Sailing uni

I have a question regarding sailing uni. I did a race last weekend where the wind was forecast to be 2-5 knots early then building to 12-15. I decided to sail uni thinking I would have a weight advantage. I have a couple of observations and wonder if any of you have experienced the same. 1-My main competition was an FX-one sailing sloop rigged with no spin. He had about 260lbs on board. I found that I couldn't stay with him upwind in the light air (10knots). Does the jib make that much of a difference on this boat? 2-I had some helm going upwind. My mast rake follows Matt's recommendations for the trapwire method. I was in the wire (~12knots) and had the boat well balanced fore/aft. It felt as if one of my rudders was up an inch. I hadn't noticed this sailing uni before. 3-When I went off on a reach with the wind in the 15 knot range I was keeping pace with a Supercat 19 but I kept climbing to windward. I felt like I was fighting the boards with the rudders. My guess is that I should've come out of the wire and brought the boards up. 3-On one of my spinnaker douses I wasn't off the wind enough and got a wrap on the port bow. I backed the boat up, doused the chute and went on my way. But-lets say you had to drop the chute and couldn't bear off because you were running out of water. Could you drop it successfully if you first blew the halyard, pulled in what you could, then released the tack line and sheet? I've done this successfully on a J-22 and thought it would work on the Blade. Thanks for your input. Greg

Greg,

The jib on these boats does make a difference in power, but should not effect pointing abilty to weather.

If you are experiencing a lot of helm - especially on 1 tack, it sounds most like 1 of the rudders was not going fully down. You can check the engagement of the rudders on the trailer and make sure they are both fully seating in the head and tucking under the same amount relative to a straight line down the transom. I have not found any difference in helm with either set up.

On the spin douse; pull the slack up in the snuffer line fully before releasing the halyard, this will at least get the spin headed for the hoop sooner. Get the wad in the snuffer before releasing the tack. Once the wad is in the snuffer you are free to manouver without fear of shrimping the spin. The lighter the air the more prone the spin becomes to going under the hull or wrapping sheets around the hoop. Keeping the excess slack in the lines back on the tramp instead of up front will help avoid this.

Matt

When you say, "...if you first release the halyard..." do you mean you tried to douse the spin by releasing the tack line first?

On these boats you want to dump the halyard first and pull the snuff line in fast, until the tack comes tight then dump the tack line last and snuff the last 4 feet. You should not be going dead downwind when you do this or you may wrap your spin sheets around the snuffer hoop or even under the bow...don't ask me how I know. ;^) Idealy you want to be at about 45 degrees off dead downwind when you snuff, and faster is better.

When I'm racing Uni, I dump the main traveler down a bit so the boat won't round up, then I put down the tiller and use both hands to snuff as fast as possible, then return to driving and trimming the main. But tack line off last, always.

Right now I've got a combination tack & halyard line. I want to swap it over to seperate lines. If I mount a spinlock under the tramp for the tack line, I can run a piece of line from the top of the spinlock, through a hole or grommet in the tramp, and then dead end it in the tramp. If I mount the halyard cleat on the mast, then route the halyard down through the loop to release the tack, I'll be able to release it all at once just by pulling the spin halyard from behind that loop. Really your sheets shouldn't be long enough to be able to run them over anyway.

If you are moving at one boat length per second with the kite up, that extra second you have to stop snuffing to release the tack, is potentially costing you positions.

I dump the main traveler all the way with about the same amount of mainsheet tension I use downwind, and I'm going almost dead downwind when approaching the gate. I can't do it all the time, but if things are going well I'm pulling the last bit of the spinnaker in while the boat is rounding up on its own around the gate. Then I just pull the traveler line to get myself back into upwind mode and adjust downhaul, rotation, etc. once moving back towards the weather mark.

Thanks Matt. How about my issue with the boards seeming to want to make me work to weather while I'm trying to make the rudders get me off on a reach? The main was centered with the mainsheet eased a lot. The mainsail trim looked correct. Does the lack of a jib in this situation effect the relationship between the center of effort and center of lateral resistance enough to cause this? It would seem that raising the boards 6" might have allowed me to sideslip a bit. No?

not sure I understand your point necessarily... but are you saying the rudders stall when you try to turn down onto a reach?
I have this happen a decent amount (always starboard rudder it seems) and the only answer I have found is to let out the main a bit so the rudders aren't fighting the main as much. In your situation, doesn't seem like this is the case if you let out the main a decent amount.

