Proper Course

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On windy reaches, even in a una rig single hander, you may have to head up in the lulls so as to be able to bear off to avoid being overpowered in the gusts.

Originally posted by Presuming Ed Originally posted by Brass There's that word again. Why may leeward not luff change course towards the wind to respond to a windshift, or even if she reasonably decides that she is not sailing a hot enough angle? Luff? What's wrong with luff? It's a clearly defined verb (OED "Steer (a yacht) nearer the wind") that occurs 3 times in the RRS, 109 times in the case book, a further 9 times in the supplement to the cae book,11 times in the current Q&A booklet, 112 times in the TR call book, 6 more times in the current TR supplement, 5 times in current TR Q&As, 80 times in the MR call book, 9 times in the current MR supplement, once (in the title/abstract) of the only current MR Q&A, and three times in the blind match racing rules In what way is "changed course towards the wind" better than "luffed", a clearly understood, long standing piece of sailing terminology?

Originally posted by Quagers On a reach the proper course for almost all boats is a straight line to the next mark.

Strongly disagree. In a high performance spinnaker boat there will be two optimum points of sailing, a max speed two sail reach speed and a max speed 3 sail reach speed.

The difference between the optimum and other points of sailing is so great (at least in planing conditions) that you should always sail on them. So given a reach which is not at one of those angles the fastest and therefore a proper course is to sail part of it without the kite at optimum two sail speed, and part of it with the kite at optimum 3 sail speed.

The only fly in the ointment is that handling the boat at optimum two sail speed may be rather difficult!

The thing is that normally a boat doing this will not meet a boat sailing the rhumb line, since you will either want to postpone the hoist and go high, then chuck the kite up and go down, or else fly the kite and go low, then two sail up to the mark. Its only if something goes wrong, as per previous post, that the proper courses will intersect.

Edited by JimC - 15 Nov 15 at 12:02pm

Originally posted by rich96 So even though Boat B is coming from astern and sailing above the heading for the mark its Boat A's responsibility to keep clear ?

Exactly so. There is no "overtaking boat" concept in the rules.
A windward boat must nearly always let a leeward boat sail where it wants. The main limitation is that if the leeward boat comes from behind then she may not sail above a proper course.

And exactly the same applies on a reach. If a kite boat goes round the mark, chucks the kite up and gets blown way down by a big gust it would be a perfectly reasonable proper course to drop the kite and two sail reach well above the direct line between the marks in order to hoist the kite again before the next mark. If whilst doing this her course intersects with a windward boat sailing a straight line then the boat sailing a straight line must keep clear.

Edited by JimC - 15 Nov 15 at 11:44am

Originally posted by Brass There's that word again. Why may leeward not luff change course towards the wind to respond to a windshift, or even if she reasonably decides that she is not sailing a hot enough angle?

Edited by Presuming Ed - 15 Nov 15 at 10:49am