Yachts & Yachting – August 2019

• Is it light, sitting-in-the-boat
  conditions? If so, you need
  to encourage ow over your
  jib and onto your mainsail –
  you are looking for power.


• Is it hiking / trapezing conditions
  and there is room for the boat to
  take more wind before you would
  be overpowered? If so, you are
  looking to squeeze as much wind
  as possible onto the mainsail –
  you are looking for power.


• Are you already completely
  overpowered? If so, you need to
  lose wind from the mainsail –
  you are looking to lose power.


• Is there a chop / wave that you are
  smashing into? If so, you need a
  forgiving jib set-up that will cover
  a few bases: sometimes you need
  power, other times you need to
  get rid of it – bit of everything.

LIGHT WIND
In the lighter wind you need to have a
more ‘open’ jib leech to encourage the
weak, less powerful air across your jib,
through the slot. Have the leech telltale
ying 80% of the time, stalling 20% of
the time. As the wind builds you can
increase the amount of time it is stalling.

BUILDING TO MAX POWER
As the wind builds, it has more energy
and can push through that gap more
easily, so you need to tighten your jib
leech, maximising the power you can
take out of the wind. As you hit the

toestraps or the trapeze wire the jib

can take a signicant pull in. Have the

leech telltale stalling 80% of the time

and owing 20%. is will be a gradual

tightening all the way up to max power,

when your jib leech will be at its tightest.

If your jib leech telltale is constantly

ying, your jib leech is too open; if

it is constantly wrapped around the

leech of the sail, your jib is too tight.

BEYOND MAX POWER

When you get beyond max power, you

now need to start losing (spilling) wind

from your sail, because your body weight

can no longer balance it out, so you start

opening the leech again. e leech telltale

becomes less useful in these conditions

as it will permanently y, unless you

are over tight. Instead look at the lu of

the mainsail. If you are sailing upwind

in a straight line and the mainsail lu

is constantly back-winding, it is being

caused by wind ring o the back of jib

into the lu of the mainsail and it’s not

fast. You want both sails to be pulling

together, not one disrupting the airow

over the other. So, ease the sheet until

you are back-winding 20% of the time.

CHOP

Choppy conditions are the hardest to

set up for: what you need from your

jib constantly changes: power to punch

through the dicult water, but if you hit

a bad wave and the boat starts loading

up, you need to quickly get rid of that

power and encourage ow so you can

accelerate. In these conditions you would

set your jib up at its most ‘twisted’, with

a deep base that gives you the power,

but an open-top leech to give you the

forgiveness so, if you keep hitting waves,

you can re-accelerate. So it would

be jib car forward, jibsheet eased.

Essentially the correct jib set-up is

a blend of both jib car and sheeting

position. It’s not an exact science. ere

is an element of personal preference and

feel. Also, the boat is always in transition

from one state to another, so you have

to be ready for what is about to hit you.

TECHNIQUE PRACTICE

e next element of speed is your

technique, both individually and how

you work together. It’s hugely boat, wind

speed and wave state specic. e two

main elements are boat heel (side-to-

side) and boat trim (front-to-back).

Sailing in a straight line you need

to be looking at the wind that will be

hitting your boat in the next 20 seconds

and anticipating what you need to do

with your body position and jibsheet

position to maintain maximum speed.

BOAT HEEL

As a general rule across boats, when

it’s light wind you want leeward heel:

this helps the helmsperson steer as it

gives them weight through the tiller.

As soon as the wind builds, and you

get some boatspeed on, you feel like

you can squeeze some power on and

the boat needs to be at. From this

wind speed through to max power

and up the wind range most boats will

want to be at. If you are in a planing

boat, they like to sit on their planing

surface upwind, which could well be

at but, depending on design, it might

be with a few degrees of leeward heel.

Most of the boat heel work is the

crew’s job, but there might be a few

conditions where, as a team, you feel

it is more accurate and less disruptive

to the boat and sails if the helm takes

charge of it. For my team this was ‘crew

in the boat conditions’ when I was

wedged down in a tight ball between

the gunwale and side deck. e helm

could control attening the boat in

the early stages of the building wind.

In the condition where you are just

thinking to commit to the trapeze or

the toestraps, it can be worth both

helm and crew gently hiking until

the wind is solidly established. at

stops any disruption to the mast as

you hook on and o if the windspeed

uctuates and sometimes drops.

At max power, as a team, you are

desperate to not be the rst boat in the

race to start giving away power, either

by having to dump some mainsheet or

Above Left

Sailing beyond

max power – time

to spill wind

Below right

Draw a 10cm line

from the jib clew,

pointing towards

halfway up the lu;

the starting point

for a powerful

sheeting angle is

when the sheet

is a continuation

of that line

August 2019 Yachts & Yachting 49