Symmetrical Spinnakers

It's alright Rick - just my liberal interpretation of what wasn't written between the lines...

Originally posted by Guest#260 Originally posted by Blobby Just a quick question to Rick & CT249 - since when did tactics come down to simply tacking on a header? I don't recall saying that ...

Must be an age thing Rick... just think positive

Looks like we're arguing at cross purposes a bit; inevitable since none of us have really defined what we mean by tactics. Whoops!

Most of the stuff you put as "tactics" in boat B, I'd call boathandling.

Stuart Walker writes of
(b) "the application of strategic principles concerning wind and tide to sail the optimal course"  (strategy) and

(d) "the application of tactical principles to prevent harmful interference from other boats and to interfere with other boats to one's advantage". (tactics)

Other people have said that strategy is what you would do to get around the course fastest if you were racing along (as in a time trial) and tactics are what you add on to that when other boats are racing against you (ie controlling the fleet, avoiding bad air, minimising loss and maximising gain etc).

I think the North U course  talks of "tactics" as being working windshifts, current, bad air and "leverage" to ensure you lose or gain on shifts....that sort of thing.

But I suppose these examples show that since "tactics" is defined differently even by people as sharp as Walker and North U, we'll have trouble in a discussion such as this.

I have a fairly narrow definition of strategy, like Walker's. I wouldn't call paying attention to windshifts (as in your example) in boat B tactics in that case; to me (and North U) that's boathandling or (b) to Walker.
I'd certainly pay attention to gusts in both, but in A I'd be playing the angles in the fan of the gusts (tactics) and in B I'd be keeping the boat upright and going fast (boathandling/boatspeed in my own definition).

When you're going upwind in a gusty 15-25 on the end of a Canoe plank, frantically working the mainsheet, hiking your guts out, straining to stay aboard the plank, trying to flick the rotten mainsheet tail back aboard with your left eyebrow, occasionally getting slam-dunked and trying to keep an eye on Seth Dunbar (5th worlds) coming up astern at a rate of knots after recovering from a swim, I just don't seem to find the same amount of leisure and brainpower to devote to tactics as when I'm cruising along in the same conditions in the Flying 15 or Tasar, snug on a very comfortable sidedeck, secure in the knowledge I'm unlikely to capsize and that my opposition are also unlikely to take a dive.

But maybe it's just me. Maybe the other guys miraculously grow extra neurons, so they can suddenly find the extra brainpower to handle a tippy boat AND still have as many neurons left over for tactics.

But as far as I can see, in a boat that's a doddle to handle you have more available brainpower and attention to devote to tactics (whether on the race course at a particular time or in the overall campaign) than in a boat where even the best sailors are taking a lot of their available energy just keeping the sails dry and everything vaguely quick.
 
It's a very good point you made, though......we must work out what we're debating first!



Edited by CT249

Never, they're always more complicated.

It's just that in some classes they are more important than others as far as I can see.

To take the argument to an extreme.

Class A is extremely stable and basically a bunch of drunks who have never even been on a cross-channel ferry couldn't tip it over. It can't be roll tacked, is very easy to get around corners. Tuning is basically impossible (no outhaul, no traveller, no vang etc). There are 40 in a race, in 15 knots of breeze. Because of the design, almost anyone can get one going at 4 knots and the fastest possible speed in such conditions is 4.0000001 knots.

In such a class, surely the smart thing would be to not worry much about falling over and not to worry too much about trying to extract that extra .0000001 knot. Instead surely you would concentrate on working the fleet, the tide, and the shifts ie tactics.

Class B has negative natural stability. It is 13 feet long and has a 48 foot high rig and 25' wide racks. It is a singlehander sailed from trap. It cannot recover from a capsize and it capsizes as soon as it heels more than 15 degrees 'cause the wings dig in. When sailed fast, it does 39 knots upwind and 68 knots downwind. Make the slightest mistake in boathandling and you're stopped, capsized and out of the race. Most sailors take 18 years of full-time sailing to get to the stage where they can get around a racetrack. There are only 2 such sailors in the race and 8 others.

The tide in both cases is 1/4 knot to the left and 0 to the right. The wind is 15 knots and swinging 35 degrees left with minor oscillations.

In this example, what sort of priority would you devote to tactics when sailing boat A? Would you devote the same proportion of your skill and experience to tactics when sailing boat B, remembering that the slightest mistake will put you out of the race?

Sorry Rick, meant to say I was agreeing with you. Sorry for the copyright blunder

Allan, I'm second nationally in the class I was using as an example, won the breezy race last nats by almost a leg, so boathandling isn't an issue.  It's a longboard windsurfer class; I used it as an example because that way no one here could feel I was running down their class. However the same principles can apply in some dinghy classes. Our windsurfer longboard racing here includes guys who have been both world class in boards and Olympic 470 rep, 18 Worlds winner, etc, and others who have been Radial champs, Youth worlds two-man dinghy medallists etc so it's not a case of them being tactical minnows. However, since there's such large gains to be made in handling and speed in a breeze in boards, tactics play a much lesser role in such conditions than in a class like a Laser.

The same can apply to a certain extent in boat classes (and certainly it seems to apply to the same extent in at least one dinghy class I sail).






Edited by CT249