Too tight for a sym

General rule - IMHO - if the pole is on the forestay, the spinny is doing bugger all but making your day difficult

How far the jib and main are sheeted gives us an indication, we also have bits of wool on the shrouds which I find very useful for down wind. The pole on the forestay (not hard) works for us but the L2 kite does reach very well, so maybe not good for all classes. If there is a doubtful reach we don't fly the kite on the first lap of the day, we may decide later to give it a go once we've got the feel of that particular reach (or if we're not in front )

I suppose (for us anyway) a conservative approach works well, we don't bother unless we're sure it will benefit. The time lost faffing is much greater than the possible gains on a marginal reach, particularly on port tack for us.

Edited by GK.LaserII

i would say if its not up to start with and your unsure,
leave it down. have you tried dropping the head right at
the end of the leg to get into the mark on tight reaches?
that might work and its a good way to get water at the gybe
mark

Originally posted by Contender 541 General rule - IMHO - if the pole is on the forestay, the spinny is doing bugger all but making your day difficult

That's, shall we say, a very suprising rule of thumb and not one I could recommend...
Its just a question of learning when the boat is over pressed, but the smart money is that if its jammed in as hard as it will go its doing no good. In general folks do seem to hang on to kites too long... It will depend on boat and nine billion other variable, but I reckon a foot of kite sheet to play with is a reasonable start point.

Remember in most performance boats you'll be going faster on a perfect direction two sail reach than you will overpressed and struggling with the kite, because thetwo sail rig is far less draggy. So my rule of thumb is if its a hoist leg I would start by sailing two sail just as fast as you can. If you are climbing upwind of the mark then don't worry, just carry on until you are confident that its a really hot reach with the kite up and hoist then.
If its a drop leg then the reverse applies - don't try and struggle up to the mark, blast off downwind as the gusts take you, and drop when its a real blitz two sailer to the mark or a beam reach, whichever comes first. You'll find its amazing how much ground you can make back to windward in the lulls anyway...

Edited by JimC

The Fireball kite is often cut very flat to allow them to race tight reaches. It is certainly a lot flatter than the geeps.