I sail an RS800 in a club handicap fleet if not doing an event. Events are great as they are windward leeward but club racing includes reaches which are a nightmare.

We all know skiff bearing off and getting downwind before a hoist requires sailing through "no mans land" where the boat is dificuilt to sail and unbalanced. This is the same for all other skiffs from what I have read.

Racing is designed around windward leeward courses so it is not a big issue but wind shifts occur etc. and it is a necessary skill.

My question is why are they not good at it ?

Taking 2 slower boats for comparison - a 505 sails beautifully on all points of sailing but the "skiff style" laser4000 does not, and suffers from the same problem as described above when sailing a 2 sail reach in comparison. Both boats are a similar speed/performance.

My 2nd question is how can you do it better ? I struggle against 505s in the RS800 when 2 sail reaching and have lost control and gone swimming a few times. I suspect practice is the key but are there pointers as regards boat flat, kicker setting etc.

Cheers

Mike

Mine (Cherub) is horrible, on account of being too short (bloody thing is not even 12', it's 11'9" for some reason!!) and having a huge roach on the main.

Makes it very easy to pitchpole as the CoE is very high and trying to drive forwards and down, and once the nose goes in it's goodnight vienna.  Also, don't forget that a symmetrical boat will raise the centreboard loads.  My Fireball is totally horrible if you try and reach in big breeze with the board down, it feels sticky, everything loads up and it just trips over the board.  By raising it you move the CLR right back which is what you need for a reach.

When you extend the pole on an assym you are in effect moving the CoE right forward in relation to the CLR so you don't need to actually lift the board up and back as you do in a conventional dinghy.

The 800 will be loads easier to get through the bear away than a Cherub...I'm no expert at sailing an 800, but for the bear away in my boat it's a case of BACK BACK BACK, kicker right off, jib eased a bit, and LOADS of windward feel with very little rudder input.  If she still feels like she's going down when you are completing the manoevre and the speed is coming on, just letting 18" of mainsheet run through my hand usually saves a swim.

All of which begs the question, "are windward /leeward courses a good test of sailing ability?". Surely the old olympic courses where designed to test your all round sailing ability, and windward leeward courses are more about doing whats fun. In ordinary club sailing you often find "old fashioned" boats doing quite well, cos you have to follow the shape of the creek or whatever, and you end up sailing in all sorts of directions!

Just a thought....

[it can also be helpfull if the helm steers for the wind (the ovious bear away in the gusts head up in the lulls applies)

I'm not sure if it as obvious as this and that this is where some of the dificuilty lies. When downwind enough this holds true. When going upwing the opposite holds true. When you are on a 2 sail reach in between it can surely be appropriate to head up or down in the gust at different times and this is part of the dificuilty when sailing in "no mans land" on a knife edge ?

Cheers

Mike

I guess it depends on your definition of reaching. If you are low enough that you can steer out of trouble by going low in a puff I don't think it is too bad. If it is blowing and you are trying to reach in the twilight zone then you are headed for trouble.

Once the wind is over 17 knots or so I prefer to head high on a tight reach and then drop through the twilight zone and probably hoist the kite. The alternative is usually quite wet! 

Steve

Courtesy of the Antipodean 12ft brigade who know how to sail skiffs...and who may accept that applying the same techniques to an RS800 may be successful...

Skiff Rule 6
The headsail will put you "in the piss" more than any other sail.
Unless your trim is perfect you cannot bear away without stalling, or round up at will, without the headsail eased.
When the breeze is fresh and you are two sail reaching, sail with the jib eased to just luffing so that you can go up or down a bit without touching it, or you will assume the position "on the fin again" (not arthur finnigan)

Very interesting. This is also mentioned in 'High Performance Sailing' as a way to depower, calling it 'low drag mode'. Easing the jib so that it it is backwinding but NOT flogging means there is minimal drag and the jib so not generating much power. The jib trimmed properly generates significant power due to it not being behind a mast, so this works quite well.

Since we are talking High Performance Sailing here there is a nice chart which shows the "up and ease", "aim and ease", "down and ease" transitions for balancing the boat.  The actual angles will be boat and rig specific but the principles hold - and in the "aim and ease" sector you need much bigger eases since there is no change in direction to help you (also because in a gust the apparent wind moves aft too due to the change in windspeed so that makes the situation even worse).

to add to dennis#s exc. post

the rig develops so much power without being able to bear away as you would on a win/lee course. So the pressure is maintained and much more heeling moment (sideways power component) is generated, more than the boats righting lever, mostly  trapeze, can handle.

Also the wind "hits" you harder- it cannot spill around you as on a DDW kite blast on an HPS boat.

Your own apparent wind exacerbates the issue as the load comes on and off more erratically as the hull and rig accelerate taking -the sea state and the gusty nature of the puffy stuff into account ! 

In my old tasar we could blow off a host of assyms on 2 sail reaches becuase it#s low aspect sail plan allowed easy control of the power. bye bye RS 400 or ISO