Posted By: Wouter
Solo sailing F16 ; some trim experiences - 07/14/05 01:29 AM
I know a few of you out there are fine-tuning and trimming your way to better singlehanded speed as well, So here I will give a summary of what seemed to work for my last sunday.
Platform = Taipan F16 (full F16 width, entlarged square-top head 580 mm on my F16 sized mainsail)
My weight = 83 kg (on a good day)
Mainsail was made by Redhead sails Australia
prebend = 20 mm
spreader rake = 50 mm with 390 mm long spreader arms.
Top 2 battens were of the stiff kind, 3rd from the top and down are medium battens
Conditions between 15 and 22 knots. severe chop and short waves right rather close to another.
I was sailing with too much mast rake as I have the boat setup for doublehanded racing. Even for doublehanding I think that I can reduce the mast rake.
What eventually worked for me on the upwind leg was :
LOTS of downhaul and very little mastrotation. Rumour has it that Redhead sails like lots of downhaul, more so than Ashby and Goodall sails.
When it was blow about 18 to 20 knots. I set the mast rotation so my rotator arm was pointing at the leeward rudderblade and sometimes even less. Yes, you guessed it right, that is indeed very little rotation. Absolutely NO smooth transition between mast and sail but I did go noticeably faster and the boat became alot more controllable as a direct result.
So I set the rotation to this point, than pulled the mainsheet tight and then the downhaul. Then I pulled the foot of the mainsail tight. Then I janked on the mainsheet some more and pulled the last bit out of the 1:12 downhaul. Then I released the mainsheet slightly and headed down for about 5 degrees and went out on the trapeze. Boat felt like she was skimming the water and I hardly ever had to head up in the gusts. The boats stayed very level. A significant difference from before.
The main component seemed to be the downhaul (lots of it); the other factors helped but after pulling the downhaul really tight once more (and heading down a little) the boat just fell into a groove.
Point to take away : In these conditions (when using the superwing mast sectio) forget about the smooth transition between mast and sail. Set the mast rotation sufficiently small to depower the rig in the top and reduce the draft of the sail. Remember flat is fast in these conditions. Then try at least one heaps and heaps of downhaul with a tight mainsail. The mainsail will be tights as a drum and almost as flat as a board but in my case this all seemed to result in a very controllable and fast groove upwind.
Downwind is another matter. But here I really haven't found a magic groove yet.
Wouter