Hi Greg
I'm no sailing scientist but what jumped out at me in your last post was
"The main was centered with the mainsheet eased a lot"
There are two major issues here, first you could do serious damage to the top of your mast as the stresses from the head of the spi aren't being supported by some leech tension on the main. The second is that you have significantly closed the slot between the wind leaving the leech of the spi running straight into the back of your main.
I would suggest that it is better to keep alot more mainsheet tension on and drop the traveller 2-3 inches in moderate winds and up to 8-10 inches in light winds and not at all in anything over 15mph.
You never know doing the above might stop the forces on the main from giving you feeling that the boat wants to skew into wind?

Hi Mark, I was on a broad reach in the situation I described. The spin was in the bag and the apparent wind was nearly abeam. This particular run during this 25 mile race involved heading upwind for a mile or two before bearing off on a broad reach. I was surprised by the way the boat kept working it's way upwind despite my efforts to go down. I eased the mainsheet and not the traveller because I was maintaining good boatspeed. I had another boat to use for reference. It surprised me that I had to work to get the boat down while the mainsail was properly trimmed. It made me think that the centerboards were working too efficiently for this point of sail with main only.

Hi Pete. I've sailed cats for 24 years now. This is why I'm a little perplexed at the handling in this situation. I have a lot of experience with tight mainsails fighting the rudders. I'm less experienced with lightweight hotrods with high aspect daggerboards. But I love this boat.

Sorry about the misunderstanding, I didn't realise your spi wasn't up.
In this case it might be that your centre boards are raked back slightly or perhaps try trapezing a little further forward. I doubt you have too much mast rake as you've more or less copied Matts tuning guide.

Thanks Timbo. I'll try your suggestions. Sets, douses and gybes with this spin have been easier than I expected. But I'm sure that just one bad wrap can take you out of a race.

Greg,

When heading to weather I do try and let the foils provide the lift to keep the boat running "high" You generate speed and let them provide the lift, not trying to stear for height.

Raising the boards is a depowering tool. Off the wind and down wind you should be able to feel acceleration as you apply more power to the sails. At the point where the hull is flying before the boat accelerates we start lifting the boards.

If the sails are really out of trim or the crew weight is grossly out of position you will experience rudder helm. It does not sound like this was the case, more like another gremlin, did you get a chnace to compare the 2 set ups?

Do all you guys broad reach with the traveler centered? I never do, as the apparant wind is now abeam as Greg said, I would have eased the traveler out, not the mainsheet, and watched my lee side and leach tell-tales to be sure it wasn't out too much, but when ever I round A mark and head off on a reach to a B mark (not down to a C mark) and the reach is too high for the spin, I usually ease the traveler a foot or so as I round instead of hauling in on the rudders (speed brakes) to let the boat bear away easier, then decide if I will need to raise the lee dagger a bit or if I can trap with it down, etc.

Of course I pull the windward board up for two reasons, 1. I don't need it, 2. it is a great place to put your front foot to act as a slide stopper if you are stuffing into waves and you're not out on the wire.

I don't think I've ever sailed off the wind (broad reach or spinnaker run) with my traveler "centered" though, only when beating upwind, and then only if not overpowered.

Also, on pulling up the boards, I have installed a cross tramp line which is connected through both boards so I can pull up the lee board up without having to go down there, which is nice.

True.

If on a reach and the traveler is centered and the top way off the CE will be further back increasing weather helm to some extent. This is where you can easily follow the tells. If you are centered and try to sheet in to get the top tells to flow you would likely be way over powered. Some twist off the wind is fast, but the flatter the water the flatter the sail can be trimmed typically.

I haven't had a chance to compare the helm with and without the jib. It's possible that one of my rudders wasn't completely locked in. I'm going to set them up and mark the line so I'll know if they're in tight. I'll also try Timbo's suggestion of letting the traveller down instead of going for twist. The water I was in at the time had some pretty good chop.

Here's something else to do on the rudders, after you have rigged the pull down lines, tie the tails to each other. That way, if the low side rudder does come loose you can pull the high side line (tied to the low side rudder down line) instead of having to go down there to fish around for it.

remember to measure rudder setup with rig tension ON....

At the risk of asking a dumb question....how are these related?

Adding the rig tension changes the geo of the boat.

Upward tension on bows pulls them closer together (slightly); this effects the "shape" of the boat and thus results when measuring rudder angles etc.