making an old boat faster

Just out of curiosity, I'm wondering if anyone has any other ideas about making our little boat faster (besides skill and execution)
We have an Ericson 32-2 (1970)

In the past year we have:
new kevlar medium #1,
new running rigging
new symmetrical spinnaker
changed hank on sails to luff tape
navtec hydraulic backstay adjustor
new bottom
Gori folding prop
reshaped, redesigned rudder
new B & G instrument pack
redistribution of weight

We're starting to get more competitive, but we're still only moving into the middle of the pack.

Any suggestions about go-fast modifications would be helpful.
Finally, one question about weight aloft. We have a small radar on the mast between the first and second spreader. We also have, apparently, wood spreaders, because one broke during the race two weekends ago. Would it improve performance (i.e pointing ability) if we were to pull the radar dome down and switch the wood spreaders to composite or aluminum?

Jim McCone
Voice of Reason E-32-2 Hull #134

Step on Crew...

I always learn from step on crew that captains bring on board to help out. Several of them are excellent coaches as well as tacticians.
Just as an example: Imagine how much you'd learn (and how much faster you'd go) if Seth came sailing with you. Get whoever built your new sails to come out and help you and the crew once in a while . Or a local J-world or North U instructor or something.
Just thoughts...
Chris

chris,

I'm with you on that. Seth already knows the guy who helped build the sails and we've been out sailing with Sam from Ullman several times.
Also, in March, my partner, myself and one of our crew spent a week at J-World in San Diego tuning up our skills.
Even though we have alot to do to improve our skills, we're also trying to do everything that we can to get the boat to sail to its PHRF rating. I'm just wondering if there are any performance enhancing modifications I haven't thought of.

Jim McCone
Voice of Reason E-32-2 Hull #134

Faster still

The only other thing that would really help is to get rid of the wheel and use a tiller-you will have more control, better response and "feel", and much better weight palcement in the cockpit. I realize this may be a hard sell, but it about the only thing I can think of that might help boatspeed.

So, you have done all of the basics, and one thing that must be kept in mind is that the 32-2 never was the most competitive of the E-boats of that vintage (the 35-2 was a better all around boat). Having said that, on port to port races, you should be quite competitive...bouy races will sometimes be harder because these boats take a while to get back up to speed after a tack, so this must be kept to a minimum. Sadly, this might mean missing several wind shifts on a windward leg. The toughest part for you will be sailing short bouy races. The longer the race, the better this boat will do.

Now that you have done the boat prep, the next thing is to sail better. I am of the opinion that the ratings are MUCH less important than sailing smart and executing well. On a 2 mile beat, you can save as much as 2-3 minutes or more by simply being in phase with the wind shifts-and getting the better side of the course-that means for the leg, you could have the equivalent of a rating change of 60-90 seconds PER MILE!!! The point here is that the guys who worry about 6 or 12 seconds per mile on rating are totally missing the point. A difference of that small an amount means nothing compared to what gains are available by sailing the boat properly.

All I am saying is not to worry if you think your rating is off by 6-12 seconds-the focus should be on sailing well, and THEN look at the rating.

What Sam can show you about these things will be very valuable, and I would bet that having him out a few times (if you can get him) will be the biggest and most effective thing you can do to "go faster". Feel free to share this with him and get his feedback. You have heard the phrase "horses for courses", right? Your horse is better at the port to port races, while a newer, lighter, even smaller boat may be better for short bouy races because they point better (more modern underbody) and accelerate faster-but you should be in the hunt anyway in average conditions-the 32-2 will probably suffer at the extremes of light and heavy air, but so be it.

Oh yes, weight aloft-this has an effect on stability, so anything you can do in that regard would help-the most effective things would be going to modern low stretch halyards all around-and maybe trying to set up the mast head as a 3 foward halyard set up instead of a 4 halyard set up-this gets rid of one of them...If you cruise much, keep the radar-it is not going to make 'the difference".

