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Mast rake is another aspect of trimming for best sailing balance. Not only that but balance aside most boats will sail faster in a breeze if you can induce a little mast rake aft. Sometimes this is hard to do, as weather helm increases with the stronger breezes raking your mast further aft usually increases the helm still further! If you can move your mast forward at deck level to counteract the helm that's great, do it! But if your mast is stepped through the deck it is not so easy to figure. Perhaps you can move your jib a little futher forward to counter the mast going aft? Sail with more twist in your mainsail? All boat designs will react in a slightly different way, I know the Austalian TS2 sails well with quite an amount of aft rake, my Eureka likes a lot of aft rake in the 'B' rig, all you can do is experiment, get one of your friends who has a boat of similar speed to go down to the lake with you and spend a day trying different mast rakes. You might have to try it in differing wind strengths before you can be sure you have the best combination. Here we see GBR 08 has quite some aft rake in it's 'B'rig. |
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