Words of Wisdom
From
Steve Kirkpatrick
This year we have had several wacky days of sailing. Very light air with unsettled breeze presents challenging conditions in any kind of boat. Here are some rules of thumb for short course light air sailing learned over 40 years of frostbiting and reinforced on Sunday:
Stay in pressure. In light air it is often easy to sail into a hole. The difference between 0 and 2 knots of wind is a lot bigger than from 10 and 12, so you must avoid holes. To do this stand up in your boat before the start and figure out the path that seems to have the most pressure up the track. It is important to look upwind as you are sailing to constantly update your “pressure path.”
Have a bird’s eye view. Think about what the racecourse looks like from 300 feet in the air. Where is the pressure? What is the wind angle to the course? What is the current doing? Anything else that would inform your strategy?
Set your boat and yourself up for speed. Sail controls and body position always matter, but they are a bit trickier in light air.
Upwind somewhat counterintuitively you really need to have a lot of boom vang on to bend the mast, so it fits the luff curve of the sail. If you do not, you will have a vertical wrinkle (even with your cunningham eased) running from the grommet at the tack to the top of the mast. This is slow. To remedy this, pull the mainsheet to two blocked and then take the slack out of the vang to achieve the right approximate level of prebend. The cunningham should be loose, but not so loose the wrinkles look ugly as this may indicate the draft is a bit too far back in your sail. The outhaul upwind should be about 4-5” off the boom at max draft (the deepest part of the foot of the sail).
Downwind the vang is eased to one or two settings all off or reaching. All off is for by-the-lee sailing when the flow is from leech to luff and the twist at the top of the leech is very helpful. When sailing a positive (above dead downwind angle) the vang is snugged 8-10 inches to firm up the leech and power up the sail for luff to leech flow. Outhaul is off 10-12 inches at max draft for the runs.
As with upwind, staying in pressure downwind matters a lot in light air. Pearson Potts did a masterful job of staying in pressure both up and downwind and getting good starts. He also did a very nice job of maintaining proper heel and fore and aft trim. Many people sit too far back in light air, but Pearson seemed to be pretty much on top of the centerboard, which looked perfect from off his boat. But for a luck righty that I got two-thirds of the way up the one leg final race he would be on the hook for this wisdom!
See you Sunday.
This week Sunday Feb. 13
Early forecast looks warmer and windier than this past week. (The easiest prediction ever!) Moose and Kelly should be back! Don't forget to reserve a boat if need one.
Thank you Steve K!
See you on the water!
