During a race recently my crew and I had some disagreement over how deep to sail the boat toward the leeward mark. We were in a non-spinnaker class, flying a 150 up front. Winds were pretty fluky, ranging from less than 5 kts to gusts of over 20 kts, with the average being around 12 to 15. I know that as the wind gets up it is better to sail more directly for the mark, that heading up does not help a heavy boat as much as it does a light one, and that once the boat is near hull speed heading DDW its VMG is pretty much maxed (for non-planing situations.) Are there any other, perhaps more specific, rules-of-thumb to follow to get best performance downwind? Seth has mentioned heading up a touch with the foresail winged out to the windward side. Any other ideas?
Polar Exploration
- Thread starter Bob in Va
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- exploration polar
Sven
Seglare
Hi Bob,
I think you have it pretty much covered. One thing I might add is that you can gain just a tad if you heel to windward so that you need minimal rudder input to stay the course. This works best in dingy racing, but our 23s are pretty close
In a dingy you can literally stear down wind with just heel. In effect what you are doing is getting the CE over to windward to cancel the weather helm.
You might also experiment with fore-aft crew placement. In your case having the crew hang off the bow might give you the optimal waterline length !
Remember that it is supposed to be fun !
-Sven
I think you have it pretty much covered. One thing I might add is that you can gain just a tad if you heel to windward so that you need minimal rudder input to stay the course. This works best in dingy racing, but our 23s are pretty close
In a dingy you can literally stear down wind with just heel. In effect what you are doing is getting the CE over to windward to cancel the weather helm.
You might also experiment with fore-aft crew placement. In your case having the crew hang off the bow might give you the optimal waterline length !
Remember that it is supposed to be fun !
-Sven
DDW
All good points guys.
The windier it is, the deper you can sail. In the 5-8 range it is probably better to reach up and gain speed. There was a thread last week with a 23 sailor and we went through this exact point.
Weight forward is good-to a point. In light air you want to reduce wetted surface and weather helm. Going fwd. will do the former-heeling to weather the latter. You always want to keep the boat from dragging the back end, so in windier waether when you want ALL the waterline you can move aft, but only all the way aft when you need to keep the rudder as deep in the water s you can for control. This means usually most of the crew will be over the widest part of the boat-slightly forward in the light air and slightly aft in the heavy.
Rock on!
All good points guys.
The windier it is, the deper you can sail. In the 5-8 range it is probably better to reach up and gain speed. There was a thread last week with a 23 sailor and we went through this exact point.
Weight forward is good-to a point. In light air you want to reduce wetted surface and weather helm. Going fwd. will do the former-heeling to weather the latter. You always want to keep the boat from dragging the back end, so in windier waether when you want ALL the waterline you can move aft, but only all the way aft when you need to keep the rudder as deep in the water s you can for control. This means usually most of the crew will be over the widest part of the boat-slightly forward in the light air and slightly aft in the heavy.
Rock on!