Spreader set up

Spice has two wires, and TBH I should work out how to maximise power with just one trapezing as I'm not the best at helming off the wire and don't have a regular crew who can compensate for my shortfalls.......

I did have a graphic demonstration a few weeks ago, a blasting day with my mate in his Blaze and me and irregular crew in the Spice, the difference between t'crew wiring and not was dramatic (should be obvious but we were just having fun reaching up and down......).

Simply put, spreader rake will control the static bend in the rig, or the amount of pre-bend that the mast gets for a given forestay tension. Once this is decided the length of the spreaders will dictate the stiffness of the mast in changing conditions, so essentially gust response. The only concern with overly long spreaders, particularly when you have no lowers at all is that the mast will sag in the middle and the tip will actually move to windward. This is particularly true when the rig is set up very slack, less of an issue when there is still plenty of residual shroud tension on the leeward side. 

I think the first thing to decide is whether the rig likes to be slack or tight, I would imagine without lower mast control or support that it would be safer to have it on the tight side. When I first got my RS100 when they were brand new I turned up at the nationals having only sailed the boat for a week, the only way I could make it feel right was for the rig to be so slack that upwind the shrouds were both slack, it was rocket ship fast but that boat has good support at deck level. In that case I just wound the spreaders back as far as they would go to help prevent the mast inverting downwind. 

I agree that playing around too much with the rig on the water can often be more a distraction than good. But spending time off the water on getting a decent set up seems like a good use of none sailing time at almost all levels. 

It's usually something which can be done over couple of sails to get a workable set up, then after that it's just set and forget. Most classes have a tuning guide, so with very little thinking you can just copy a setting out of their then focus on sail controls and what you do on the water. 

I think it's harder in the new classes, like H2's hadron where there is less likely to be accepted ballpark settings so you have to work out more for yourself by putting in to practice the theory. .