Small Lake, Fast Boat

   The trouble with Alex's boat (BBSCFaithful) is that the blocks were touching before he was able to apply that little bit of extra leech tension, so the top of the sail was never pulled in enough to provide power.  Thus the only way he could keep the boat going was to sail lower, its nice and fast but you have to cover a hell of a lot of ground to get up to the windward mark.
By the way you can over do it.  The RS800 has quite a small board and if you over sheet the main in light winds it feels like the boat has just sailed over an anchor warp.  It suddenly slows and makes leeway and then goes into irons - that's the centreboard stalling.  Not so likely in the 14 since its centreboard is about 5 feet long!

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redback Send Private Message Find Member's Posts Visit Member's Homepage Really should get out more Joined: 16 Mar 04 Location: Tunbridge Wells Online Status: Offline Posts: 1502	Post Options Post Reply Quote redback Report Post Quote Reply Topic: Small Lake, Fast Boat Posted: 14 Mar 07 at 12:22am
	The trouble with Alex's boat (BBSCFaithful) is that the blocks were touching before he was able to apply that little bit of extra leech tension, so the top of the sail was never pulled in enough to provide power. Thus the only way he could keep the boat going was to sail lower, its nice and fast but you have to cover a hell of a lot of ground to get up to the windward mark. By the way you can over do it. The RS800 has quite a small board and if you over sheet the main in light winds it feels like the boat has just sailed over an anchor warp. It suddenly slows and makes leeway and then goes into irons - that's the centreboard stalling. Not so likely in the 14 since its centreboard is about 5 feet long!