I’ve got one basic comment for the title of this post.
“You have to be good – real good – no no I mean really really good”
They say if you loose a race it was bad luck but if you win it was pure skill. When you win a sailboat race, one thing is for sure, even if you got lucky, you’re a good sailor and not only a good sailor but a good racer. There is a big difference between the two. I consider myself a pretty darn good sailor but … a good racer? Well.. not so much when I compare myself against those that race every week.
Last Wednesday we raced in a local regatta. I was rail meat (or self moving ballast – which means the guy who hangs his weight out to balance the boat). About 50 boats were involved. Our fleet of Young 8.8 meter sailboats was about 10 strong. Wind was about 12- 15 knots. And just to prove the point from above, the skipper is an old college friend of mine and an accomplished racer, yet we didn’t win. I would have to say that no bad decisions were made. We raced an almost picture perfect race, yet came in about 5th. Spinnaker launches and retrievals were perfect and done in a timely manner at the correct places. We even rounded the bottom mark in third place and came out of the mark in first place.
One failing we probably did have was not enough rail meat. The boat was healing slightly more than the other Young 8.8′s who had more crew on the rail.
Just one other thing I noticed was that on the two upwind legs back up to the finish line, the skipper/helmsman was needing to call to the mainsheet trimmer to trim-in & sheet-out, this causes a second or so lag each time. Multiply this over 200-300 trim changes throughout a race and you can loose significant ground.
The main sheet trimmer has to be really good when it comes to a close hauled boat riding on the edge of being over powered. There is a fine and skilled balance of perfect trimming of the traveller and the sheet. You’ve got to know instantly which one to trim. Main sheet out to spill wind out of the top – main sheet in to power back up. Traveller down (out) do depower from a gust – traveler up to recover once the gust passes. And they all have to be done in unison. Additionally the trimming can’t be reactive – it has to be slightly preemptive to keep the boat going fast.
This is the stuff you can’t become proficient at through online lessons or even just a few practical lessons on the water. There is only one way and that is to get out there and just do it. We highly recommend joining a yacht club and putting a notice on the board that you’re available to race. Guaranteed you’ll get a call. Skippers are always looking for reliable people to show up with out fail. Start out as rail meat then you can move up to trimming.
However, saying that, you’ve got to learn the principles. At NauticEd, we teach the theory so that you understand what is happening and why you might sheet in / sheet out / traveller up / traveller down.
Shortly – NauticEd will launch a FREE Introduction to Basic Sail Trim lesson. We’re going to use some REALLY high tech interactive flash demonstrations so that you’ll really GET the picture. Once you’ve completed that you’ll be really jonesing to get your head around our full Sail Trim Course.
Additionally, this year we’re going to launch a Regatta Race Tactics clinic – we’re interviewing authors now. So stay tuned.
To complete the story from above – wow, what a fun race. At the bottom mark, we were inches from another boat. They we all yelling at us but we had overlap and rights – they needed a few lessons in race rules of right of way. Hee hee! At the last mark before the finish line, we were on a starboard tack going for the mark – another boat in our fleet was approaching on port. We hailed starboard to establish rights ( we were outside the three boat lengths from the mark). They had to come up on the wind a little. Had we kept going, they would have had to tack over and we easily by the rules could have forced them to do that and make them loose a lot of time. However, there were other boats ahead of us in the course and so the prudent tactic was to tack on the layline to the mark and go for the finish. Because of the other boat’s momentum they were on top of us and beginning to pass as we picked up speed. Dave our skipper concentrated on making our boat go fast. I pulled my legs in from over the rail because they were so close. Then slowly because of everyone concentrating on making the boat go fast we pulled back ahead of the boat. We finished about 100 meters ahead of them but still in 5th place. Grrrrr!
It’s all extreme fun. If you want to learn to sail – learn the theory here at NauticEd then get out there and race. Man you’re going to learn a lot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Even if you don’t have one on your boat – one day you’ll be helming someone else’s boat with an Electronic Wind Meter and you certainly want the owner to be confident at what you are doing. There’s a couple of secrets so read on.
