Questions from PJ

Over break, Pete emailed me some questions. Below, I've pasted in most of the discussion. Anyone else have thoughts?

Pete's questions

First question: to reduce weather helm, should you move your weight forward or back?

Second Question: At the start, if you have to come back around the boat from right on its stern (i.e. the same position
as if you were timing it), is it better to foot off, accelerate, and then begin to come up and go around it, or should you take the shorter route and just get the main in and go (or is it more situation dependant than anything)?

Third Question: can we talk about downwind shifts and playing the angles next week?

Fourth Question: When you are sailing in the summer, how do you do you time shifts? I can't seem to figure out the best way to do it... and I don't have a compass... solution?

Beth's Answers

1. Weight and weather-helm: I would ask first, what are the conditions? To be honest, I think that weather helm is more a function of rig tune that weight placement. In light air, weather helm is ok. Moving your weight forward - which is also good - will reduce some of it (think about how the crew hikes forward to bear the boat off). However, if it's choppy, moving your weight forward too far will just fill you with water. I also wonder, if you have too much weather helm, and you think your rig is tuned correctly, are you flat? That could be another factor.

2. Coming around the boat: again, what is the situation? Is it light? Do you want to go right? Where's the fleet? Where is your pair? What are the conditions? This is why it is critical to know the time around the boat! I sailed a J24 race one time where we were over early and came around the boat. The skipper footed off a bit for speed - it was light and lumpy - but then sailed us directly under the fleet. We ended up footing out to the wrong side and got stuck on the wrong side of the shift. However, had he rounded the boat tight, like a mark rounding, and then tacked right away - what I had wanted to do - then we would have been footing out to the correct side of the shift and would have been golden at the top of the course. See, lots of things
to consider.

3. Down-wind shifts - yes! Most important thing is that some one has to be looking backwards the entire time downwind. I've gotten to a point where I ask three questions the whole way to the leeward mark: where's the pressure, where's the fleet, where's the mark. As long as I am sailing DOWN to the mark, in pressure, and in position, we usually do fine. It's not as hard as some people seem to think.

4. First off, if you are sailing long courses in open water - not on a lake - then invest in a compass. We get numbers before every start when we are sailing in places like Long Island Sound, Niantic Bay, etc. Basically, we sail for about 3 minutes on each tack and just watch the compass. We come up with a high, a low, and a median number. Then during the course of the day, we start to watch how long it takes for each shift to move in. However, if we are sailing on a lake - which we do a lot - it just has to do with looking up the course. This could actually mean watching the clouds move in over the land. In one regatta, we realized that when they started to shift, we could anticipate the next shift to come from under the clouds.

To be honest, the only time when I can really say something like "It pulls back to the left after 5 minutes and 43 seconds" is when I'm coaching. You have to be able to watch for a long time to really be able to time it. Usually, it's when you have a gradient and a sea breeze - or a gradient and an incoming front - when this really happens. Usually, you have a persistent shift (like when it pulls right as the sea breeze fills) on top of small oscillations. This means that you can work to stay in phase while also working to the right side of the course. We see this a ton.