In light wind close hauled or close reach. I seem to get better boat speed sailing the boat in front of the front cross bar. I know this is good for down wind. what do you think?

As far as I know, it's due to reduced whetted surface area.



I have read this many times that in light air, sit as far forward as possible (even have crew out on bow) to get the transom(s) out of the water and reduce whetted surface area (reduce drag).

I've seen our A-Fleeters use the technique you describe, and they always walked away from us. We tried it during our last regatta a couple of weeks ago, and we kept up with the A Fleet, and even beat a few of them!



Bob Blackington

1986 Hobie 18 #13660

My 18 seems to require weight forward on all points of sail unless it is really blowing. If you can hear gurgling from the sterns, you're slow. Upwind, if the bows are not down you can't point, and the boat is slow. I have theories on why this is given the hull shape and all, but I'm probably wrong about it all.



This doesn't reduce wetted surface, in fact it seems to increase it as the leeward hull gets plenty pressed in, so until you can start to pull the windward hull out I think more boat is in the water, not less. Typical light to medium air configuration is for the crew to be on the lee bow, forward of the crossbeam, with the skipper sitting on the crossbeam close to the mast. This applies to all points of sail until the wind starts to pick up. My crew gives me a hard time for sending them to the bow, but they don't know how sore you get sitting on the crossbeam...



In addition, mast rake plays a part in this - in light to medium any mast rake makes the boat drag the stern even worse, and performance really dies off the wind. Therefore I only rake the mast if I know the winds are going to stay above 18-20. Even if the winds are that high at the start, if there's a good probability it will drop I won't rake - the loss in performance when the wind dies is too great.

Just a guess, but is it possible that the speed increase is due to increased waterline length? It seems like more waterline length with reduced (as much as possible anyway) wetted area would be the idea.

The most important thing is getting the sterns so that they are not dragging - it's like sailing with the brakes on, and the 18 seems to like dragging the sterns (at least mine does). Waterline length certainly is a consideration. But in this case, if the difference was between having the bows free of the water or not, I'd say the waterline length was the issue, but it's the difference between the bow being a third in the water or two-thirds in the water - same waterline, more of the hull in the water, butt not dragging...

Keith is right. The sterns dragging in the water creates quite a bit of drag. This is because you no longer have smooth (laminar) flow, but turbulent flow. Consider what the water "sees" as it comes to the abrupt corner of the stern dragging.

What's a real drag is that it's almost impossible NOT to drag the leeward transom on an TheMightyHobie18 in heavy air. With the crew weight well aft to keep the bow from burying, the transom can't help but drag. Avoiding a pitchpole is a higher priority than keeping the transoms out of the water. How about a carbon fiber 18? The all-up weight could be kept under 300 lbs.



David HO

TheMightyHobie18 1067

If we're going carbon fiber can we please get rid of or reduce the deck lip too? That's almost as much of a brake as the transoms.



The only time I don't keep weight forward in light to medium is when in chop the lips get in the waves too much - then it's beneficial to accept a little butt-dragging.



btw - spinnakers are worthwhile additions...