A lovely shade of lipstick

Originally posted by pondmonkey Hi Roger, I'm using the HD Tuning guide loosely- to be honest, sometimes I just shove the sail up and go sailing- as per that video, not racing, so I didn't give it much thought. I'll be adding some rake tonight though- we've F2 gusting 5- lovely inland conditions.    With regards opens... I'm doing our local one, but the rest would require travelling and I went for the Solo as we have club racing in them, hence no need for all that towing malarkey... Maybe one day, but not for a while with a young family I like to see on weeks too. Are you coming to Draycote in a few weeks? Would be good to say hi? James

Unlikely I'll get to Draycote, Welsh Championships the weekend before and Weymouth the weekend after, both are 2 day events so I'm not going to be very popular if I disappear for the weekend in between, and if I did it's Bowmoor on the Sunday which fits better with the South West series I tend to stick to.

Mind you..... End of Season Championships at Draycote in October is one I'm likely to be at.

James..... Isn't it about time we saw you at a few Solo Opens then, plenty not that far away, and without doubt the best place to see what works and what doesn't.

Thing with the Solo is to get some basic calibrated settings marked, as Russ says c/b marked as leading edge vertical and then trailing edge vertical, rough guide sail with leading edge vertical till you start getting over powered, then go to trailing edge vertical and when your off windsurfing the rest of us will be gradually raking our boards back a little further.
Get the forestay and shrouds marked up with the correct rake (increases with the wind strength), plenty of guides around by all the sailmakers, and make sure the mast foot is in the right place.

But to be honest I'm sure you know all this and I'd be very surprised if the boat didn't come already calibrated and marked up for you.

I do about 1/4 plate DDW in athe Firefly or Lightning, then drop it more for luffing up and gybing. Any less than that and the death roll becomes far more likely. 

James, Get the board up down wind mate.  In all but windy conditions.  In my experience its faster.  I also found my board position upwind was critical.  Have you caliberated you board postions yet?  IIRC you should have marked the board to caliberate leading edge verticle (Lightish wind) trailing edge verticle (when hiking) and 45deg.  When the breeze starts coming into play keep raking the board until the boat feels balanced.  DDW i alays sailed with the board up but would pull some down if i had to make a significant change of direction.  At your weight (no offence) you need all the help you can get downhill.  1-1 sheeting, board up, postion in boat are all critical for us bigger blokes.

cheers SB... I was wondering that also myself.  Besides I'm seeing the guys around me tend to sail deep angles- when they over-cook them, or they luff each other silly, then sure, there's gains on the rhumline dead down wind; but when they nail them they have a lot more boat speed and can make better VMG, even in lighter winds. 

Edited by pondmonkey - 17 Apr 13 at 12:22pm