Good hunting!!
S

I'm with Seth here. Getting in phase with the shifts upwind is everything in dinghy racing. My wife and I when racing the Jet 14 make a point of getting to the race area 1/2 hour or more before the first warning and spend that time sailing upwind and down the anticipated course. We are taking compass readings on both tacks every 3 minutes and writing them down. We do the same thing downwind. This helps us practice roll gybes and tacks, loosen up for the race, and gets a lot of info. Once we have about 20 minutes or more of data we take a look at it and try to determing if there is a persistant shift or if there is a pattern of occilation. We pick baseline headings for both tacks and gybes at the bottom and top of the course as well. We get an idea what the current is doing and make determinations on its effect based on wind direction and strength. Once we have decided which end of the line we think is favored we start checking numbers again. We do this up to about 1 minute when we are getting into our final start setup. After the start she is calling out numbers to me all the way uphill to the mark. "you are 5 up, 10 up, 5 up, even, 5 down, 8 down, 10 down, lets tack you have a lane..." She looks at boats ahead of us to see if they are getting lifted or if the guys out to the right are killing it. The 5 up 5 down is compass degrees above or below our target heading. If there has been a persistant shift we may reset the numbers in which case she may tell me " There has been a big lefty and this is your new number" We talk very little beyond numbers, course info, and stuff like "so and so is a few degrees higher than you but you have speed" or "we need to tack out of here to clear our air then we can get back left" This is how I do dinghy racing. On big boats with 8-10 guys on board I find a lot of talking just detroys my helm. Once we are inside 5 minutes to the start I "lower the dome" of silence and from then till the start I only want to hear my bow man calling the line and feeding me info on my set up. After the start I try to limit the talking to compass info and tactics with one or two people. I find it best to have people feed info to the tactician quietly then let him or her make the calls on what to feed to me. I do like to hear the numbers verses targets though. I try to focus all of my attention to driving and tell tales. Every so often I will call for a change in trim if my guys are off the pace but I really try to keep the chit chat to a minimum. The guys on the rail talk but they do so very quietly.

I feel your pain as I have been racing the Jet 14 for about 7 years now and am feeling like I'm at a plateau in my sailing. I was making steady improvement over the years clawing my way from 25th in the 2000 Nationals to 10th in 2001, 13th in 2002, 10th in 2003, to 7th in 2004, couldn't do 2005 because of having a baby, and now 2006 we are hosting... I have the hardest time making progress against the top 5. I seem to do top 3 localy pretty regularly but nationals is a whole other story. 35-50 boats is way different than 8-15 locally.

Ted,

One of the things I really value are the new B & G instruments I have purchased. With the B & G, I get fairly accurate readings of true wind direction which is data I really wanted for the purpose of obtaining real time wind shift info. While there are adequate wind instruments out there to buy, to get true wind data, the choices were limited and B & G seemed to provide the most information. Now I have a display dedicated to TWD. Helps with the "sailing in phase" aspect of Seth's advice.

Believe me, we're working hard to improve both our individual skill and our teamwork -- thus the 3 of us spending a week at J-World. Just looking for ideas to tweak the boat. As they say, what we can't gain through skill we try to gain through money.

Jim McCone
Voice of Reason E-32-2 Hull #134

Good stuff for sure the B&G instruments. I guess I am more a fan of the compass, maybe old school, but I find it tells me everything I need with out overly confusing my simple brain. The impact of wind driven chop and stiff tide does not so easily get picked up in TWD, but this is just what works for me. And keep in mind that I am getting my ass handed to me by a guy we call Yoda who sails with no compass and boat that has almost no adjustable rigging, old sails and a 60 lb kid for crew...

The boat?

What does Yoda sail?

Upwind readings...

We do the same thing on the race boat that Ted was talking about. We write down the stbd close hauled heading, then the port close hauled heading, then start again. We then divide the difference between the headings in half and add it to the stbd heading to find true wind.
....180 225 270
......185 230 275
........190 235 280
....180 225 270

The italicised is your true wind direction (assuming tuning is right, trim and all the rest). This provides a graphical representation of trends as well.
Jim, I'm sure you guys have it working- I'm just throwing out an idea for stuff that we find helpful.
I spent the weekend on Race Committee with a "rock star" laser guy that races with us. I picked his brain the whole time about staying in phase and chasing the next header as we watched the race.

