More Speed Bumps

Well Guys thanks for the great input.

 I suppose summing it all up was-  all the fast sailors do it, and Jim Saltonstal (bless his heart) says you should do it then it must be right. Unfortunately that doesnb't do it for me, let nme try to explain it another way.

OK so we have our mainsail if you consider the loadpaths we have loads coming from the head and the clew taking the major wind loads - (you can see how these genrally run by looking at a high tech offshore sail).  Now what is happening in the area of the bumps that come out from the luff.  Well the sail here has no load runing vertically it is actually in compression here that why its all bunched up.  As we try to put in a tensile load into this area by applying cunningham we cant as all we do is remove the wrinkles. Now once we have continued to apply cunningham we can put a tensile load in the sail cloth and what does this do, it starts to take load away from the load that was going from the head to the clew and bingo the leech frees.  It also moves the draught forwards (as it applies a tensile force perpendiclar to the mast). 

So in summary lets try and have a bit of scientific analysis on this rather than the bland comments that we have had of - it's in the latest manual or so and so's tunning guide so it must be right. 

If we all thought like that we'd still be sailing aroung with bendy booms (remember those in the 60&70s), and really upright rigs (no one would ever had found out what happens to a boat when you rake the rig back- thanks to David Barnes NZ 470 world champ numerous times, I bet he didn't find that in a tunning guide!)

Hi Mate,

I thought my comments made a bit of sense.  See below.

If there is no load on the sail when the wrinkles are just pulled out, then why would the sail spring back up when you release it from that point ???????

The great thing about our sport is that you don't have to follow the crowd ...

If you think this is the way to go then just do it ...

My general approach to sailing has always been to copy the top guys; once your amongst the top guys that is the time to start developing different ideas.

So many mid fleet sailors try and get to the top by doing somthing different  ... why not get as good as the best then get better through your own innovations?

The guys at the font probably know a thing or two so go with conventional wisdom first ...

There are no quick wins in this sport - get as good as the top guys THEN get better; if you spend too long looking for a short cut to success you will be mid fleet for ever.

Of course is you analysed your own performance as much as you do the bumps on your sail I am sure you'd improve faster than any change to sail set ...

Rick

My general experience is people fixate on the boat rather than their own performance.

When I watch other people the boats are similar but the sailors are very different and it's the rubbery link between the tiller, mainsheet and hull that make the biggest difference.

So if you are going to keep a log record how well you started; did you spot the shifts and gusts, did you capitalise on the tide and did you sail the boat flat. If you have got all that right then you have probably won anyway ...