Thursday, March 29, 2007

Tactical Tip #2

Hannah sent these questions from yesterday, so here are the Tip(s) of the Day.

First, downwind, you do want a little bit of vang, right? so that the top batten is parallel with the boom, which would be more vang that in lighter conditions.

Vang gets tricky. You want enough on so that the top batten is parallel, but not so much that it actually makes you capsize. To bear off huge, you want to be able to ease the vang. This means that at the windward mark, you want the vang off. You can then re-set it for down wind. You will see a happy sailing around with absolutely no vang when it is nuking and they will stay up for a while. This is because with no vang on, the sail is totally de-powered. However, with no vang on, it also means that you don't accelerate in the puffs. That said, have the vang on to keep you in control. This means that if you are wing-on-wing, have enough vang so that the boat isn't rocking like mad. On the reaches, when you pump, the whole sail (top & bottom) should come in together. Basically, you are going to have to adjust as you sail. You can't just set it and forget it.

Also, is it better to sail hotter angles and gybe a few times downwind than to sail low or wing on wing?

If you are good, you will be able to hold the wing. Cookie passed 5 boats in the last 50 yards to the leeward mark yesterday because he had the guts to blow the vang and sail low. You can plane a 420 while on a wing. It's scary, but it's fast. An FJ, however, in major breeze is a different beast. You sail angles more in light air than when it blows.

And, when sailing angles how do you know you are sailing too high an angle and losing?

Think about it this way: you always want to feel like you can bear off to the mark. Which gybe will give you the best angle on the breeze and to the mark? If you were sailing up-wind, you'd know that you can't point directly at the mark until you are on the lay-line. It's the same thing down-wind. Yesterday, a group of you all reached on starboard way to the right (down-wind right) of the mark, and then gybed back at a hot angle. If you cannot bear off and point at the mark, then you need to gybe.

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