certainly check with both mentioned methods. (And yes, the tack should be a little tighter.)

@Pirate, I agree with you the shroud seems loose. However pleae believe me if I say our rigging is rather tight. On this type of boat we do not have the ajustable system yet (as on the Infusion) so we use the main sheet and traps to set the tension on the shrouds. They feel "hard", especially compared to many other boats. (but who sais they know?) Maybe we should check anyway when we have somebody with a gauge available.

And just in case we get in the same situation again: Is there anybody who wants to react to the question from point 3? Downwind without the spi? It would be appreciated!

your strategy for point #3 above (downwind without spin) would likely vary

In your situation, it would seem that you were more concerned with keeping the boat manageable (by dropping the spin) rather than maximum VMG. In that case, I'd keep some traveler in for the "reserve" should a sudden puff or something pick the boat up and you need to reduce power (in combination with a heading change). Weight should be all the way on the back of the bus, and boards up somewhat depending on conditions. The strategy would be to reduce lift and avoid knockdowns.

If it's really honking, some advise to sheet main/traveler in tight and go really deep. This reduces the mainsail's "profile" to the wind, thereby reducing power/heeling force.

I think many here on the forum have experiences with the "death reach" zone, where you really don't know what option (heading up or down) will cause the least amount of collateral damage.

The consensus is deep reach = drive down / tight reach = head up when overpowered. Between those two is the problem...

And I think all agree with your spin luff being too lose, with the boards being a bit too deep. From your dramatic steering when hit with the puffs, you were likely heading up too high to hunt them, and didn't have the boatspeed/apparent wind to turn that heeling into forward propulsion.

You are doing it mostly right.

Keep the luff tight.
Don't travel out much unless you have too. Travel in and sail lower and faster. When the gust hits big then travel out, hike harder (skipper)., and drive down. I didn't see any hiking by the skipper or travelling out.

here is my answer to point#3. may be relevant or not...
Sailing downwind in 27 knots on an 18-spi up, is prolly near the limit for even the really good teams. How smoothly the run goes would depend on how big the seas are, and how gusty it is . You would have to land the jump off the back of one wave to the wave in front every time that issue came up..
We have 27 knts regularly here and i have no spi on an old TheMightyHobie18. i use old school technique and just sail low with the crew playing the jib and me playing the main with the traveler set out where i like it for that particular run. You can get going pretty fast by surfing and there is a trick to steering over the wave in front. Speed is your freind. When you are sailing low in that wind the crew needs to sit on the ream beam near the middle of the boat quite often. It helps to have an strong agile crew that really knows what they are doing trim wise.

another one I'd check would be the dolphin striker's tension......

years ago I had an adjuster bolt failure on the striker, on the beach and rigged it wasn't noticeable at all and my home made shroud tensioner at the time said all was as usual when it was checked.

on the water in a good wind it was a different case, on a reach I actually saw the leeward shroud adjuster flopping around, once back on the beach all the rig was reset and I went out for race 2.... again the shroud adjuster was flopping around on that reach although not as badly as it was when I first noticed it.
It wasn't until I was pointing hard that I noticed the huge bend in the front beam

its a wild shot in the dark but still worth checking and crossing off the list

Last weekend we sailed again, and of course it was the opportunity to try some things. We had the perfect wheater with wind around 18 knots. First of all we found out that in the past we eased the spi sheet when the puff hits. This weekend we tried to do it as explained by easing a little bit and then sheet in again. We also decided to keep the travelar in. We had a hard time seeing the puffs coming, and decided to keep the sheet as it was for some time. We experienced that this was already much better. more direct steering and control, no collapsing of the spin, and less agresive steering. We still have to learn, but this was a step forward.

We also measured the spinaker as suggested before, and came to the conclusion it is rather big?? See below photograps:







We had to turn over the cat due to the strong wind, so we measured once at the mast, and once at the luff (don't let the extra pole mislead you, we use it for our camera) At both positions it's clear that we have some extra length compared to what was said / explained earlier. We checked the spi but it's original, and however its old, it isn't used too much. So is it streched? Or is this normal with our boat? (inter 18) Should we be worried?

