Laser Vago XD Rig

Whilst crewing a Cherub which was new to the helm he had to experiment with many different things to make the battens pop.

1. As said above, do sheet in and sit down heavily so, hopefully, the added air pressure on the sails pushes the battens through and you don't want to loosten the battens too much otherwsie this 'flicking' will have very little affect.

2. If you can't flick them in light air by changing the sail controls (kicker tensioning the leech often helps) then you have to result to make bend im afraid.

For the battens to flick  the mast bend must match the sail curvature... im afraid i can't picture the Vago XD rig shape...

So bend the mast quite a bit with the shrouds and forestay, to make this easier on one shroud push the boom, with the sail on, hard over to one shroud so the 'windward' (this is on land...ok) shroud is much slacker, then do this with the other and you should then induce quite a lot of pre-bend.

Hopefully this will help it in light airs, if you need more bend (god its a badly cut sail) then you will have to use the sail controls.

Only problem is now, although your battens may be popping, you are going to have one VERY flat sail and nicely depowered so erm... im not sure what your light air performance will be like!

ps. not sure if it matters on an alu mast, but as a general rule, leaving loads of tenntion on forever isn't a great idea unless you want a very banana shaped mast.

Hope thats vaguely helpful, although i imagine it's mainly technique!

The trick, as demonstrated at the Vago open at Queen Mary yesterday, is a roll tack with a pump at the end. If that dosen't work then sheeting out followed by a strong pull down and across with the boom usually does the trick. In lighter winds the batten tension should be loosened. In respect of the rig, the Vago is designed with a low tension rig.

In respect of sailing the Vago it must be sailed flat and if the nose is out of the water then you haven't got enough weight forward!