He’s what happened – I took out two guys who were experts at racing at their local yacht club. The trouble for them was they both kept on having to look around the bimini on our 373 Beneteau to get a peak at the wind vane at the top of the mast. I tried to tell them to use the electronic wind meter 18 inches from their face but they’d have nothing of it. It wasn’t pure enough. Then day turned to evening and evening to night. IE no wind vane watching at night … and they now had sore necks.
Wind meters are cool, and given the right calibration they’re pretty accurate. The resolution is greater than eyeballing the wind vane and thus you can be more consistent with your angle to the wind. I’m necessarily saying they are better than wind vanes but I’m definitely saying that being both vane and meter skilled adds to your sailing abilities.
Here’s a typical Wind Meter – it shows that the wind is 42 degrees to starboard. You’ll see a red dot at the bottom. Next to the red dot are the words TRUE and APP (apparent). The dot represents which wind direction the meter is measuring. In this case Apparent. For a discussion on True vs Apparent Wind see the NauticEd Skipper Course or this blog http://www.nauticed.org/blog/skipper/true-wind-versus-apparent-wind/ The green and red don’t mean any thing other than green is the starboard side of the boat and red is port.
Typical Wind Meter
LEARNING TO SAIL WITH AN ELECTRONIC WIND METER – SECRET NUMBER (1): This goes to working with wind vanes as well. When making heading adjustments, keep your head out of the boat. This means DON”T watch the meter or vane as you turn the boat. You’re guaranteed to over shoot your desired new heading. Also it’s dangerous traffic wise. Watching the meter or vane means you’re not looking out for traffic during a turn. IE When driving a car and turning at an intersection you never would look at the speedometer. It’s too dangerous and besides what’s the point, you can best judge a safe speed in the intersection turn by the rate things are going past your car. Same same – watch things outside the boat when you turn.
Imagine this – make a 90 degree turn in your car using a compass and stay exactly in the center of the lanes. Well maybe Al Pacino (acting as a blind guy) in the oscar winning movie Scent of a Woman could do it but me? Never in 100,000 trys. Again – same same why would anyone make a 10 degree adjustment to their heading looking at the wind vane or wind meter. You can’t stay in the center of the lane (new desired heading).
I’ll provide an example scenario: Assume you’re sailing along on 40 degrees apparent (your wind meter and vane point 40 degrees off from the front of the boat). You notice the wind direction changes to give you a 10 degree lift (a lift means the wind direction has changed so that the wind meter or vane points more towards the aft than before – in this case now 50 degrees). You want to turn upwind to bring the wind back to 40 degrees. Here’s how to make the turn: Pick out something on the horizon dead ahead then pick out something 10 degrees upwind from that point. Turn the boat to the point with out looking at the wind meter or vane. Once you are now sailing at the new point, check how you’re doing against that 40 degrees and make another adjustment in the same manner.
This was so basic it’s not too much of a secret, but you’d be surprised … one time teaching in my sailing school I actually had to cover up the wind meter as I could not get my student to stop watching the meter and to watch the horizon instead. As soon as she started watching the horizon her whole sailing world changed. She could hold a course, tack, gybe make adjustments with out over shooting – everything. Her whole problem was that one little point.
Here’s another scenario similar to a wind meter/vane turning problem – your navigator says to come onto a new heading of 160 degrees. Don’t watch the compass during the turn. First determine how many degrees the turn is, pick out a point on land or even a cloud to turn to. Make your turn watching out side the boat – then check your heading.
LEARNING TO SAIL WITH AN ELECTRONIC WIND METER – SECRET NUMBER (2): Don’t teach new people at the helm anything about the wind meter or the wind vanes. It’s too confusing – First, just have them focus on sterring to points on the horizon and making turns to new points on the horizon that you pick out for them.
LEARNING TO SAIL WITH AN ELECTRONIC WIND METER – SECRET NUMBER (3): Don’t stare at the wind meter and try to figure out which way you should turn the helm to make the meter move in any one particular direction. That’s too hard because it’s backwards from what you’d think and guaranteed you’ll get it wrong when some one embarassing is watching. And as above, make sure when you’re explaining the wind meter to a new helmsperson that you disallow them from similarly using it to figure out which direction to turn.