Is the pole itself set properly?

You may need to lower your spin pole by shortening the stays. We had to do this on a Tiger a while back.

What kinda mast rake do you have?

See underneath a recent photo from our boat



In our opinion the pole is set up ok?

The mast rake is a little backwards

Set the spin and adjust the pole until you're happy with it.

Spin luff is definitely too long. WAY too long.

You can correct this by lowering the tip of the spinnaker pole by shortening the rigging. We went through a period where the spinnaker luffs got longer on the Nacra 20 and we ended up with so much prebend on the poles that they would break if you looked at them wrong. I ended up rigging the middle part of my pole to extend it lower at the forstay bridles so it wouldn't have to have so much prebend.

If leaving the spinnaker sheeted through the puffs helped with boat control, you are probably over sheeted...which is not fast. That said, it is good to keep the spinnaker properly trimmed through the puffs and not ease it to depower it unless "all is lost!". Fix the spin luff issue and you'll find the boat will be very different downwind.

when I enlarged the pic it looks worse ....


mast needs to rake further forward but that will only give you more issues with the spinnaker luff, so lowering the pole is about the only option you have.
it does look to be sitting high in the bridal



did you photo-chop the pic ???

someone has shot a bloody great hole in the middle of your boom !!!

LOL Kingy, looks more like a white paddle strapped to the boom to me.

Spin pole has to come down, no way around it. looks like you have plenty of room to move, just put a small rope loop around the pole under the bridal to facilitate.

Ok, everybody seems to agree on the pole :-)
But the loop is already in place, so that would mean to shorten the rigging? Just to be absolutely sure (do not want to make more damage the necessary) please see the below pic. Is this the way to do that? (please do not look at everything else, this is an old picture with old snuffer bag, without self tacker, and with totally different setting)


Please enlarge the picture (right mouse button) to read the text

Maybe a stupid question, but why not move up, by replacing the "spi bracket" (how is the thing called up in the mast?)

And pirate, no did not photoshop ;-) Indeed there are two paddles there which were obligated with a long distance race (Texel), and we've never took them off, after.

Ok, it is important not to tamper with the length of the wires labled "shorten these?" under any circumstances. the bridal wires are set at a structural length, any shorter and there will be a greater load on the bows pulling inwards. you don't want to stress your bows more than you have to.

so the "ladder" or chainplate shouldn't have to move at all. unless your not happy with your mast rake.

the wires "what about these" they are the whiskers, (very feline aye) are exactly what you want to shorten. by the looks of the previous photos your coming down about 150mm/6in which will be a lot of bend in the pole, if your worried about breaking the pole then you can suspend the pole below the bridal to make it straighter. does that make sense or would a photo help?

and no you cant raise the height of the spin bracket (spinnaker bale) because it is set a height not to break the top of the mast off. its a safety thing.

You need to shorten the "what about these". You may need to tie another loop at the bridles under the one you already have. The forestay and bridles need not be changed.

Take a look at page 18

http://www.ahpc.com.au/images/pdf/C2%20F18%20Owner%27s%20Manual.pdf

Dazz has it right. Shorten the spin pole bridles and lower the middle part of the pole like so:

Ok, I think I understand! And all explanations are sounding reasanable (however the drawing by Jake confuses me a bit)

So by shortening the whiskers we should drop the pole between 15 - 20 cm (what we measured). The pole is indeed already under a lot of bend stress, so this would mean that we should tie another rope loop underneath the original one(and maybe when it turns out to be the right solution and place, I can weld one)

Jake,
The only thing I do not understand right now, are the two lines from the bridle you have drawn? As I understand correctly the bridle wires stay in place?

The red lines in Jake's drawing are new wires/lines used to support the spin pole. They originate from the same eyes on the hulls, but do not attach to the forestay. Don't move the bridle wires for structural reasons.

