What made the difference?

Last weekend I managed to sneak out of the house with the boat on the back of the car, and took myself to Datchet SC for a Laser open. I was pleased with my boat speed, and general tactical/ strategic decisions, and still need to work on my start. (The good thing about a Laser open is that with four races you can expect a couple of general recalls so get to practise at least 6 starts in one day.)
I managed to win despite 2 poor starts almost throwing away the two wins I had managed in the first two races.
After the open I have been thinking about what made the difference that allowed me to win? I was generally faster than most other boats, and more often than the others was on the right side of any shifts. This allowed me to win two races fairly comfortably and sail through the fleet to take a third place in the last race.
There are three things that I noticed I did differently to all or most boats.

1. When I got to the club I had some time to spare as the start was postponed due to lack of wind, I used this to flip my boat over and polish the hull, and make sure my boat was well prepared.

2. As there was a little wind I got out on to the water early, sailed around the race area and practised my tacks. I was first out by around 30 minutes.

3. I adjusted my mainsheet tension upwind as the wind dropped and increased, I didn't get the mainsheet block to block until I was close to hiking and then made sure I eased it again if the wind eased slightly. I didn't notice many other boats adjusting this key control upwind. Most went block to block and stayed there.

If it was just one thing that made the difference or a combination of all three, or something else, I will never know. One thing is for certain, there are three things I will try to repeat at my next event.

Andy

Sail setting

At a recent days coaching at Wilsonian SC there wasn't a lot of wind first thing. I made the most of the time on shore to look at sail setting using a Streaker and Laser 2000, this is the write up I produced after the day as I spouted quite a bit of complex information. Hopefully there are a few good bits in there that anyone can take something from.

Sail setting What each control does:

• Downhaul, adds tension to the front of the sail, flattening the sail and causing the leach to open towards the top of the sail. A very useful tool to depower the sail. It also pulls the centre of effort forwards in the sail.
• Outhaul, controls the shape towards the foot of the sail
• Kicker, Pulls the boom down, which will control the leach of the sail. Also pushes the boom into the mast causing the mast to bend, which has the effect of flattening the middle part of the sail, and moving the centre of effort rearwards. The angle of the kicker can give a good idea of which effect is likely to be more pronounced on a boat.

The streaker has a relatively low boom and kicker mounting point quite far back on the boom. When the kicker was pulled on the mast bend and consequent flattening of the sail was very noticeable, the effect on the leach was less so. If compared to a Laser 2000, one would find the kicker has a far greater effect on the leach as opposed to the mast bend as the kicker pulls the boom down to a greater extent.

·         The mainsheet: When pulling in the mainsheet, the last few inches will not only pull the boom in, but in the absence of significant kicker tension, will pull the boom down. This will effect the leach of the sail.

What to do in each wind strength?

Light winds: The ideal sail profile is relatively flat, so the the wind has the energy to flow around the curve of the sail. Be careful to leave the leach of the sail a little open to allow the wind to exit the sail. In light winds it is easy to tension the mainsheet too much hooking the leach, and causing turbulence at the back of the sail.

These pictures show different leach tensions, on the left the leach is very open, note how the back of the sail twists to leeward, on the right it is quite straight. The straight leach will give good pointing and is important in medium winds, but when the wind is light a slightly more open leach will give better speed.

A flater sail can be achieved by bending the mast slightly, kicker does this in most singlehanders. Spreaders will do the same job without affecting leach tension on boats with more sophisticated rigs.

Keep the outhaul fairly tight as well, any creases in the foot of the sail means too tight.

 

In medium winds when you are trying to gain maximum power from the rig, ease all controls. The leach of the sail should be kept tensioned using the mainsheet.

In strong winds progressively pull on more of each control to flatten the sail. The downhaul and kicker should be used together in most singlehanders to avoid the centre of effort moving too far back in the sail. These are your 2 main depowering controls. Pull the outhaul tight, but leave some shape in the foot of the sail as you need some drive.

Wind	Downhaul	Outhaul	Kicker
Light	0	some	Little, to bend mast
Medium	0	Loosest setting	Take up slack
Overpowered	Progressively more	Tighter	Pull on progressively
Very overpowered	Lots and lots	Bit tighter still	Tight