Instead, the wind meter should be used to determine how many degrees off the desirable wind angle you are and if the turn should be towards the wind or away from the wind. That’s all. Example – lets say we want to be flying 30 degrees APP off the wind. Using the wind meter above, we’re 12 degrees away from 30 and we are heading too far down wind. So lets pick out a point on land or a cloud that is 12 degrees upwind (the what? Port or Starboard) from our current heading.
The NauticEd Skipper Course is chocked full of tips like this one. Get started today and register for the NauticEd Skipper Sailing Course
Have you played with our FREE Sailing Instructor, NED? We use interactive tools like this to quickly and effectively teach sailing skills.
Someone was saying that the secret to light air sailing was the rudder. Not over steering the boat is important but the key is sail shape !This is where my students excelled, because they had a lot of sail theory. also the angl of attac. You can’t sail well in light air if you have too much draft in the sails! Every sailor needs to read: “Sailing Theory and Practice” by C.A Marchaj.
Sailing last weekend reminded me of this tip so here it is.
Often times when using a roller furler head sail you’ll find that if you’re furling it in really high winds, there is not enough furling line in the spool. And this has the potential problem of damage if you’re not watching what you are doing.
Here’s the scenario: You’re trying to stop the sail from flogging whilst furling so you’re holding the sheet on the winch and releasing slowly. The high wind puts a lot of tension on the sheet and thus you require a lot of tension on the furling line. The sail then furls up very tightly. This means that it takes more turns to furl to sail. Turns that you don’t have stored in the furling drum.
Now you’re cranking and cranking and all of a sudden it becomes very hard to pull in more furling line but the head sail is still a little bit out and needs a couple of more wraps. If an inexperienced crew member is doing this then, with the power of a winch, something is going to break. Ouch!
This happened to us last weekend sailing in a 30 knot blow in Tasman Bay, New Zealand on a 42 foot PDQ Catamaran. Fortunately I was doing the furling cranking and determined the problem instantly. Not that I’m the world’s greatest expert, but I’ve just seen this plenty of times before.
Oh oh - no more line left in the furling drum
I’ve got two solutions for this issue – of course once you reach shelter you can unfurl the sail and furl in back in with out all the back tension and problem is solved right? Well sort of. Not really because you might not be so lucky with the next crew member. So that’s not counted as a solution.
Here’s number one. Get some more wraps into the furler so you don’t have to deal with this again but how do you do that? I can remember the first time taking the end of the furler line, lying down on the deck with my head cocked all skew and feeding the line in and around the drum with great difficulty and frustration.
No the solution is much simpler.
(1) Pull out the head sail sheets forward and out from the fairleads, coil the sheets and bring them forward.
(2) Wind the sheets around the furled sail until the sail is fully wrapped then three more times for good measure.
(3) Pat yourself on the back that you read this blog.
(4) Uncoil and feed the sheets back through the fairleads – you’re done.
Wrap the headsail sheets around the furled sail
BTW – notice the awesome bay in the background.
A quick note however, some drums are really small and you might find that there is not enough room for those extra wraps. In that case you might consider a smaller diameter furling line.
What a small fine point of learning to sail this tip is. And now you’re understanding that it’s impossible to train your crew members on all the things like this on a sailboat but it can be a real problem and ultimately who pays for something on your boat when a crew member breaks something. You do!
So here’s the second part of the tip – A) Send this blog onto your crew members and also send to them your personal NauticEd Promocode. They’ll get $15 off their first NauticEd sailing course and you’ll get friend kudos and $10 credit towards your next NauticEd Course. Cool eh!
Don’t know about the personal NauticEd Promocode? See here.