Exactly. If you extend the pole much farther than you already have it mounted below the furler, the middle of the pole will start to swing side to side as the spinnaker pulls the pole sideways. These baby bridles help keep the middle of the pole centered. They will also help the pole survive if you pitchpole with the spinnaker up. If the bottom of the spinnaker enters a wave it will push the pole rearward and the middle will flex up and snap.

Ok, now it's clear! Thank you all for great support. This will take a while before we have tried this (and it's also a little bit winter here), but I will let you know!

Also you can remove the wires that go to the end of the spinnaker pole and replace them with Dynema line until you think you have the length right. I just shortened the wires quite a bit and have a small length of Dynema on each side to make the adjustment.

Mike makes a good point there too. On our boat, we have dynema (Samson Amsteel) pole bridles that have a large eye splice on the hull end. That eye splice has a very long tail that tucks into the line and comes back out again after about 10 or 12". You can use that extended tail to adjust the length of the bridle. To secure it, you just tie the tail around the line.

It was some time ago, but in the meantime we've adjusted our boat (as suggested by you), and brought the spinnaker pole around 20 cm's down. Indeed the spi is a lot flatter, and yes we drive it deeper now, which means less agressive corrections. So once again: Thank you all for the help! Furthermore we've adjusted the mast rake a bit, and found out that the spreaders were not equal. So we corrected this.

Sunday we had some nice weather (16-20 knots) and made a short video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4WLqQjgBZA

I agree as you say that it still looks a little round, however I think this is also the video. We see (and experience) it's a lot flatter.

Still we have one last question. To keep everything in control, basically we drive our spinnaker most of the time sheeted in rather tight. (maximum sheet length between the boat and the spi is 1 meter) However we were more or less overtaken by another boat (very good sailors who were doing a racing track) who had the spi very "open" and more in front of the boat. It looked very fast and also in control. We tried to do the same, but as I tried it collapses every time. We have to keep it more or less in line with the jib.

Can anybody explain this? We still have to learn a lot about spinnaker sailing especially at 16 knots and up.

Pull the tack line fully in. Looks like there are 3-4cm of luff tension to gain there

More luff tension allows you to sheet the spi out more to go faster and deeper (to a certain point at least).

If you do the "grab the luff in your fist and twist it" test. How far can you rotate your fist? 45deg? 90deg? More?

Hwo did you set the luff tension line inside the spi luff? On a new spi I hoist the spi with a slack tension line, then tension it about 5cm.

When sailing with a spi, it is very easy to sheet in too far and close the leech. The leech needs to be open and complement the mainsail trim for optimal speed. The rule of thumb is to sheet out as far as you can, until the luff curls, at all times. Only experience will tell you when you are on the optimal course. If another boat walked over you, try to replicate their setup

An old spi will become deeper as it ages and is used. A new spi is flatter and faster. If those other guys had a new spi and your spi is well used. Well..

Yes it seems that over time the tack line is slipping a little because I'm sure I pull it untill the stop. However when we do the test we've around 45deg now.

"How did you set the luff tension line inside the spi luff? On a new spi I hoist the spi with a slack tension line, then tension it about 5cm" --> I've no clue at all what you mean????

And yes the difference in age was most certainly there as we use an original spinnaker from a boat from 1997 (however it was not used too much before we bought it) and they were a sponsored race team. (so probably a spinnaker from 2012 or 2013) However the difference was realy large. (see underneath picture as an example) can this make such a difference?

A spi from 1997 will probably be cut a lot fuller than a spi from 2012/13. there have been quite som development in those years
There was a generation shift about 2002 if I remember correctly. Around that year the Tornado class saw the introduction of much flatter spis shaped with more panels from the sailmaker "Gran Segel" in Sweden. The next years the other sailmakers played catch-up before the olympic games in 2004. The F18 class adopted the same, flatter, shapes.

If you can afford it, buy a nice used spi from 2010-2012 and I believe you will find it a completely different beast.

I would have checked what type of line is used for the tack line. Nylon will stretch a bit.

Nice windy conditions!

