Balancing the boat
| Fast all round sailing is about compromise and balance, theory would have it that a little or a lot of aft mast rake will improve your windward boat speed....aft mast rake also increases your weather helm, theory again suggests the stronger the breeze the more mast rake you should have, most will know that in a breeze a yacht generates more weather helm, so the theory is fine but if you just follow that lead you will end up with a yacht which wants to round up all the time while sailing on the wind!.....all you can do in real terms is move your mast further forward at the deck...if it is already as far foreward as design will allow you can maybe move the jib forward instead. if you follow the latter set up, you should try and have more than one setting to swing the jib from, as in the light you may now have to much lee helm....ie. boat falling of to leeward. in the end what you are looking for is a boat that in a steady breeze light or fresh will virtually sail itself to windward without constant rudder correction from the skipper. |
Nose diving
| Everyone gets into this situation at one time or another, running down hill and hit by a gust of wind which burys the bow and stops the boat almost dead! Not a lot you can do about it mostly. It is usually caused by a gust of wind hitting you when the boat is moving slowy either after a mark rounding or just a light patch of wind....but if you are moving fast and you can see that the wind is increasing it is possible to save a possible nose dive by pulling in the sails closer to midships, even though you might be flat off the wind......this reduces your projected sail area and depowers the boat somewhat. Carful not to over do it though or the boat might gybe on you unexpectedly and cause even more problems! |
Nothing beats time on the water
| Theory is great, read all you can about tuning and racing these small yachts but nothing beats time on the water...find yourself a club mate with a boat of similar speed to your own and go out after work or on none club race days and sail against each other altering just one boat at a time to see if you can make a speed gain....then bring both boats up to that speed and start the experiment again looking to gain a boat length here and there its the best of both worlds, you get quality sailing time and you get speed gains......and its just plain fun |
