Racing Sailboards v Racing Sailboats

Originally posted by alstorer Graeme- could you offer me some more pointers? I feel what I've written is OK, but it's a bit lacking somehow.

Well you bought a smile and a chuckle to my face which cheered me up
whilst I was waiting to pick up my daughter from Stansted late last night and
I learned something as well, so what can be wrong with that?

As for me giving you pointers, do you really want to get banned by The
FrancoCatSymm Alliance?

Originally posted by G.R.F. So enough of the sympathy, I find that worse than the FrancoCatSymm offensive, explain to me why a death roll occurs, what is it. Is it because the centreboard wont come all the way up for fear of interacting with the boom in a gybe, I assume you do pull the CB up when its very windy, how far do you pull it, do you take it all the way out? What happens?

Whilst it can happen with any single sail boat running dead down wind, it does seem particularly a problem with Lasers.

Essentially it happens because it is impossible to keep a boat perfectly balanced on water that isn't perfectly flat with wind that isn't perfectly smooth with an actual human steering and controlling the sails. There's always going to be something disturbs the equilibrium- a gust, a wave, a scratch of the nose. As the boat starts to wobble, the scaffolding pole that Laser sailors like to call "the mast" acts as a big heavy pendulum, amplifying that roll. As you rightly surmise, the board is limited in how far it can reasonably be brought up, so the hull is prevented from skidding sideways.

At this point, the Laser sailor, being a simple type (after all, they've an alergy to complicated things such as rigging, spinnakers and other people on the boat- maybe the last bit is just sociopathy) may start to panic. Whilst this is a poor idea, it happens a lot. They make sudden wild movements with the tiller or their body, or both, trying to compensate for the roll. These will nearly always be in the wrong direction (much like when idiots get into skids on the roads) (not that I'm calling Laser sailors idiots) (not all of them, anyway). This feedback loop forms the death roll. One can never predict which way the unfortunate will now enter the water- will it be backwards head first with the boat following them, or pitched forwards towards the sail?

There's many techniques for reducing death rolls, such as sailing by the lee (not perfect), the slow option of sailing broader angles (slower, but then not as slow as swimming) or sailing a boat with one or more of the following: a more modern hull shape, a modern rig design, a trapeze, a spinnaker (either shape will suffice), foils, a second hull or alternatively a Solo (the last option being for those with a bus pass).


Anyone care to pick me up on where I've gone wrong? That is, once you've managed to get that hook out of your mouth, given so many of you went for the tasty tasty bait. The indignant responses of the offended are almost funnier than what they're offended at.

Graeme- could you offer me some more pointers? I feel what I've written is OK, but it's a bit lacking somehow.

 some of you lot need to take your heads out from that dark place you have inserted them

Keep up the good work GRF, makes for entertaining reading.

Edited by bigwavedave

Originally posted by G.R.F. So enough of the sympathy, I find that worse than the FrancoCatSymm offensive,

I suspect a group luv'in would get old Grumpfs going more than any leg pulling we could deliver ....

Originally posted by G.R.F. ... explain to me why a death roll occurs, what is it.

The death roll is most common to boats with no shrouds, i.e. Lasers and Toppers.

It is usually caused by letting the main too far out, slack kicker and little daggerboard.

The twist in the very eased sail, perhaps more than 90 degrees pushs the mast to windward, people then try and correct this by steering, usually the wrong way and moving their weight. This can then result in a posative feedback system that ossciilates wildly out of control.

Unfortunatly Lasers seem to go fastest on a run in a breeze when on the verg of instability.

Personally I quite enjoy sailing Lasers like this and deliberatly set the boat up to start rolling ... it's quite good fun.

The Rooster Laser DVD's have and excellent section on this whole business and I recommend them.

The rule is if you get a big windward roll BEARAWAY ... don't try and luff as this makes things worse. The boat goes a long way before the boom flips and if it does flip well you can just gybe back ...

Edited by Guest#260

So enough of the sympathy, I find that worse than the FrancoCatSymm
offensive, explain to me why a death roll occurs, what is it.

Is it because the centreboard wont come all the way up for fear of
interacting with the boom in a gybe, I assume you do pull the CB up when
its very windy, how far do you pull it, do you take it all the way out?

What happens?