On new spis you will find a "luff line" inside the luff tape. This line is made of dynema and is used to pre-tension the luff of the spi. The function of the line is to make the spi fly better as winds increase by taking the loads in the luff. Spi cloth and luff tapes are much more stretchy than the luff line. Besides helping to keep the sail shape the luff line also helps with sail longevity.

First of all, great video. It looks like a load of fun there.

I think your tack line is stretching some.

I'm thinking that your not comparing apples to apples with your '97 cut compared to a new kite. In the past couple years I've gone through a 90s spin all the way up to a brand new one. Your spin is cut much deeper and I think your will have a difficult time trying to "follow" that hydros boat.

As Rolf indicated, it probably has something to do with the designed shape of the spinnaker more than how you are trimming it at this point. However, I do see a couple of things that might help.

1) as others have pointed out, getting the tack to stay put is important so you keep the same amount of luff tension that you intended on the beach. As the tack line slacks off, the sail will rotate to leeward and the sweet spot for trimming it properly gets narrower making it harder to keep trimmed when you sail closer to the correct angle. You will probably find that you can sail it higher and hotter if you can maintain the correct luff tension.

2) in the last segment of your video, your jib is over trimmed and we can see the leeward tale stalled almost 100% of the time. Pay attention to the jib trim even downwind - dirty air coming off the jib is dirty or overly compressed air over the main (meaning that it's hard for it to stay correctly powered from top to bottom) and you're losing some power there. It's much better to have the jib undertrimmed than overtrimmed in this scenario.

3) Upwind (assuming you were trying to sail upwind there), the mainsheet still doesn't appear to be sheeted enough. There may be some twist in the camera lens but I'm still seeing a good bit of the upper mainsail from that angle and the jib headstay looks like it's sagging a bit. Additionally, I see that you are having to foot off to stay powered up - the leeward jib tale is stalling occasionally...Stalling the leeward jib tale is worse than pinching. You may be going fast but you are giving up too much ground. Conditions don't look to terribly windy there, have the crew sheet in until he can't anymore and see what the boat feels like. If you are too powered up, you need to start depowering with downhaul and mast rake and lifting the boards a little can help settle the boat down. You can actually reach a point that if you keep sheeting harder the mainsail starts to depower. It's uncomfortable at first but once you experience it, you will quickly start to feel the efficiency. I remember the first time I had some coaching (Robbie Daniels) and he was behind me yelling "Sheet In" repeatedly through a bull horn. I thought I was really good upwind and I couldn't believe how hard he was telling me to sheet (certain my boat would break). When he finally said "there" I had about everything in it I could muster and the boat was on a rail and absolutely flying upwind. I'll never forget that sensation and it is the same on my F18 (that was on my a cat).

Setting the luff cord on the spinnaker is not super critical but should be checked (we check ours once per regatta). Basically, untie the luff cord at the tack so that it is loose (don't lose it!). Hoist the spinnaker and set it to your normal luff tension. Mark the luff cord where it exits the sail with a sharpie. Pull the luff cord 25mm (1 inch) and tie it there. You just want the luff cord to carry most of the luff tension without putting slack in the sail - it's good for the longevity of the spinnaker.

Jake, so if I understand you correctly, your tie off point ends up 1" up (from the bottom) of your sharpie mark.

Sorry, that wasn't very clear. Mark the luff cord right where it exits the luff of the sail. When you tie it off, you should see about one inch of the luff cord between your mark and where it enters the sail....i.e. you are adding one inch of tension to the luff cord to take tension off the spinnaker fabric.

Thanks you all again for the very valueble help. It's very good to know that sometimes it's not us, but the gear. For now this spinnaker is good to learn, but indeed in time we can invest in something better.

We certainly will check the tack line, and replace it by something less elastic.

@ Jake: Thanks for all the lessons. This is much appreciated. Indeed the jib is in our team often neglected. We should pay more attention to it. Often it starts to rattle a little, and therefore we sheet it in. We experienced very recently (after some comments from another sailor) the benefits which it could have.