As far as drivers and tacticians- As a trimmer, I love having a solid tactician onboard. I only want to talk to the driver to let him know about sail trim for accelleration, hows it feel, and downwind spinnaker stuff. I talk to the tactician about everything else. Nothing worse than a chatty helmsman... "Dude, drive the boat!"

Compass only

Ted is right that all you really need is a compass and someone willing to pay attention. For sailing upwind, this is actually the easiest way to track the shifts.

It can be much harder downwind using this method, though-and here is why:

Of course the wind does not stop shifting once the Easter Egg sail comes out, and if the leg is an honest downwind leg, the same gains and losses are there to be had by using the shifts to your advantage or not.

It gets sticky though because when sailing uphill, the optimal wind angle varies only a few degrees-maybe from 28-34 degrees apparent depending on windspeed, chop, etc. But basically you always know if you are actually sailing "close hauled", so any significant change in compass heading indicates a wind shift.
Downwind, the optimal angle for best VMG varies HUGELY with windspeed and sea state. It might be 95-100 degrees apparent in under 5 knots, 110-120 in 5-8, 120-140 in 8-12, and 140-160 or deeper as the breeze builds. Plus as you get a puff you can dig deeper while the puff is with you, coming back up the the higher wind angle when it passes you. If you knew EXACTLY what wind angle to steer in a given wind speed, then yes, the compass will do the same job as it does upwind, but since the variability of the angles can be so great downwind, it is much harder to be certain whether or not you have been lifted or headed (not impossible, but harder)-THIS is where a TWD indication is golden.

But my question is what does Yoda sail???

Just a thought!

Yoda sails a Jet 14 dinghy and a Thistle. He has won the Jet Nationals for the past few years in a row. Last year or maybe year before he won Thistle Nationals and Jet 14 Nationals in the same year. He spoke at a Jet Nationals a few years ago about his upwind strategy. " I try to sail the tack that has me pointed closest to the mark..." Lets just say the audience was rolling in the isles with laughter. The guy is very fast in just about anything he sails...

Ted: How did you train your wife to do this? Mine does not, will not, would not cannot, could not do this. Just getting her on the boat is hard work. Please send me a private message when you get tired of her.


"...she is calling out numbers to me all the way uphill to the mark. "you are 5 up, 10 up, 5 up, even, 5 down, 8 down, 10 down, lets tack you have a lane..." She looks at boats ahead of us to see if they are getting lifted or if the guys out to the right are killing it. The 5 up 5 down is compass degrees above or below our target heading. If there has been a persistant shift we may reset the numbers in which case she may tell me " There has been a big lefty and this is your new number" We talk very little beyond numbers, course info, and stuff like "so and so is a few degrees higher than you but you have speed" or "we need to tack out of here to clear our air then we can get back left"..."

Keep in mind we are racing a small 2 person boat. When she's on the Ericson I'm lucky if I can get her to get me a beer...

Still pretty awesome

That's really great, and EXACTLY what is needed so the driver can DRIVE. Remember learning to drive a car?: They teach you "if you look left you tend to steer left"?? Same thing sailing..if you can keep your driver focused (on the HIGH side-right guys?) you will be MUCh faster!!

S

Someday...

I'm going to find a boat where the driver either doesn't own the boat, or doesn't act like it. Having the helmsman direct crew work or direct fixing issues drives me nuts. "Dude, DRIVE THE D@MN BOAT!" and do what the tactician tells you.
I think I'm going to have to buy a dedicated race boat and get my wife to drive- she's a great driver and just ignores everything else but driving. Makes it easy to call tactics for her- "Down 2" to barge on the guy below you doesn't make her nervous... she knows I have to fix the boat if I run it in to somebody

That's the ticket!!

Perfect..

yeah,

if it were my wife on the boat she would say "duh, I know what a compass is. . . . do you have one on the boat?"

Jim McCone
Voice of Reason E-32-2 hull #134