Last weekend we met up with our friends Chris and Christine Ellsay in Nelson New Zealand. Chris and Chris, with their three kids aged 10, 8 and 6 are sailing around the world and it was refreshing to hear them say – “I don’t know how long we’ll take”. They’re 3 years into it and have made it from the great lakes in Eastern Canada to New Zealand so far. The route has been via the Caribbean, Venezuela, Columbia, Panama, Galapagos Islands, Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia, Tonga and now Kiwiland. (We missed them by a week when we were in Tonga with the NauticEd Graduation Trip in September last year.)
Holding out in New Zealand for the summer while the tropical cyclones pass overhead in the pacific islands, they say they’re returning to the Pacific, starting with Fiji in Late April 2011. Then they’ll decide if to hang another year in the pacific or head off to the top of Ausy through the Indian ocean in 2011 or 2012.
I interviewed Chris and Chris (and the kids) on their experience with a catamaran rather than a monohull for sailing around the world. Their opinion after 10,000 miles is that they would not have done it any other way. The comfort and space was the resounding feedback.
Here’s a short video introducing Stray Kitty a World Cruising Life Style, and Abel Tasman National Park In New Zealand.
Here’s a few pics of Stray Kitty, their 42 foot PDQ Antares 2002 Catamaran.
Stray Kitty in the Nelson Marina
The foredeck at anchor is a great place for a few gins after a hard day sail.
Foredeck of Stray Kitty 42 ft Catamaran
The Kids are being home schooled by Christine and by the sounds of it – they were way ahead of where they should be – good job Christine!
Kids sailing around the world - pretty cool kids
These three kids (my one is the 2 1/2 year old 2nd to right ) are pretty amazing – they fear nothing, do their school work, do as they are told, release the lines on command, know which electrical switches to flick on at the right time – in fact I think they’d make it back to land if mum and dad fell overboard. They’re pretty cool kids and are a delight to spend time with.
Plenty of room inside the catamaran for school work
The Catamaran has heaps of room inside and it’s easy for the kids to do their school work underway because the boat stays flat when sailing.
Stray Kitty is sailing the traditional route around the world following the trade winds. Chris reported that much of their sailing has been downwind and so here he is showing me his much used bowsprit for flying their Gennaker. Oh and by the way – notice the incredible bay that we stayed overnight in – in the back ground in Abel Tasman National Park at the top of the South Island.
The Catamaran Bowsprit
There is plenty of safety gear on board and Chris and Chris are doing it right. Notice all the the MOB gear at the stern of the boat ready to be instantly deployed should anyone go overboard.
The boat has on-board a generator, two alternators and solar panels for powering all the electrical requirements of the boat. The total solar production capability is about 500 watts. Chris says for every thing to maintain with out the use of the generator or alternators – he’d like to have about 1000 watts of solar capacity so they do have to kick on the generator every now and then.
Solar Panels on the hardtop of Stray Kitty
Chris also discussed with me his Internet connections via SSB and his weather information gathering capability. Here he has downloaded a GRIB which is a map forecast of the sailing area we were in. The expected forecast was for 35 knots and they got it right. Out sailing we saw it peak to 36 knots on the wind meter. Made for some fun sailing.
Downloading the Weather GRIB
And the kids loved the bumpy ride that day as you can see here.
High waves making the trampoline a fun place to be
And here’s us busting through the 1-2 meter swell.
Crashing through the waves sailing the catamaran
Over the 4 days we spent with these true ocean sailors, we had a blast (beyond the 36 knotter). We scored some amazing shots of the Able Tasman National park in New Zealand which will be on the next blog. Stray Kitty will be making the passage up to Auckland via the east coast in a few days but first they’ll have to wait for right weather conditions to cross one of the world’s renown rough water ways, the Cook Straight which lies between the North and South Islands. High winds and current can make this one a bit tricky.
We’re pretty jealous of Stray Kitty. One of Chris’ sayings over the weekend was the “we regret in life more things that we don’t do than what we actually do” and this was one of the big reasons they sold their business and set out across the oceans and wow they had some good stories to match.
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When you win a sailboat race, one thing is for sure, even if you got lucky, you’re a good sailor and not only a good sailor but a good racer. There is a big difference between the two. I consider myself a pretty darn good sailor but … a good racer? Well.. not so much when I compare myself against those that race every week.