About the sheeting in part: Last year we decided to go for a newer sail on our Inter 18 when we needed to replace it. Due to the large top, the foot of the sail is shorter, and we had to find a way to connect it to the boom. The sail works out quite good, however the connection could be a little better (shorter) Now I have the feeling we loose about 50 to 90 mm there (2-4 inches). And indeed sometimes I have the feeling that I can use it on the sheet. So we have to look for another modification there (maybe replace the boom)

Do you have a pic of your setup for the mainsheet to boom/sail connection?

Yes I have (more or less)

We connected 3 loops of rope around the boom, and another loop is connected to the old connection point which is able to move back and foreward along the boom, so we have some tension there. However as mentioned, I have the feeling I could use another 2 inches on the sheet, so a little shorter would be nice.

If you sheet that as hard as you should be, you may break the boom. On the older style Nacra 20 (with the same boom), our boom would look like a banana when sailing upwind in 15-18. That was with the tack of the sail much closer to the sheet connection point than what you have had to do there.

You have a tricky situation with that sail. If you move the blocks forward, you lose the angle that puts some forward pressure on the boom and induces mast rotation. The F18 sail is probably an improvement but you'll likely need something custom (or modify that sail) to really get it dialed in....or beef up the boom.

please check the connection point from jib to the sheet. If you mount the sheet two holes of the plate higher you bring more tension to the luff and the jib will be more powerful

If the jib was designed for this boat, that is

This picture is from last year. During the winter we indeed changed the connection two holes!

A little off topic, but I do not want to open a complete new topic:

During our sailing last weekend we had a little too much wind (for us). We had 19-20 knots with gusts to 25 knots. Lots of water flushed over the trampoline eventhough we were on one hull all the time.

A small "problem" which we already experienced before, came up again. The mainsheet (which is also the travelersheet on the other end) flushed overboard all the time. When sheeting in as the crew, I do not want to keep the complete sheet in my hands all the time as I need my hands for sheeting in. Therefore the rest is on the trampoline. Do you have a trick to keep it there?

We set up our mainsheet to be as short as possible and still be functional. I'll lay the slack across my body and at most the line just kisses the top of the water. You can also try handing the slack off to your skipper, it's not like they are doing all that much, how many hands does it take to hold a tiller? I know it's an imposistion for them but they usually get over it... sort of.

UUmmm, I don't recommend this.

I tried it last weekend during Space Coast 45 as I needed to go leeward and clear a block.

"WHAT, You want me to hold that NOW?

I agree with this. My mainsheet is not an inch too long and when sheeted, there isn't enough slack for it to get out of control. One or two wraps on my hand and I can kick the slack back up on the trampoline with my foot (it can barely get to the water). I've been known to put a longer mainsheet on the boat when distance racing on days that are expected be very windy and very reachy but I haven't done that in a long time.

I spend this last sunday also on the water (Northsea); like you said much wind (above 20 kn and gusts above 25). I had a marvelous time since long ago ( I've spoiled so many sailing days lately with trying to learn kitesurfing)

Anyway, I don't understand your question exactly. Don't you want to have both ends of the mainsheet in your two hands? But you are the crew member with the sheets?
I always sail single-handed and have the sail-side end of the sheet in the front hand and the rudderstick and the traveller-end of the sheet combined in the back hand.

That's why I made a handle at the end of the stick. It makes it easier to grab it together with a sheet. By the way I loop the slack of the sheet in so many nooses hanging in my backhand as necessary. Both ends of the mainsheet stand taut in the camcleat. So they can be released in one strike with the hand.

Especially in circumstances like this sunday, I'm very keen on this sheet-handling.


I do have a problem with my jib sheet though. When I hit very big waves too fast, now and then the jibsheet will jump out of the cleat because the jibsheet will bounce and even fly on the tramp and release itself.

Hey, I didn't say there wouldn't be push back. Most skippers haven't touched a line in a very long time so it probably scares them a little bit and you need to be sensitive to that you know how delicate they are.

Blondie reminded me that she also injected:

"Actually, I think I also asked you WHY? WHY DO YOU WANT ME TO HOLD THAT NOW?"