Racing upwind

It is common knowledge that cats are fastest on a reach. Because of this, I would imagine that bearing off slightly is best when going for the first mark. My question is, how far should I bear off? Does this depend on wind conditions? I'm frustrated because I can never seem to find the balance between speed and upwind progress that would allow me to win the beat. By the way, I'm sailing a Hobie 14 Turbo. I've also posted this over on the Hobie forums; I'm trying to get some advice for tomorrow's race in a timely manner.

Thanks
Jon

If you're reaching you'll never get to the weather mark. Learn to read your telltales. Get jib in tight and head up until the telltales are streaming straight back on both sides of the sail.

Trim the main sheet in until the leech telltales start to pull around to the lee side. Slack off until they stream straight back.

Once you figure all this out you can start S coursing. Watch the jib telltales. Push the rudders over slowly so the windward telltale moves up to 45 degrees. Back off and bring it back to horizontal. Keep doing that slowly and you'll work yourself up to the weather mark faster.

JMHO

I'm not thinking about beam and broad reaches, but just bearing off slightly from close hauled. I know how to trim the sails, etc. I'm just a fairly recent convert to cats from mono slugs, and wondering how to get the most possible out of my cat.

Thanks
Jon

You need to strike a balance between speed and position. Have you practiced at all with the Turbo? You might be better served to either get some tiller time in to determine what the boat will do or look at the upcoming regatta as development time.

I ran a regatta years ago that had one 14 who apparently felt bearing off was the way to go. He got one race in while the rest of the classes sailed four.

I guess I'm wondering if I am better served by bearing off. In the past, I've always just sheeted in as far as I could and pointed as high as the conditions would allow. The boat always felt constrained and held back; it seemed that by altering course slightly, the resulting speed would vastly offset the extra distance travelled. When I practice, I've tried to determine if heading down just a few degrees is best, but I'm looking for additional input. I assume, given your name that you sail 16s. Do you just sheet in as much as possible, then S course? Or is there some other technique that I don't know about?

I had two 16's over the years but now sail a 20. In most conditions beating to weather I two blocked both the main and the jib and set the direction off the jib telltales. I S coursed by moving the windward telltale to 45 degrees and back to horizontal.

The only time I'd ever bear off going to weather was in light air. I'd also slack off both sails a couple of inches so they'd stay full.

Again, JMHO.

Yes, bearing off for speed and then coming back up as far as possible is the trick. You can not point high sheeted tight and pinching. You have to have some boat speed. Otherwise the boat crabs sideways more. Plus the sheeting is likely stalling the boat speed.





Tell tails in the upper third of the sail really help to tune the sheeting. It is easy to over sheet. You need to pay attention to the air flow in that area. Tails at the leach should flow aft and hook behind the sail alternately.